Chapter Two

The Cellular Concept and System Design

Functions
 Objective of the Chapter

Understanding of cellular concept in Mobile communication

Frequency reuse or frequency planning in cellular system

Study what is handover/handoff

Minimizing interference co-channel or adjacent channel.

To understand the concept of trunking and call blocking using Erlang’s method
Lecture Outlines

 Introduction

 Concept of Frequency Reuse

 Channel Assignment Strategies

 Handover strategies

 Interference and System Capacity

 Trunking and Grade of Service

 Introduction to Cellular Concept

 The cellular concept was a major breakthrough in solving the problem of spectral congestion and user capacity.

 It offered very high capacity in a limited spectrum allocation without any major technological changes.

 It is a system level idea which calls for replacing a single,

 high power transmitters (large cell) many low power transmitters (small cells),

 each providing coverage to only a small portion of the service area.

 Each base station is allocated a portion of the total number of channels available to the entire system, and nearby

base stations are assigned different groups of channels so that all the available channels are assigned to a relatively

small number of neighboring base stations.

 Neighboring base stations are assigned different groups of channels so that the interference between base stations is

minimized.
 As the demand for service increases more channels are needed

 The number of base stations may be increased

 To decrease in transmitter power to avoid added interference),

 Thereby providing additional radio capacity with no additional increase in radio spectrum.

 This fundamental principle is the foundation for all modem wireless communication systems

 since it enables a fixed number of channels to serve an arbitrarily large number of subscribers

by reusing the channels throughout the coverage region.

 Frequency Reuse

 Each cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels to be used within a small geographic area called

a cell.

 Base stations in adjacent cells are assigned channel groups which contain completely different channels than

neighboring cells.

 The base station antennas are designed to achieve the desired coverage within the particular cell.

 By limiting the coverage area to within the boundaries of a cell,

 the same group of channels may be used to cover different cells that are separated from one another

by distances large enough to keep interference levels within tolerable limits.

 The design process of selecting and allocating channel groups for all of the cellular base stations within a system

is called frequency reuse or frequency planning

 f1 D f1
R  Cells with the same letter use the same set of
R
frequencies.

 A cell cluster is outlined in bold and replicated over the

coverage area.

 In this example, the cluster size, N, is equal to seven,

and the frequency reuse factor is 1/7;

 since each cell contains one-seventh of the total number

of available channels.

Figure: Illustration of the

cellular frequency reuse
 Figure illustrates the concept of cellular frequency reuse, where cells labeled with the same letter use the
same group of channels.
 The frequency reuse plan is overlaid upon a map to indicate where different frequency channels are used.
 The hexagonal cell shape shown in the above Figure is conceptual and is a simplistic model of the radio
coverage for each base station, but it has been universally adopted since the hexagon permits easy and
manageable analysis of a cellular system.
 The actual radio coverage of a cell is known as the footprint
 It is determined from field measurements or propagation prediction models.

 To understand the frequency reuse concept, consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex channels
available for use.
 If each cell is allocated a group of k channels and
 If the S channels are divided among N cells into unique and disjoint channel groups which each have
the same number of channels,
 the total number of available radio channels can be expressed as
S = kN
 The N cells which collectively use the complete set of available frequencies is called a cluster.
 If a cluster is replicated M times within the system, the total number of duplex channels, C, can be used as a measure
of capacity and is given
C = MkN = MS
 The capacity of a cellular system is directly proportional to the number of times a cluster is replicated in a fixed
service area.
 The factor N is called the cluster size and is typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.
 If the cluster size N is reduced while the cell size is kept constant, more clusters are required to cover a given area
and
 hence more capacity (a larger value of C) is achieved.
 A large cluster size indicates that the ratio between the cell radius and the distance between co-channel cells is
large.
 Conversely, a small cluster size indicates that co-channel cells are located much closer together.
 The value for N is a function of how much interference a mobile or base station can tolerate while maintaining
a sufficient quality of communications.

 The geometry of hexagons is such that the number of cells per cluster, N, can only has values which satisfy equation

N=i2+ij+j2 Where i and j are non-negative integers.

N=19
Q=D/R=7.55
Shift parameters
i=3; j=2
 PROBLEM:
If a total of 33 MHz of bandwidth is allocated to a particular FDD cellular telephone system which uses two 25 kHz simplex
channels to provide full duplex voice and control channels, compute the number of channels available per cell if a system
uses (a) 4-cell reuse, (b) 7-cell reuse (c) 12-cell reuse. If 1 MHz of the allocated spectrum is dedicated to control channels,
determine an equitable distribution of control channels and voice channels in each cell for each of the three systems.

Solution
a) For N = 4, we can have 5 control channels and 160 voice channels per cell. In practice, however, each cell only needs a
single control channel (the control channels have a greater reuse distance than the voice channels). Thus, one control
channel and 160 voice channels would be assigned to each cell.
b) For N = 7, 4 cells with 3 control channels and 92 voice channels, 2 cells with 3 control channels and 90 voice channels,
and 1 cell with 2 control channels and 92 voice channels could be allocated. In practice, however, each cell would have
one control channel, four cells-4vould have 91 voice channels, and three cells would have 92 voice channels.
c) For N = 12, we can have 8 cells with 2 control channels and 53 voice channels, and 4 cells with 1 control channel and 54
voice channels each. In an actual system, each cell would have 1 control channel, 8 cells would have 53 voice channels,
and 4 cells would have 54 voice channels.
 Channel Assignment Strategies

 For efficient utilization of the radio spectrum, a frequency reuse scheme that is consistent with the objectives
of increasing capacity and minimizing interference is required.
 The choice of channel assignment strategy impacts the performance of the system, particularly as how calls
are managed when a mobile user is handoff from one cell to another
 Channel assignment strategies can be classified as either fixed or dynamic.
 In a fixed channel assignment strategy;
 each cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice channels.
 Any call attempt within the cell can only be served by the unused channels in that particular cell.
 If all the channels in that cell are occupied, the call is blocked and the subscriber does not receive service.
 There are variations of fixed channel assignment strategies, borrowing strategy, a cell is allowed to
borrow channel from neighboring cell if all of its own channels are already occupied.
 The MSC supervises such borrowing procedures and ensures that the borrowing of a channel does not
disrupt or interfere with any of the calls .
 In a dynamic channel assignment strategy,
 voice channels are not allocated to different cells permanently.
 Instead, each time a call request is made, the serving base station requests a channel from the MSC.
 The switch allocates a channel to the requested cell following an algorithm that takes into account the
likelihood of fixture blocking within the cell,
 the frequency of use of the candidate channel
 the reuse distance of the channel, and other cost functions.
 Accordingly, the MSC only allocates a given frequency if that frequency is not presently in use in the
cell or any other cell which falls within the minimum restricted distance of frequency reuse to avoid co-
channel interference.
 Dynamic channel assignment reduces the likelihood of blocking
 Increases the trunking capacity of the system
 All the available channels in a market are accessible to all of the cells.
Handoff Strategies

Figure illustrates a handoff situation.

Figure (a) demonstrates the case where a

handoff is not made and the signal drops

below the minimum acceptable level to

keep the channel active.

 When a mobile moves into a different cell while a conversation is in progress, the MSC automatically transfers

the call to a new channel belonging to the new base station.

 Handoff operation not only involves a new base station,

 But also requires that the voice and control signals be allocated to channels associated with the new base station.

 Processing handoffs is an important task in any cellular radio system.

 Many handoff strategies prioritize handoff requests over call initiation requests when allocating unused channels

in a cell site.

 Handoffs must be performed successfully and as infrequently as possible, and be imperceptible to the users.

 In order to meet these requirements, system designers must specified an optimum signal level at which to

initiate a handoff.
 Once a particular signal level is specified as the minimum usable signal for acceptable voice quality at the

base station receiver, normally taken as between -90 dBm and -100 dBm,

 A slightly stronger signal level is used as a threshold at which a handoff is made.

 This margin, given by

∆= 𝑷 𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒇𝒇 − 𝑷 𝒓 𝐦𝐢𝐧 𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆

 Minimum usable’ cannot be too large or too small.

 If is too large, unnecessary handoffs which burden the MSC may occur, and

 If is too small, there may be insufficient time to complete a handoff before a call is lost due to weak

signal conditions.

 Therefore, is chosen carefully to meet these conflicting requirements.

Prioritizing Handoffs

 One method for giving priority to handoffs is called the guard channel concept

 Whereby a fraction of the total available channels in a cell is reserved exclusively for

handoff requests from ongoing calls which may be handed off into the cell.

 This method has the disadvantage of reducing the total carried traffic,

 As fewer channels are allocated to originating calls.

 Queuing of handoff requests is another method to decrease the probability of forced

termination of a call due to lack of available channels.

 Interference and System Capacity

 Interference is the major limiting factor in the performance of cellular radio systems.
 Sources of interference include;
 another mobile in the same cell,
 a call in progress in a neighboring cell,
 other base stations operating in the same frequency band, or
 any non-cellular system which inadvertently leaks energy into the cellular frequency band.
 Interference on voice channels causes cross talk, where the subscriber hears interference in the
background due to an undesired transmission.

 Co-channel Interference and System Capacity

 Frequency reuse implies that in a given coverage area there is several cells that use the same set of
frequencies.
 These cells are called co-channel cells, and the interference between signals from these cells is called
co-channel interference.
 When the size of each cell is approximately the same, and the base stations transmit the same power,

the co-channel interference ratio is independent of the transmitted power and becomes a function of

the radius of the cell (R) and the distance between centers of the nearest co-channel cells (D).

 By increasing the ratio of D/R, the spatial separation between co-channel cells relative to the

coverage distance of a cell is increased.

 Thus interference is reduced from improved isolation of HF energy from the co-channel cell.

 The parameter Q, called the co-channel reuse ratio, is related to the cluster size

For a hexagonal geometry

𝑫
𝑸= =√ 𝟑 𝑵
𝑹
Signal-to-Interference Ratio
Signal-to-Interference Ratio …
 For a hexagonal cluster of cells
with the MS situated at the edge
R
of the cell
𝑛
D
(√ 3 𝑁 )
( )
𝑛
𝑆 1 𝐷
= = D
𝐼 6 𝑅 6 D
 As long as all cells are of the same D
size, S/I is independent of the cell D
D
radius, R

10/30/2024 27
Signal-to-Interference Ratio - Example 1
 Design parameters:
 Desired S/I = 15dB
 Path loss exponent, n = 4
 Assume that there are six co-channel cells in the first tier and all of them are at
the same distance from the mobile

 What is the required re-use factor and cluster size that should be
used for maximum capacity?

10/30/2024 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular Concept and System 28
Design Fundamentals
Signal-to-Interference Ratio - Example 1 …
 Let’s try for N= 4. The co- • Let’s try: N= 7
channel re-use ratio is D
 4 .58
D
 3.46 R
R
 And the signal-to-interference ratio ⇒
S

1
I 6
4 .58 4

is  73 .5  18 .66 dB

S 1
I 63.46 4  24 13.8 dB
• Which is greater than
the desired
 Smaller than the desired 15 • Hence, N=7 can be
dB used
 We must move to the next reuse • The frequency reuse
distance factor = 1/7

10/30/2024 29
 Co-channel interference (a worst case)

 where q = 4.6, C/I = 17 dB, which is lower than 18 dB.

 If we use the shortest distance D − R, then

 Therefore, in an Omni-directional-cell system, K = 9 or K = 12

would be a correct choice. Then the values of q are
 A small value of Q provides larger capacity since the cluster size N is small,

 whereas a large value of Q improves the transmission quality, due to a smaller level of co-channel

interference.

 Let i0 be the number of co-channel interfering cells.

 Then, the signal-to-interference ratio (S/I or SIR) for a mobile receiver which monitors a forward

channel can be expressed as

𝑺 𝑺
=
𝑰 𝒊𝒐

∑ 𝑰𝒊
𝒊=𝟏

 Where S is the desired signal power from the desired base station and Ii is the interference power caused

by the ith interfering co-channel cell base station.

 Trunking and Grade of Service
 Trunking is the concept that allows large number of users to use a smaller number of channels as efficiently as possible.
 Phone lines
 Customer service representatives
 Parking spots
 Public bathrooms …
 It is clear that Trunking is based on statistics.
 The number of available channels in a trunked system is directly related to the probability of call blocking during peak time
 In some systems, because of high system demand, calls that cannot be initiated are
 Blocked (caller will have to make the call later with not priority at all).
o Such systems are sometimes called Blocked Calls Cleared systems.
 Queued (call is placed in a queue for several seconds until a free channel becomes available).
o Such systems are sometimes called Blocked Calls Queued systems.

 Trunking and Queuing theories were first studied by a mathematician called Erlang
What is an Erlang

 Erlang is defined as the amount of traffic intensity carrier by a channel that is completely occupie

d Therefore,

 1 Erlang = 1 call with a duration of 1 hour over a channel every hour

= 2 calls with a duration of 0.5 hours over the channel every hour

= 30 calls with a duration of 4 minutes over the channel every 2 hours (120 minutes)

 A channel that carries 2 calls of duration 5 minutes each per hour carries

(2*5 min/60 min = 1/6 Erlangs)

Basic definitions

 Set-up Time: The time required to allocate a trunked radio channel to a requesting user.

 Blocked Call: Call which cannot be completed at time of request, due to congestion.

 Lost call.

 Holding Time: Average duration of a typical call. Denoted by H (in seconds).

 Traffic Intensity(A):

 Measure of channel time utilization, which is the average channel occupancy measured in Erlangs.

 It is a dimensionless quantity and may be used to measure the time utilization of single or multiple

channels.

 Load: Traffic intensity across the entire trunked radio system, measured in Erlangs.

 Request Rate: The average number of call requests per unit time. Denoted by 𝜆 seconds-1.
Grade of Service (GOS)

 The grade of service (GOS) is related to the ability of a mobile phone to access the trunked mobile

phone system during the busiest hour.

 To meet a specific GOS, the

 Maximum required capacity of the system must be estimated and

 Proper number of channels must be allocated for the system

 GOS is a measure of the congestion of the system which is specified as the

 Probability of a call being blocked (Erlang B system) or

 Probability of a call being delayed beyond a certain amount of time (Erlang C system

).
 Cellular radio systems rely on Trunking to accommodate a large number of users in a

limited radio spectrum.

 The concept of Trunking allows a large number of users to share the relatively small

number of channels in a cell by providing access to each user, on demand, from a pool

of available channels.

 In a trunked radio system, each user is allocated a channel on a per call basis, and

upon termination of the call, the previously occupied channel is immediately returned to

the pool of available channels.

 To design trunks radio systems that can handle a specific capacity at a specific "grade of

service", it is essential to understand Trunking theory and queuing theory .

 The fundamentals of Trunking theory were developed by Erlang.

 The grade of service (GOS) is a measure of the ability of a user to access a trunked system

during the busiest hour.

 The busy hour is based upon customer demand at the busiest hour during a week, month, or

year.

 The traffic intensity offered by each user is equal to the call request rate multiplied by the

holding time.

 That is, each user generates a traffic intensity of Au Erlangs given by

  Where H is the average duration of a call and 𝜆 is the average number of call requests per unit
time.
 For a system containing U users and an unspecified number of channels, the total offered traffic
intensity A, is given as

 Furthermore, in a C channel trunked system, if the traffic is equally distributed among the channels,

then the traffic intensity per channel, Ac is given as

 Where C is the number of trunked channels offered by a trunked radio system and A is the total offered traffic.
Table-1 Capacity of an Erlang B system
 When offered traffic intensity (A) > Maximum capacity of system
carrier traffic becomes limited due to limited capacity of the system.

 To study the traffic capacity of a trunked system, we will assume the following three assumptions:

a) There are memoryless arrivals of call requests: all users including users who had blocked called may

request a channel at any time. Also, because a user has just had a call blocked, does not affect his decisi

on in making another call or the time to make that other call.

b) The probability of a user occupying a channel is exponentially distributed. So, longer calls have lower

probability.
 C) There are a finite number of channels available in for trunking.

 The probability of a call getting delayed for any period of time greater than zero is
𝐶
𝐴
𝑃 𝑟 [ 𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 > 0 ] = 𝐶 −1

( )∑
𝑘
𝐶 𝐴 𝐴
𝐴 +𝐶 ! 1−
𝐶 𝑘=0 𝐾!
 The probability of a call getting delayed for a period of time greater than some t is
−𝑡 (𝐶 − 𝐴 )
𝑃 𝑟 [ 𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 >𝑡 ] = 𝑃𝑟 [ 𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 >0 ] 𝑒 𝐻
=𝐺𝑂𝑆( 𝐸𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝐶 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡h 𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 )

 The average delay in this case is 𝑯

𝑫 𝒂𝒗𝒆 =𝑷 𝒓 [ 𝑫𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒚 >𝟎 ] .
𝑪− 𝑨
 The following plots are for Pr [Blocking] in an Erlang B system and the Pr [Delay > 0] in an Erlang C system for
different number of trunked channels (C).
 These figures can be used to simplify the computations in many problems related to system capacity and GOS
 Graphical form of Erlang B formulas
 Graphical form of Erlang C formulas
Trunking - Example 1
 Consider a system with
 100 cells
 Each cell has C = 20 channels
 Generates on average λ = 2 calls/hour
 The average duration of each call (H) = 3 Minutes
 How many number of users can be supported if the allowed
probability of blocking is 2%?
 Solution:
 From Erlang B Chart, total carried traffic = 13 Erlangs
 Traffic intensity per user AU = λH = 0.1 Erlangs
 The total number of users that can be supported by a cell = 13/0.1
= 130 Users/cell
 Therefore, the total number of users in the system is 13,000
46
10/30/2024
 Trunking - Example 2
Consider a system with
 100 cells, each cell has C = 20 channels
 Generates on average λ = 2 calls/hour
 The average duration of each call (H) = 3 Minutes

 How many number of users can be supported if the allowed

probability of blocking is 0.2%?
 Solution
 Again from Erlang B Chart, total carried traffic = 10 Erlangs
 Traffic intensity per user AU = λH = 0.1 Erlangs
 The total number of users that can be supported by a cell = 10/0.1
= 100 Users/cell
 Therefore, the total number of users in the system is 10,000
 We support less number of users
47
10/30/2024
Trunking - Example 3
 Consider a system with
 Total number of channels = 20
 Probability of blocking = 1%
 How shall we use this set of channels?
 Approach 1: Divide 20 channels into 4 trunks of 5 channels each.
 Traffic capacity of one trunk (5 channels) = 1.36 Erlangs
 Traffic capacity of four trunks (20 channels) = 5.44 Erlangs

 Approach 2: Divide 20 channels into 2 trunks of 10 channels each.

 Traffic capacity of one trunk (10 channels) = 4.46 Erlangs
 Traffic capacity of two trunks (20 channels) = 8.92 Erlangs

 Approach 3: Use the 20 channels as they are

 Traffic capacity of one trunk (20 channels) =12.0 Erlangs
 Better to make a large pool instead of dividing
48
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Trunking - Example 4

A hexagonal cell within a 4-cell system has a radius of 1.387km. A total of 60channels are used
within the entire system. If the load per user is 0.029Erlangs, and λ = 1 calls/hour, compute the
following for an Erlang C system that has a 5% probability of a delayed call:
a) How many users per square kilometer will this system support?
b) What is the probability that a delayed call will have to wait for more than 10s?
c) What is the probability that a call will be delayed for more than 10 seconds?

Solution
Given
Cell radius, R = 1.387
Area covered per cell is = 5 sq km
Number of cells per cluster = 4
Total number of channels = 60
Therefore, number of channels per cell = 60/4= 15 channels.
d) From Erlang C chart, for 5% probability of delay with C=15, traffic intensity = 9.0 Erlangs.
Therefore, number of users = total traffic intensity / traffic per user
= 9.0/0.029 = 310 users
= 310 users/ 5 sq km = 62 users/sq km
b) Given λ = 1, holding time
H = AU /λ = 0.029 hour = 104.4 seconds.
The probability that a delayed call will have to wait for more than 10 s is
= = 56.29%

c) = 5% = 0.05
Probability that a call is delayed more than 10 seconds.

=
= 0.05 * 0.5629 = 2.81%