notes | Questions from the lecture | Lecture notes

Mobile Communications Lecture Questions

1 Introduction

2 Wireless Transmission

3 Medium Access

4 Wireless Telecommunication Systems

4.8 Intro

Why do we have so many more connections compared to subscribers?

Amount of IoT devices, per person: car, fridge, smart watch, TVs, lamps, microcontrollers for smart applications, list goes on.

Who/what is driving mobile communications in the future?

Companies that do standards, the market, politics, IoT-devices.

What are consequences of a shrinking ARPU? What can companies do?

Prices for internet wont drop further. Companies can sell other services like streaming.

Who defines the generations of mobile telecommunications systems?

ITU (International Telecommunication Union), sets requirements for each generation.
3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), a collection of regional telecom standards organizations. They develop the technical specifications, which will meet the ITUs requirements.

Visit some of the statistics pages and check-out the newest numbers!

Go through the simple questions and keep them in mind. These are the questions you definitely have to be able answer after this chapter for all systems presented!

4.18 GSM Intro

What is SMS still used for? what do the replacements require?

Automatic machines, traffic lights, vending machines, control or statistics, etc. Replacements would require to work with no internet connection

Why was GSM such a big success?

What are the main differences between GSM and ISDN (at a high level)?

There are none, which contributed to its success. GSM is more felxible with a little lower data rate.

What is required in the background of 112?

Look at the characteristics of GSM and its disadvantages. What has changed, what is the same if you compare GSM with todays systems?

Changed:

Same:

4.38 GSM Architecture

You should be able to draw the architecture of the classical GSM system and to describe the functionality of the components!

What are the advantages of specifying not only the radio interface but also all internal interfaces of the GSM system?

Could there be a single point of failure in the GSM architecture? How to avoid it?

Avoidance: Redundancy; have backup MSC for each MSC, duplicate data amongst more databases.

In which database is a roaming tourist registered?

In the VLR.

How could the system block all stolen GSM phones?

With the EIR it can blacklist the phones.

How can the system localize mobile phones (at least to a certain precision...)?

The system can localize MS with the cells, because the network always knows in which cell the MS is.

Why does GSM seperate the MS and SIM?

What is the advantage/disadvantage of an eSIM?

Advantage:

Disadvantage:

4.42 GSM Time Slots & Cells

Go once more through the channel/slot structure and understand where GSM applies what type of multiplexing!

How does GSM adapt to varying distances between MS and BTS? What is the role of the guard spaces?

Adapts to distances with guard spaces and training data.

What limits the radius of a GSM cell?

Time Advance (TA).

What is the maximum data rate per slot? Why is the real data rate offered that much lower?

The maximum data rate offered is 114Bit per user, but in reality lower because it can be split amongst user and will also send control data.

4.49 GSM Location & Handover

How does the GSM system locate an MS? How precise is the localization?

Why does the system use a handover margin?

Because otherwise the MS would ping-pong between the BTSs equally "weak" signals and keep swapping.

Why is the handover called "hard"?

Because it fully breaks the connection.

How and where is user-related data represented/stored in the GSM system?

HLR/VLR

4.52 GSM Security

What is protected by the GSM security mechanism?

What is missing compared to todays communication systems?

End-to-end encryption.

What are reasons for this decision?

GSM was the "wireless ISDN", so they only implemented the security that ISDN also had. ISDN didnt have end-to-end.

4.61 GSM, GPRS & HSCSD

What multiplexing schemes are used in GSM for what purpose? Think also of other layers apart from the physical layer.

How is synchronization achieved in GSM? Who is responsible for synchronization and why is synchronization very important?

Through the guard spaces and the 26 training bits (in the normal GSM time-slot).

How is the shift from voice-only to Internet-style traffic reflected in the GSM system?

They started to use more time slots per user for higher data rates, and the GPRS infrastructure was built ontop of the GSM infrastructure.

Why is a new infrastructure needed for GPRS, but not for HSCSD? Which components are new and what is their purpose?

HSCSD was mainly a software update, it bundles several time slots to get higher user rates, so no new infrastructure needed. But it blocked channels for voice transmissions.

Only few operators offered HSCSD - why?

idk

What are the reasons for the delay in a GSM system for packet data traffic? Distinguish between circuit-switched and packet-switched transmisson.

Packet-switched:

Circuit-switched:

Relatively high delay, low reliability - why was GPRS yet a break-through in the GSM world?

idk

What are the limitations of a GSM cell in terms of diameter and capacity (voice, data) for the traditional GSM, GPRS? How can the capacity be increased?

What determines the coding scheme?

answer

Give reasons for a handover in GSM and the problems associated with it. Which are the typical steps for handover, what types of handover can occur? Which resources need to be allocated during handover for data transmission using HSCSD or GPRS respectively? What about QoS gurantees?

answer

4.70 TETRA

Why using a seperated, specialized system like TETRA? Why not using the "normal" cellular phone network with some "extras"? There are reasons for and against such an approach!

"Normal" cellular phone networks dont have special features like group calls, walkie talkie etc. without preexisting infrastructure, also no ultra high reliability. But it would be cheaper as you dont need to build special infrastructure for TETRA.

What else could be problematic using e.g. current LTE/UMTS/GSM systems?

Check the current approaches of 3GPP toward a public safety mobile network! What is a general trend?

4.79 3rd Generation

What defines the 3rd generation? What was the initial idea?

The 3rd gen was defined by certain requirements, not a certain technology. Requirements were:

ITU made these standards and set the goals, companies tried to implement it. ETSI came up with UMTS.

What led to the different developments? - There are many reasons!

Many different standardization bodies, companies and political interests. Some were already using GSM and added UMTS, some used cdmaOne and went with cdma2000. There was already infrastructure in use and frequencies in use, so the countries picked whatever fitted best for them.

Check www.3gpp.org/releases and understand the iedas of stages and releases!

What was the focus of early UMTS on? How is this reflected in the spectrum?

Was focused on higher data rates, multimedia services and working on top of GSM. Spectrum that the ITU thought of wasnt available everywhere. Europe had GSM and Japan cdma2000 in those spectrums. In Europe, a part of this spectrum has been used.

What is the problem of the condition "coverage of the population in %"?

That companies wont get their money back if they didnt cover that percentage in time.

Why did most operators already using GSM pick UMTS as 3rd generation and cdmaOne operators cdma2000?

UMTS architecture was based in GSM, so a type of extension, vice verca cdma2000 for cdmaOne.

4.91 UMTS, UTRAN & OVSF

How do higher/lower data rates influence the robustnes of the transmission in UMTS? How do typical applications fit to these effects?

More users -> more codes in use -> more interference -> each user benefits from more spreading to maintain robustness.
More spreading -> more chips per bit -> lower data rate but higher robustness against noise and interference.
Less spreading -> fewer chips per bit -> higher data rate but lower robustness.
So: higher robustness => more chips per bit => more spreading => fewer data bits per second.

How does UTRA-FDD counteract the near-far effect?

Using "power control" it tells the MSs further away from the BS to transmit with more power, and tells MSs closer to the BS to transmit with less power, so that all signals from the MSs arrive with roughly the same signal strength at the BS.

What is a drawback of OVSF? How is it compensated?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_(CDMA)

How are different data streams from different users seperated?

CDMA

Compare the UTRAN architecture with that of GSM. What is a major difference in the radio subsystem (BSS/RNS)? What is it used for?

Not a big difference at the core network. Slide 4.88: BSS from GSM and RNS from UMTS can both connect via an interface (Iu) to the CN (Core network) from UMTS. The CN then can forward to ISDN circuit-switched or the internet packet-switched. The CN doesnt notice if it was UMTS or GSM.

4.105 UMTS handovers, IP-packets & RTT

Compare the handovers in GSM with the ones in UMTS. Why are they called hard or soft, respectively?

Schiller:
Hard handover: There is a specific point in time when the mobile device has to switch to a different frequency and a different time slot. In GSM, we have channels and TDMA frames, so within a frame on a certain frequency, you have a time slot. The handover then means you have to jump to a different channel and a different frequency, and maybe also a different time slot. There is a certain point in time where you really break with one of the networks and jump into the other network. Everything is prepared and you know where to jump, but you have to reestablish everything in the new cell.
Soft handover: The soft one is different. For the soft handover, the connection to multiple base stations is active all the time. So you stay on the same frequency. You have wider bands, it's CDMA, and all the antennas use the same frequency. No jumping (only different carriers). Usually you stay in the same. Then it's rather like multipath propagation. Could be by buildings, could be by several different antennas. So you will be able to automatically choose the 5 strongest paths. So you have different paths and receive the signal, and you basically combine these 5 paths (after delaying them by signal strength). This enables a soft handover, so there's no hard switching. Internally, there is: you have to set up a new path via new RNCs or eNodeBs, but the MS won't notice it.

How much is the core network aware of the type of handover?

Schiller: Usually not, but it depends on the type of handover. It notices switches of the main RNC. Only if the main RNC switches, the core will notice. Remember: sometimes the RNC also only forwards to another RNC. The core of course notices if you switch from 2G to 3G (from BSC to RNC).

What are the consequences of introducing IP-based packet transmission?

Schiller: As soon as you introduce IP, the mobile phone network is nothing but a big bit-pipe, and the services can be created at the end. But, why have special services like MMS or SMS if you can just use IP? So as soon as you have higher data rates, you can do a lot more at the end, in the apps. You dont need the networks support anymore. That means the operators dont make any more money. By introducing packet services, network providers killed their revenues.
The point is: you can evolve the feature sets faster than the network. As soon as you have IP, then you can put whatever you like ontop. Recent example: Switch to video conferences, and you notice, it gets ass if the network is ass. A real problem is WLANs with video conferencing. Although you have high data rats, its shakey, latency, packet rates, etc. Compared to fixed networks. Autonomous cars are the reason we want 5G/6G for lower delays for remote controlling. Thats a problem, that you can suddenly use all the apps you used on the internet on a network that was never used for it.

What is the key to higher data rates in UMTS?

Schiller:

Spectrum + Modulation + MIMO = Transmit more bits per second over the air.

While the data rates increased over time, the delay remained more or less constant at about 100-150ms from a mobile device to the base station. What problem arises if e.g. downloading content using TCP via these fast connections? Think of congestion avoidance/RTT!

Schiller: We have Megabits per second, and now we use something like TCP. What problems may occur?
The problem is: TCP checks the RTT. How long does it take for my packet until its acknowledged. The setting of the RTT depends on the delay. And the delay of your data traveling from your MS to a server for example. Over fixed network its ms. Over the wireless, 100-150ms. So in the end, we have at least something like 150ms -> 150ms <-. Max datarates using TCP, only depends on RTT and Bit-error-rate. Why?
The problem is, if you use protocols like TCP, they are not adapted to the effects of wireless connections with RTT due to forward error correction, sheduling, etc., so in the end, although you might offer something like 600Mbit/s, you can never use them if you use protocols like TCP. More: Chapter about internet protocols.
In LTE, we bring it down to something like 10ms and even below. Today: Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications, we'll see it in 5G. Very difficult to achieve.
Remember: High data rates are fine, but its not the complete answer to the problems. We also need low delays, UMTS is not the perfect solution there. One of the reasons why UMTS is not the tech of the future. High delay from MS to servers.

4.116 LTE Intro

Why is LTE such a world-wide success? Think of parameters, architecture ...

Schiller: Flexibility.
If you think of the frequencies, thats just part of the bands, where LTE is operating, so depending on the country we can use different bands, we see a lot of different frequencies (slide 4.115 isnt showing everything). Many different frequencies, can work in paired or unpaired bands, so FDD or TDD, it can use many different modulation schemes, this makes it attractive. As soon as theres spectrum available, you can squeeze in LTE. Thats because you can use many different bandwidths, 1.4 up to 20MHz. So very flexible.
Second part: Much much simpler architecture. From a very high level view, it is pretty much teh same as in UMTS and GSM, the core. We changed the radio interface (now Uu), we have no CDMA anymore, and we have EPC (Evolved Packet Core), which is now packet switched only. Only packet-switching is much simpler. There are pros and cons for that.
Advantages: You use routers, we know how to operate this and how flexible packet-switching is. We dont need to setup and connect.
Disadvantages: What about quality of service? Some additional mechanisms needed.
But it makes the whole architecture much simpler. Especially if you look inside the EPC. There are very few components. Basically you have routers, and you have some management entities. Only 2 different main components. the MMEs and the routers. Thats it. There is no circuit-switching. More elements, more maintenance, setup, etc., so: bad. Only relying on packet-switching, we dont care how this packet reaches the UE. So we could also use WLAN to connect to the UE. You can offload a part of the traffic to available WLANs (with some conditions). But LTE can also use this unlicensed technology.

Name high-level differences between LTE and GSM/GPRS/UMTS! What do they have in common?

Schiller: Especially LTE and UMTS: Main difference on high-level:
In UMTS we use CDMA. Now, for LTE, we are back at FDMA/TDMA. Basically we dropped all of CDMA. We dropped part of the core aswell (circuit-switching). CDMA could do soft handovers, but FMDA/TDMA does hard handovers again. But its not the same handover as in GSM, because were talking about packets now. Its not a hard handover compared to GSM where youve had a connection which you have to switch over. In LTE, it is hard, but you can make it "softer" by: In EPC and also E-UTRAN you can provide the packets not only to the currently active station, but also to the new base station. So that if you hand over, the new packets are already there. They will during that time transmit them to both stations. Its a "seamless" handover.

What is the idea of soft frequency reuse?

Schiller: Remember: We are now at FDMA/TDMA.
Imagine tow base stations with their cells overlapping. This is very standard. In neighbouring cells, you cant use the same frequencies. Then you will have interference. So these two base stations have different frequencies. The idea is now: We do not use all the channels, so all the bandwidth we have in a cell with full power, but we use a part of the spectrum only with less power, so we restrict the cell size for certain frequencies, and now these frequencies can be reused, because they do not overlap. So we can reuse them for all the cells with less transmission power. No overlapping, no interference. And only for a minor part of the spectrum we send with more power, and this part of the spectrum will overlap, and they will use different frequencies.
So: We use the same frequencies in a smaller cell around each tower (that means: we send these at lower power). We reuse this part of the frequency. On the parts that overlap, we use another frequency.

4.126 LTE Architecture

Compare the architecture of LTE/UMTS/GSM - what is new, what is basically the same?

Schiller: dropped circuit switching part, kept packet switching, also a bit new functions, new acronyms. but in the end, if you look at the core: Slide 4.119, HSS is the HLR, LTE core is simplified, no RNCs anymore, its all integrated now, thats the core idea.

What is the purpose of the X2 connections between eNodeBs? How can LTE support seamless/lossless handover?

Schiller: Seamless/lossless handover. Thats what you use them for.
What else? Handover without packet core. Safety if one node fails. You introduce redundant paths.
Relaying. Not all eNodeBs need a direct connection to the core. You can setup a network or make it denser/higher coverage by creating a new cell and connect it to another eNodeB, you dont need a connection to the packet core anymore. Way more flexible radio access network.

How can LTE gurantee data rates, delays?

Schiller: You assign resource blocks in a static fashion. "Every 10 resource blocks". If you need higher datarates, you assign more of the spectrum. Some max. delay? Just make sure in the sheduler in the eNodeB that you assign in a periodic fashion the resource blocks. Thats the core idea.

Compare the multiplexing/multiple access in LTE with UMTS/GSM - differences/similarities?

Schiller: We are now back at a scheme that is not like GSM, but now we add a flexible way of using the frequencies, its only possible because we use the OFDM technology. This goes deep into electrical engineering. For here enough: We can dynamically assign parts of the spectrum for certain amounts of time. Thats then used for the multiplexing of different data streams for different users. And we can also use different sending powers to different users, so the base station will send different resource blocks with different signal strengths to different users. Thats also soft frequency reuse, not all frequencies are sent with the same power. Only the major part with less power. only some of the frequencies will use high power to reach UEs somewhere out in the cell in the overlapping areas.

4.131 LTE and 5G

What is "evolutionary" in LTE?

Schiller: What's the evolutionary part? So in the early days of LTE you went for higher data rates. Then there was a new demand, so they scaled it down. When IoT showed up, you scaled it down. That's the evolutionary part - it's not a revolution with a new access theme, it's rather that we integrate devices into LTE. Need device-to-device? We integrate it.

How does LTE reflect the variety of different demands?

Schiller: Long sleep periods are supported. LTE can support narrow band use, so you can replace single channels of GSM.
Some applications need high data rates, that's also possible in LTE. So LTE is extremely scalable when it comes to data rates. This is also reflected in the spectrum use. You can start with 200kHz, 1.4MHz, etc., depending on the available spectrum. LTE can be adapted. That's also why people think that LTE will take over the other standards.
When we talk about WLANs, we will see "why not use LTE for a campus network?". You can use many different frequencies and cell sizes etc. Also IoT works well with ultra low power technologies. Great IoT support.
LTE is quite flexible. Funny thing: Absolutely newest standard for WLANs, you will find LTE technology in there. Quite interesting.
Different applications are reflected in different spectrum use, sleep patterns, data rates, different frequencies. Sometimes for example for smart meters, you have to penetrate walls to get to the basement for water meters or something, then with LTE we can use lower frequencies. More flexible.

Check out the current status of LTE and the smooth transition towards 5G e.g. on 3GPP!

5 Wireless LANs

6 Internet Protocols

7 Outlook