Chapter 1 WCDMA System Overview
Chapter 1 WCDMA System Overview
Chapter 1 WCDMA System Overview
To solve these fundamental technical defects of the analog systems, the digital mobile communication technologies emerged and the second generation mobile communication systems represented by GSM and IS-95 came into being in the middle of 1980s. The typical examples of the second generation cellular mobile communication systems are the DAMPS of USA, the IS-95 and the European GSM system. The GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) is originated from Europe. Designed as the TDMA standard for mobile digital cellular communications, it supports the 64 kbps data rate and can interconnect with the ISDN. It uses the 900 MHz band while the DCS1800 system uses the 1800 MHz band. The GSM system uses the FDD and TDMA modes and each carrier supports eight channels with the signal bandwidth of 200 kHz. The DAMPS (Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System) is also called the IS-54 (North America Digital Cellular System). Using the 800 MHz bandwidth, it is the earlier of the two North America digital cellular standards and specifies the use of the TDMA mode.
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The IS-95 standard is another digital cellular standard of North America. Using the 800 MHz or 1900 MHz band, it specifies the use of the CDMA mode and has already become the first choice among the technologies of American PCS (Personal Communication System) networks. Since the 2G mobile communication systems focus on the transmission of voice and low-speed data services, the 2.5G mobile communication systems emerged in 1996 to address the medium-rate data transmission needs. These systems include GPRS and IS-95B. The CDMA system has a very large capacity that is equivalent to ten or even twenty times that of the analog systems. It also has good compatibility with the analog systems. Currently some countries and regions such as USA, Korea and Hong Kong have put the CDMA system into operation to provide services for subscribers. As the narrowband CDMA technologies come into maturity at a time later than the GSM technologies, their application far lags behind the GSM ones and currently they have only found large-scale commercial applications in North America, Korea and China. The major services of mobile communications are currently still voice services and low-speed data services. With the development of networks, data and multimedia communications have also witnessed rapid development; therefore, the target of the 3G mobile communication is to implement broadband multimedia communication. The 3G mobile communication systems are a kind of communication system that can provide multiple kinds of high quality multimedia services and implement global seamless coverage and global roaming. They are compatible with the fixed networks and can implement any kind of communication at any time and any place with portable terminals. Put forward in 1985 by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), the 3G mobile communication system was called the FPLMTS (Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunication System) and was later renamed as IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunication-2000). The major systems include WCDMA, cdma2000 and UWC-136. On November 5, 1999, the 18 th conference of ITU-R TG8/1 passed the Recommended Specification of Radio Interfaces of IMT-2000 and the TD-SCDMA technologies put forward by China were incorporated into the IMT-2000 CDMA TDD part of the technical specification. This showed that the work of the TG8/1 in formulating the technical specifications of radio interfaces in 3G mobile communication systems had basically come into an end and the development and application of the 3G mobile communication systems would enter a new and essential phase.
One formal member of the above two standardization organizations is the China Wireless Telecommunications Standard Group (CWTS) and two Chinese companies (Huawei and Datang) are two independent members of the 3GPP organization.
Guaranteeing the existing investment and operators benefits Facilitating the smooth transition of the existing technologies
From the perspective of development, the process of evolution from the existing 2G mobile communication systems to the IMT-2000 is a vital issue. It relates to the reuse of the existing networks (the construction of new networks should not be the optimal solution) and the development of multiple 2G digital network systems towards the same standard.
GPRS: General Packet Radio Service The major benefits of GPRS are as follows: Standard radio packet switching Internet/Intranet access applicable to all the places of GSM coverage Variable peak data rate that ranges from several bits per second to 171.2 kbps (the maximum data rate depends on the manufacturers) Charging by the actual data volume: This charging method enables the subscribers to pay the cost of the actual data volume transmitted while remaining online all the days Support for the existing services and new application services Packetization over the radio interfaces to optimize the sharing of radio resources Packet switching technology to optimize the sharing of network resources Capability of extension to the future radio protocols Based on the existing GSM part, the packet switching GPRS network architecture has the new network function part: 3) WCDMA: Wideband Code Division Multi Access The WCDMA has become a new mature technology aiming at the UMTS/IMT-2000. It can satisfy all the requirements listed by the ITU to provide very effective high-speed data services and high quality voice and image services. In the process of evolution from GSM to WCDMA, only the core network part is smoothly evolved. As the change of the air interface is revolutionary, so is the evolution of the radio access network part.
2)
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The network part must be compatible with 2G, that is, the 3G networks are gradually evolved from the 2G networks. There are two major 2G core networks: GSM MAP and IS-41. Radio interfaces: The American IS-95 CDMA and IS-136 TDMA operators emphasize on the backward compatibility (evolutional) while the European GSM and Japanese PDC operators emphasize on the backward incompatibility of the radio interface (revolutionary). The correspondence between the core networks and the radio interfaces is shown in Figure 1-1 below:
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Core networks
PDC
Figure 2.1 Correspondence between the core network and the radio access network interface 3) The important role of frequency spectrum on technical selection
In terms of frequency spectrum, the key issue is that the IMTTM-2000 frequencies allocated by ITU have already been applied to the PCS service in USA. Because the USA requires the sharing of frequency spectrum with 2G systems, the backward compatibility of the radio interfaces is especially emphasized and technically the USA requires gradual evolution. In contrast, most of the other countries have new IMT2000 frequency bands that feature very large flexibility. Whats more, the intellectual property rights play a very significant role, for example, Qualcomm has its own patent declaration. Competition is also a major factor to contribute to the technical differences.
UTRA WCDMA (Europe) DECT (Europe) cdma2000 (USA) UWC-136 (USA) WIMS WCDMA (USA) WCDMA/NA (USA) WCDMA (Japan) TD-SCDMA (China) Global CDMA (Synchronous, Korea)
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Global CDMA (Asynchronous, Korea) LEO satellite system SAT-CDMA ESA wideband satellite system SW-CDMA CDMA/TDMA hybrid bandwidth satellite system SW-CTDMA ICO RTT INMARSAT satellite system Horizons Iridium LLC satellite system INX
Among these proposals, the first ten are RTT proposals for the IMT-2000 terrestrial system and the last six reflect the efforts of incorporating the MSS (Mobile Satellite Service) into the IMT-2000. These proposals reflect the concern of many countries as to the future mode of IMT2000 and their basic wishes to exercise effective influence. However, as viewed from the market basis, backward compatibility and overall features, the UTRA WCDMA of ETSI and the cdma2000 of USA are the most competitive; therefore, the key to the merge of RTT lies in the progress of effectively merging these two proposals.
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2. cdma2000 system
The cdma2000 system is a 3G standard put forward on the basis of the IS-95 standard. Its standardization work is currently undertaken by 3GPP2. Circuit Switched (CS) domain: Adapted from the 2G IS95 CDMA network, the circuit domain has introduced a service platform based on the WIN infrastructure. Packet Switched (PS) domain: A packet network based on the Mobile IP technology. Radio Access Network (RAN): Based on the ATM switch platform, it provides abundant adaptation layer interfaces. The air interface adopts the cdma2000 technologies and is compatible with the IS95. The signal bandwidth is N1.25MHz (N = 1, 3, 6, 9, 12) and the chip rate is N1.2288Mcps. It uses the 8K/13K QCELP or 8K EVRC voice coding mode and its BTS needs to run in the GPS/GLONESS synchronous mode. The following modes are applied in the cdma2000 system: Uplink/downlink closed loop power control plus outer loop power control; OTD and STS transmit diversion in the forward direction to improve the anti-fading capacity of channels and the signal quality of the forward channels; pilot-assisted coherent modulation in the reverse direction to improve the demodulation performance; convolutional coding and Turbo coding; BPSK in the uplink and QPSK in the downlink.
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3. TD-SCDMA system
The TD-SCDMA standard is put forward by the Chinese Wireless Telecommunication Standard (CWTS) Group and now it has been merged into the specifications related to the WCDMA-TDD of 3GPP. The core network evolves on the basis of and can thus be compatible with the existing GSM/GPRS networks. It can be based on the TDM, ATM and IP technologies to evolve towards the all-IP network architecture. Logically, the core network comprises two parts: The circuit domain and the packet domain to complete the circuit-switched services and the packet-switched services respectively. Based on the ATM technology, the UTRAN uniformly processes voice and packet services and evolves towards the IP network architecture. MAP and GPRS tunneling technologies are the core of the mobility management mechanism in the WCDMA system. The air interface adopts the TD-SCDMA mode. The TD-SCDMA features 3S: Smart antenna, Synchronous CDMA and Software radio. The key technologies used in TD-SCDMA include Intelligent Antenna + Joint Detection, Multi-slot CDMA + DS-CDMA, Synchronous CDMA, Channel Coding/Decoding and Interleaving (the same as in 3GPP) and Baton Handover. A comparison of the above three systems is given in the table below. Table 1.1 Comparison among the three major technical systems
System Using countries Inheritance from Synchronous mode Chip rate Signal bandwidth Air interface Core network WCDMA Europe and Japan GSM Asynchronous/synchronous 3.84Mcps 5MHz WCDMA GSM MAP cdma2000 USA and Korea Narrowband CDMA Synchronous N1.2288Mcps N1.25MHz cdma2000 compatible with IS95 ANSI-41 TD-SCDMA China GSM Synchronous 1.28Mcps 1.6MHz TD-SCDMA GSM MAP
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ITU identifications IMT 2000 Europe China Japan, Korea (w/o PHS) North America
Cellular GSM
IMT 2000
GSM 1800
DECT
IMT 2000
MSS
GSM
IMT 2000
MSS
IMT 2000MSS
PDC
PHS
IMT 2000MSS
Cellular
PCS
A D B EF C A D B EF C
MSS
Reserve
MSS
Figure 1.1 Frequency spectrum allocation of WRC-2000 The European Union (EU) also attached great importance to 3G mobile communication systems and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) started the research work of 3G mobile communication standardization as early as over ten years ago and it established a UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) Forum that was composed of operators, equipment manufacturers and telecommunication management organizations. In 1995, the technical proposal for frequency spectrum division was submitted formally to the ITU. In Europe, the allocation of frequency spectrum is as follows: 1900 MHz ~ 1980MHz, 2010 MHz ~ 2025MHz and 2110 MHz ~ 2170MHz, totaling 155 MHz. The situation in North America is rather complex, as shown in Figure 1-2. The 1850 MHz ~ 1990 MHz band among the 3G low bands has already allocated for PCS use and it has been divided into two 15 MHz and two 5 MHz bands. Since the PCS service has already occupied the frequency spectrum of IMT-2000, the uplink band of the adjusted IMT-2000 even needs to be shared together with the downlink band of PCS. This kind of arrange is not suitable for the high-transmit and low-receive configurations of ordinary base stations. In Japan, the frequency band of 1893.5 MHz ~ 1919.6 MHz has already been allocated for PHS use and the 3G bands totaling 135 MHz (2 60 MHz + 15 MHz) are still available: 1920 MHz ~ 1980MHz, 2110 MHz ~ 2170 MHz, 2010 MHz ~ 2025 MHz). At present, Japan is endeavoring to clear the conflicts with the frequencies for 3G mobile communications. Korea has the same allocated frequency as in ITU Recommendations, i.e., 170 MHz. The WCDMA FDD mode uses the following frequency spectrum (bands other than those specified by 3GPP may also be used): Uplink 1920 MHz ~ 1980 MHz and downlink 2110 MHz ~ 2170 MHz. Each carrier frequency has the 5M band and the duplex spacing is 190 MHz. In America, the used frequency spectrum is 1850 MHz ~ 1910 MHz in the uplink and 1930 MHz ~ 1990 MHz in the downlink and the duplex spacing is 80 MHz. The frequency spectrum used by the WCDMA TDD mode (including the high bit rates and the low bit rates) is as follows (bands other than those specified by 3GPP may also be used): 1)
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2) 3)
America: Uplink 1850 MHz ~ 1910 MHz and downlink 1930 MHz ~ 1990 MHz. America: 1910 MHz ~ 1930 MHz in both the uplink and the downlink
In special cases (such as the boundary area of two countries), the TDD mode and the FDD mode may coexist in the same frequency band and 3GPP TSG RAN WG4 is currently researching this situation. There is only the FDD mode in the cdma2000 system and currently there are a total of seven band classes, of which Band Class 6 is the 1920 MHz ~1980 MHz/2110 MHz ~ 2180 MHz band stipulated in IMT-2000. In China, according to the present radio frequency division, mobile services, fixed services and spatial services are using the 1700 MHz ~ 2300 MHz band, which is currently serving plenty of microwave communication systems and a certain number of wireless location devices. In December 1996, the State Radio Regulatory Committee of P. R. China re-planned and adjusted some terrestrial radio service frequencies of 2 GHz to adapt to the needs of cellular mobile communication development and radio access. However, the frequency spectrum still conflicts with the 3G mobile communication systems, that is, the 1.9 MHz band for public cellular mobile communications and the radio access band have both taken up some of the IMT-2000 bands. Therefore, the 3G mobile communication systems have to share the limited frequency resources with the existing radio communication systems. With the development of technologies and services, the planning and adjustment of IMT-2000 bands must be well done to stimulate the operators, scientific research organizations/institutions, manufacturers and other bodies to actively develop the 3G mobile communication systems, so as to meet both the short-term and the long-term frequency spectrum needs in China mobile communication development. The occupation of the IMT-2000 frequency spectrum in China is illustrated in the following figure.
1850 1900 1950 2000 MSS 2025 MHz 2010 MHz 1980 MHz
FDD
2050
2100
2150
2200 MSS
2250
ITU
1885 MHz
IMT 2000
1920 MHz 1880 MHz
IMT 2000
2110 MHz
2170 MHz
China
TDD
FDD
1850
1900
1950
2000
2050
2100
2150
2200
2250
Figure 1.2 Occupation of the IMT-2000 frequency spectrum in China The bands allocated for IMT-2000 in China are listed below: 1)
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FDD mode: 1920 MHz ~ 1980MHz/2110 MHz ~ 2170 MHz TDD mode: 1880 MHz ~ 1920 MHz/2010 MHz ~ 2025 MHz 2) Supplementary operating bands
FDD mode: 1755 MHz ~ 1785 MHz/1850 MHz ~ 1880 MHz TDD mode: 2300 MHz ~ 2400 MHz, shared together with the wireless location services; both are major services and the sharing standard is to be specially formulated. 3) Operating band for satellite mobile communication systems
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