1.cellular Systems

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications
Cellular Systems
Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering

University of Moratuwa

University of Moratuwa 1 / 79 Chandika Wavegedara
Cellular Systems Cellular System Fundamentals
Cellular System Fundamentals

The design objective of early mobile systems was to achieve a large coverage
area by using a single, high powered transmitter with an antenna mounted on
a tall tower.
Good coverage
Impossible to reuse those same frequencies throughout the system:
Interference
The radio telephone system was restructured to achieve high capacity with
limited radio spectrum while at the same covering very large areas.
The cellular concept was a major breakthrough in solving problem of
spectral congestion and user capacity:
Low power transmitters with each providing coverage to only a small portion
of the service area called a cell.
Each base station is allocated a portion of the total number of radio channels
available to the entire system.
Neighboring base stations are assigned different group of channels so that the
interference between base stations are minimized. Contd....

The available channels are distributed throughout the geographical region and
may be reused as many times as necessary.
As the demand for service increases, the number of base stations may be
increased (along with a decrease in transmitter power).
Since in cellular systems a fixed number of channels is used to serve an
arbitrary large number of subscribers by reusing the channels throughout the
coverage region, very high capacity in a limited spectrum allocation can be
achieved.
The basic premise behind cellular systems is to exploit the power falloff with
distance of signal propagation to reuse the same channel at
spatially-separated locations.
Cells that are assigned the same channel set, called co-channel cells, must be
spaced far enough apart so that interference between users in co-channel cells
does not degrade signal quality below tolerable levels.
The required spacing depends on the channelization technique, the signal
propagation characteristics, and the desired performance for each user.

Figure: Cellular System

Radio coverage within a cell is accomplished by a base station (BS). Each BS

may serve many mobile stations (MS).
The transmission direction from the BS to the MS is called the downlink
(DL) or forward link , the direction from the MS to the BS is called the
uplink (UL) or reverse link.
A group of base stations is connected via leased lines or microwave
equipment to a network element, which is called base station controller
(BSC, e.g. in GSM) or radio network controller (RNC, e.g. in UMTS).
The connection between two subscribers is established by the mobile
switching center (MSC).
User authentication, allocation of channels, and handoff between base
stations is coordinated by the MSC.
Under ideal propagation conditions mobiles within a given cell communicate
with the base station in that cell, although in practice the choice is based on
the SINR between the mobile and the base station.

Figure: Architecture of a cellular mobile radio network

The cellular system design must include a specific multiple access technique
for both the uplink and the downlink.
The main multiple access techniques used in cellular systems are TDMA,
FDMA, orthogonal and nonorthogonal CDMA, and their hybrid combinations.
These techniques are sometimes combined with SDMA as well.
The tradeoffs associated with different multiple access techniques are different
in cellular systems than in a singlecell, since each technique must cope with
interference from outside its cell, referred to as intercell or co-channel
interference (CI).
In addition to CI, systems with non-orthogonal channelization must also deal
with interference from within a cell, called intracell interference.
While CDMA with non-orthogonal codes has both intracell and intercell
interference inherent to its design, all interference is attenuated by the code
cross-correlation.
In contrast, orthogonal multiple access techniques have no intracell
interference under ideal operating conditions.

The amount of both intercell and intracell interference experienced by a given

user is captured by his SINR, defined as
Pr
SINR =
N0 B + PI
where Pr is the received signal power and PI is the received power associated
with both intracell and intercell interference.
In CDMA systems PI is the interference power after despreading.
We typically compute the BER of a mobile based on SINR in place of SNR,
although this approximation is not precisely accurate if the interference does
not have Gaussian statistics.
A larger intercell interference reduces SINR, and therefore increases user
BER. Intercell interference can be kept small by separating cells operating on
the same channel by a large distance.
However, the number of users that can be accommodated in a system is
maximized by reusing frequencies as often as possible.
Good cellular system designs are interference-limited, meaning that the
interference power is much larger than the noise power. Therefore, noise is
generally neglected in the study of these systems.
In this case SINR reduces to the signal-to-interference power ratio (SIR)

defined as SIR = Pr /PI .
In interference-limited systems, since the BER of users is determined by SIR,
the number of users that can be accommodated is limited by the interference
they cause to other users.
Techniques to reduce interference, such as multiple antenna techniques or
multiuser detection, increase the SIR and therefore increase the number of
users the system can accommodate for a given BER constraint.

On the Cell Shape

A hexagon is a tessellating cell shape in that cells can be laid next to each
other with no overlap to cover the entire geographical region without any
gaps. The other tessellating shapes are rectangles, squares, diamonds, and
triangles.
If propagation follows the free-space or simplified path loss model where
received power is constant along a circle around the base station, then a
hexagon provides a reasonable approximation to this circular shape.
Figure: Reuse distance D for hexagonal and diamond shaped cells

The actual radio coverage of a cell is known as the footprint and is

determined from filed measurement or propagation prediction models.
Hexagons are commonly used to approximate cell shapes when base stations
were placed at the tops of buildings with coverage areas on the order of a few
square miles.
For smaller cells, with base stations placed closer to the ground, diamonds
tend to better approximate the contours of constant power, especially for
typical urban street grids.
Very small cells and indoor cells are heavily dependent on the propagation
environment, making it difficult to accurately approximate contours of
constant power using a tessellating shape.
By using the hexagon geometry, the fewest number of cells can cover
geographic region and hexagon closely approximates a circular radiation
pattern which would occur for an omnidirectional base station antenna.
When using hexagons to model coverage areas:
Center-Excited Cells: BS transmitters are in the center of the cell.
Omnidirectional antennas are used.
Edge (or Corner)-Excited Cells: BS transmitters are on the three of the six cell
vertices of the cell. Sectored antennas are used.
Practical considerations do not allow base stations to be placed exactly as
they appear in the hexagonal layout.
Handover
When an MS moves between two cells, its call must be handed off from the
base station in the original cell to the base station in the new cell.
The handover procedure occurs when the signal quality of a mobile to its
base station decreases below a given threshold.
This occurs when a mobile moves between cells and can also be due to fading
or shadowing within a cell.
If no neighboring base station has available channels or can provide an
acceptable quality channel then the handoff attempt fails and the call will be
dropped.
Types of handover: soft, hard and softer handover
Hard Handover
A break-before-make process and handoff between two frequencies
The MS releases the old channel before connecting to the new BS via the new
channel; hence, there is a short interruption of the connection.
All FDMA, TDMA, and OFDMA can perform hard handoffs; e.g., in GSM
networks

Figure: Occurrence of handoff

Soft Handover
A make-before-break process
Usually is performed in CDMA systems, because CDMA has to perform the
handoff between two code channels, not two frequencies.
An MS at the cell border may have several connections to the corresponding
base stations at the same time so that there is a smooth transition between
the cells without any interruption.
Additional interconnections between the RNCs are required (in contrast to
GSM).
Softer Handover
A make-before-break type using combined diversity of two code channels
Handoff occurring between sectors only at the serving cell

In many cases, the handover decision is based upon the received signal level.
Ideal power budget handover - At every moment the MS is served by the BS
from which the maximum signal level
Owing to fading effects, such an ideal power budget criterion would cause
very frequent forward and backward handovers between different cells.
Because of the short interruption phases and signaling effort, frequent hard
handovers should be avoided.
This is usually achieved by introducing an averaging of the signal level and a
hysteresis margin.
A hard handover is only performed when the averaged signal level of a
neighboring cell exceeds one of the current serving cells by this hysteresis
margin of a few decibels.

Basic Cellular Systems
There are two basic cellular systems: circuit-switched system and

packet-switched system.
In a circuit switched system, each traffic channel is dedicated to a user until
its cell is terminated. We can further distinguish two circuit-switched
systems: analog system and digital system.

Analog Cellular System

An analog system cellular system consists of three subsystems: a mobile unit,
a cell site, a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO).

Digital Cellular System

A basic digital system consists of four elements: mobile station, base
transceiver station (BTS), base station controller (BSC), and switching
subsystem.

Cellular Packet System

A cellular packet-switched system consists of six elements: mobile station
(MS), Node B (i.e., base station), radio network controller (RNC), service
GPRS support node (SGSN), gateway GPRS support node, changing gateway
function (CGF), and radio network subsystem (RNS).

Performance Criteria
There are three categories for specifying performance criteria: voice quality,
data quality and picture/vision quality.
Voice Quality
Voice quality is very hard to judge without subjective tests for users opinions.
Engineers cannot decide how to build a system without knowing the voice
quality that will satisfy the users.
Circuit Merit (CM): A set value x at which y percent of customers rate the
system voice quality (from transmitter to receiver) as good or excellent.
Mean Opinion Score (MOS): The average of the CM scores obtained from all
the listeners is called the MOS. Usually, the toll-quality voice is around
MOS 4.
Diagnostic Rhyme Test (DRT): An ANSI standardization method for
evaluation of intelligibility. Listeners are required to choose which word of
rhyming pair they perceived.
Data Quality
There are several ways to measure the data quality such as bit error rate, chip
error rate, symbol error rate, and frame error rate.

Picture/Vision Quality
There are color acuity, depth perception, flicker perception, motion perception,
noise perception, and visual acuity. The percentage of pixel loss rate can be
characterized in vertical loss and horizontal resolution of a pixel.

Cellular Systems Frequency Reuse
Frequency Reuse
Frequency Reuse: By limiting the coverage area to within boundaries to of a

cell, the same group of channels may be simultaneously used to cover
different cells that are separated from one another by distances large enough
to keep interference levels within tolerable limits.
Frequency reuse is the core concept of the cellular mobile radio system. The
frequency reuse system can drastically increase the spectrum efficiency, but if
the the system is not properly designed, serious interference may occur.
Cells that are assigned the same channel set, called co-channel cells, must be
spaced far apart enough so that the interference between users in co-channel
cells does not degrade the signal quality below tolerable levels.
Intercell Interference due to the common use of the same channel is called
cochannel interference.
Frequency Planning: Design process of selecting and allocating channels
groups for all of the cellular base stations within a system


The channel reuse considerations are different for channelization via

Orthogonal multiple access techniques (e.g. TDMA, FDMA, and orthogonal
CDMA)
Non-orthogonal channelization techniques (non-orthogonal or hybrid
orthogonal/non-orthogonal CDMA).
Orthogonal techniques have no intracell interference under ideal conditions.
However, in TDMA and FDMA, cells using the same channels are typically
spaced several cells away, since co-channel interference from adjacent cells
can be very large.
Non-orthogonal channelization exhibits both intercell and intracell
interference, but all interference is attenuated by the cross-correlation of the
spreading codes, which allows channels to be reused in every cell.
In CDMA systems with orthogonal codes, typical for the downlink in CDMA
systems, codes are also reused in every cell, since the code transmissions from
each base station are not synchronized.
The same codes transmitted from different base stations arrive at a mobile
with a timing offset, and the resulting intercell interference is attenuated by
the code autocorrelation evaluated at the timing offset.
This autocorrelation may still be somewhat large.

A hybrid technique can also be used where a non-orthogonal code that is

unique to each cell is modulated on top of the orthogonal codes used in that
cell.
The non-orthogonal code then reduces intercell interference by roughly its
processing gain. This hybrid approach is used in WCDMA cellular systems.
In CDMA systems, the same codes are typically used in every cell. Thus, the
reuse distance is one and we need not address optimizing channel reuse for
CDMA systems.
In interference limited systems, each users BER is based on his received SIR:
the ratio of his received signal power over his intracell and intercell
interference power.
The average SIR is normally computed based on path loss alone, with median
shadowing attenuation incorporated into the path loss models for the signal
and interference.
Random variations due to shadowing and flat-fading are then treated as
statistical variations about the path loss.
Since path loss is a function of propagation distance, the reuse distance D
between cells using the same channel is an important parameter in
determining average intercell interference power.
Reuse distance is defined as the distance between the centers of cells that use
the same channels. It is a function of cell shape, cell size, and the number of
intermediate cells between the two cells sharing the same channel.
Cell radius R
For hexagonal cells R is defined as the distance from the center of a cell to a
vertex of the hexagon.
For diamond-shaped cells R is the distance from the cell center to the middle
of a side.
For diamond-shaped cells, the reuse distance D = 2R(NI + 1), where NI is
the number of intermediate cells between co-channel cells.
Reuse distance for hexagonally-shaped cells is more complicated to determine,
since there is not an integer number of cells between two co-channel cells.
The procedure for channel assignment in hexagonal cells is as follows.
Denote the location of each cell by the pair (i, j) where, assuming cell A to be
centered at the origin (0, 0).
Move i cells along u-axis
Turn 60 degrees counterclockwise and move j cells along v -axis

Figure: Axes for Reuse Distance in Hexagonal Cells

Figure: Channel Assignment in Hexagonal Cells: i = 3, j = 2


We can show that the distance between cell centers of adjacent cells is 3R,
and the distance between the centers of the cell located at the point (i, j)
and cell A is given by p
D = 3R i 2 + j 2 + ij,
where i and j are non-negative integers.
Consider a cellular system which has a total of NT duplex channels available
for use.
NT channels are divided among the N cells into unique and disjoint channels
groups, which have the same number of channels, NC .
The NT cells which collectively use the complete set of available frequencies is
called a cluster.
Each cell in the cluster is allocated a unique set of NC channels that are not
assigned to any other cell in the cluster.
The cluster size is given by N = NT /NC .
The set of channels assigned to the nth cell in the cluster is denoted by
Cn , n = 1, . . . , N, where N is the number of unique channel sets, and the
pattern of channel assignment is repeated in each cluster.

Figure: Cell Clusters for Diamond Cells, N = 16

Figure: Cell Clusters for Hexagonal Cells, N = 19

For diamond shaped cells a tesselating cell cluster

forms another diamond.
We can show that N = 0.25(D/R)2 and D = 2 NR.
For hexagonal geometry,
without gaps between adjacent cells,
the area of a
cell is Acell = 3 3R 2 /2, and the area of a cluster Acluster = 3D 2 /2. The
number of cells per cluster
2 2
Acluster 3D /2 1 D
N= = = = i 2 + j 2 + ij.
Acell 3 3R 2 /2 3 R

and D = R 3N.
Given a minimum acceptable reuse distance Dmin , we would like to maintain
this minimum reuse distance throughout the cell grid while reusing channels
as often as possible.
If a cluster is replicated M times within the system, the total number of
duplex channels (a measure of capacity) C
C = MNc N = MNT .

The capacity of a cellular system is directly proportional to the number of

times a cluster is replicated in a fixed service area.
If the cluster size N is reduced (while the cell size is kept constant), more
clusters are required to cover a given area (i.e., channels are reused more
often), and hence, more capacity. However, a small N also implies a small
reuse distance.
The larger the cluster size, the weaker the co-channel interference.
The value for N is a function of how much interference a mobile or a base
station can tolerate while maintaining the quality.
The smallest possible value of N is desirable in order to maximize capacity
over a given coverage area.
The Frequency Reuse factor is given by 1/N, since each cell is within a
cluster is only assigned 1/N of the total available channels.

Cellular Systems Co-Channel Interference
Co-Channel Interference
Frequency reuse implies that a given coverage area there are several cells that
use the same set of frequencies.
These cells are called co-channel cells and interference between signals from
these cells is called co-channel interference.
Unlike thermal noise which can be overcome by increasing SNR, co-channel
interference can not be combated by simply increasing the carrier power.
To reduce the co-channel interference (CI), co-channel cells must be
physically separated, by a minimum distance to provide sufficient isolation
due to propagation.
When the size of each cell is approximately the same and the BSs transmit
the same power, the CI 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 D/R, interference is reduced from improved isolation
of RF energy from the co-channel cell.

For a hexagonal geometry, the co-channel ratio Q is given by
D
Q= = 3N.
R
A small value of Q provides larger capacity since the cluster size N is small.
A large value of Q improves the transmission quality, due to a smaller level of
co-channel interference.

Let M be the number of co-channel interfering cells. Then, the

signal-to-interference ratio (S/I or SIR) for a mobile receiver
S S
= PM
I i=1 Ii
where S is the desired signal power from the desired BS and Ii is the
interference power caused by the ith interfering co-channel cell BS.
The average received signal strength at any point decays as power law of the
distance of separation between a transmitter and receiver.
The average received power Pr at a distance d from the transmitting antenna
is approximated by

d
Pr = P0
d0

d
Pr (dBm) = P0 (dBm) 10 log
d0
where P0 is the power received at a close-in-reference point in the far filed
region of the antenna at a small distance d0 from the transmitting antenna
and is the path loss exponent.
If Di is the distance of the ith interferer from the mobile, the received power
at a given mobile due to the ith interfering cell will be proportional to (Di ) .
When the transmit power of each base station is equal, S/I for a mobile can
be approximated as
S R
= PM .
I i=1 (Di )

Considering only the first layer of interfering cells, if all BSs are equidistant
from the desired BS and if this distance is equal to the distance D between
cell centers, then
S (D/R) ( 3N)
= = .
I M M

Using an exact cell geometry layout, it can be shown for a seven-cell cluster,
with the mobile unit at the cell boundary, the mobile is a distance
D R from the two nearest co-channel interfering cells
D + R/2, D, D R/2, and D + R from the other interfering cells in the first
tier.
Using the approximate geometry shown in the figure, assuming = 4, the
SIR for the worst case can be closely approximated as
S R 4

I 2(D R)4
+ 2(D + R)4 + 2D 4
1
=
2(Q 1) + 2(Q + 1)4 + 2Q 4
4
Example:


Cellular Systems Capacity of Cellular Systems
Capacity of Cellular Systems

Channel capacity for a radio system can be defined as the maximum number
of users that can be supported in a fixed frequency band for a given SIR
target.
Radio capacity is a parameter which measures spectrum efficiency of a
wireless system. This parameter is determined by
Required signal-to-interference ratio (SIR)
Channel bandwidth Bc
Reverse Channel Interference: Interference at a base station receiver that
comes from the subscriber units in the surrounding cells
Forward Channel Interference: Interference at a particular subscriber unit that
comes from the surrounding co-channel base stations
Let D be the distance between two co-channel cells and R be the cell radius.
Co-channel reuse ratio: Minimum ratio of D/R that is required to provide
tolerable level of co-channel interference
D
Q=
R

We will assume the simplified path loss model for our path loss calculations,
so Pr = Pt k(d/d0 ) , where d0 is the reference distance, k is a constant
equal to the average path loss at d = d0 , and is the path loss exponent.
The SIR of a signal is typically used to compute the BER performance
associated with that signal. Specifically, the interference is approximated as
AWGN and then formulas for the BER versus SNR are applied.

Performance of uncoded BPSK without fading yields Pb = Q( 2.SIR) and
performance when the desired signal exhibits Rayleigh fading yields
Pb 0.25/SIR for high SIRs.
Inaccuracies associated with the model:
Approximating the interference as Gaussian noise is accurate for a large
number of interferers, as is the case for CDMA systems, but not accurate for a
small number of interferers, as in TDMA and FDMA systems.
The performance computation in fading neglects the fact that the interferers
also exhibit fading, which results in a received SIR that is the ratio of two
random variables. This ratio has a very complex distribution.

Capacity of Orthoganal System (FDMA/TDMA)

In these systems there is no intracell interference, so the SIR is determined
from the received signal power and the interference resulting from co-channel
cells.
For simplicity we will neglect interference from outside the first ring of M
interfering cells. In this case M = 6 for hexagonal cell shapes and M = 8 for
diamond cell shapes.
We assume that all transmitters send at the same power Pt .
The resulting signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) is given by
D 0
SIR = PM 0 i ,
i=1 Di
where
M is the number of closest co-channel cells
0 is the path loss exponent in the desired cell
D0 is the distance from the desired base station to the mobile
Di is the distance of the ith cell from the mobile
i is the path loss exponent to the ith interfering base station
In general the average SIR for uplink and downlink may be roughly the same,
but the SIR for the uplink, where interferers can all be on the cell boundary
closest to the base station they interfere with, generally has a smaller
worst-case value than for the downlink, where interference comes from base
stations at the cell centers.
The SIR expression can be simplified if we assume that the mobile is on its
cell boundary, d = R, and all interferers are at the same reuse distance D
from the intended receiver and have similar path loss exponents I . Under
these assumption the SIR reduces to
R 0
SIR = .
MD I
If I = O = , this simplifies further to

1 D
SIR = .
M R

Assume that maximum interference occurs when the mobile is at the cell
edge D0 = R, and if the SIR for each user is required to be greater than
some minimum (SIR)min , then we have

1 R
SIRmin .
M D
The co-channel reuse factor is

1/
Q = D/R = (M SIRmin ) .
Given a target SIR value SIRmin required for a target BER, the cluster size N
can be given as
2/
N a (M SIRmin ) ,
where a is constant equal to a = 1/4 and a = 1/3 for diamond-shaped cells
and hexagonal cells, respectively.
When the signal has shadow fading, the analysis is more complex, but we can
still generally obtain reuse distance in terms of the SIR requirement subject
to some outage probability.
The radio capacity of a cellular system is defined as
Bt
C= radio channels/cell,
Bc N
where C is the radio capacity metric, Bt is the total allocated spectrum for
the system, Bc is the channel bandwidth, and N is the number of cells in a
complete frequency reuse cluster.
For orthogonal multiple access, C = NC , where NC is the number of channels
assigned to any given cell.
For hexagonal cells, the radio capacity can be given as
Bt Bt
C= 2 = 2/ .
Bc Q3 Bc 6
SIRmin
3/2
When = 4, the capacity is given by
Bt
C= q
2
Bc 3 SIRmin

In order to provide the same voice quality, SIRmin may be lower than in a
digital systems when compared to an analog systems. Lower SIRmin values
imply more capacity.
If Bt and C are kept constant, then Bc and SIRmin are related by
2
Bc
SIReq = SIRmin ,
Bc0
where Bc is the bandwidth of a particular system, SIRmin is the tolerable

value for the same system, Bc0 is the channel bandwidth for a different
system, and SIReq is the minimum SIR value for the different system.
In a digital cellular systems, SIR can be expressed as
E b Rb E c Rc
SIR = = ,
I I
where Rb is the channel bit rate, Eb is the energy per bit, Rc is the rate of
the channel code, and Ec is the energy per code symbol.

When n = 4, the ratio of SIReq of different system
Ec R c 2
Bc0

SIR I
= Ec0 Rc0
= .
SIReq Bc
I0
The relationship between Rc and Bc is always linear, and if the interference

level I is the same in the mobile environment for two different mobile systems
0 3
Ec Bc
= .
Ec0 Bc
In FDMA, Bt is divided into NT channels, each with bandwidth Bc .
Therefore, the radio capacity for FDMA in n = 4 propagation path loss
conditions is given by
B NT
C= qt =q .
Bt 2 2
NT 3 SIR 3 SIR

Consider the case where a multichannel FDMA system occupies the same
spectrum as a single TDMA system with multiple time slots.
For FDMA: S = Eb Rb , I = I0 Bc
For TDMA: S 0 = Eb Rb0 , I 0 = I0 Bc0
where Rb and Rb0 are the radio transmission rates of two digital systems, Eb
enrgy per bit, and I0 represents the interference power per Hertz.
Capacity of Digital Cellular TDMA
In practice, TDMA systems improve capacity by a factor of three to six times
as compared to analog cellular systems.
Better link performance: Error control and speech coding
By exploiting speech activity, some TDMA systems are able to better utilize
each radio channel.
TDMA allows the deployment of densely packed microcells, thus giving
substantial capacity gains in a system.
TDMA makes it possible to introduce adaptive channel allocation (ACA)


Capacity of Cellular CDMA

The capacity of CDMA systems is interference limited, while it is bandwidth
limited in FDMA and TDMA. Therefore any reduction in the interference will
cause a linear increase in the capacity of CDMA.
To use multisectorized antennas. The directional antennas receive signals from
only a fraction of the current users, thus leading to the reduction of
interference.
To operate in a discontinous transmission mode (DTX), where advantage is
taken of the intermittent nature of speech. In DTX, the transmitter is turned
off during the periods of silence.
FDMA and TDMA reuse frequencies depend on the isolation between cells
provided by the path loss in terrestrial radio propagation. CDMA can reuse
the entire spectrum for all cells, and this results in an increase of capacity by
a large percentage over the normal frequency reuse factor.
In non-orthogonal systems codes (i.e. channels) are typically reused in every
cell, so the cluster size is N = 1.
Since these systems exhibit both intercell and intracell interference, the
capacity is dictated by the maximum number of users per cell that can be
accommodated for a given target SIR.
We will neglect intercell interference from outside the first tier of interfering
cells, i.e. from cells that are not adjacent to the cell of interest.
We will also assume all signals follow the simplified path loss model with the
same path loss exponent. This assumption is typically true for interference
from adjacent cells, but ultimately depends on the propagation environment.
Let NC = NT = C denote the number of channels per cell.
In CDMA systems the user capacity is typically limited by the uplink, due to
the near-far problem and the asynchronicity of the codes.
Focusing on the uplink, under the simplified path loss model, the received
signal power is Pr = Pt k(d/d0 ) , where d is the distance between the
mobile and its base station.
There are NC 1 asynchronous intracell interfering signals and MNC
asynchronous intercell interfering signals transmitted from mobiles in the M
adjacent cells.
Let di , i = 1, . . . , NC 1 denote the distance from the ith intracell
interfering mobiles to the uplink receiver and Pi denote its power.

Let dj , j = 1, . . . , MNC denote the distance from the jth intercell

interferering mobile to the uplink receiver and Pj denote its power.
We can show that all interference is reduced by the spreading code cross
correlation /(3G ), where G is the processing gain of the system and is a
parameter of the spreading codes with 1 3.
The total intracell and intercell interference power is thus given by

NC 1 MN
XC
X
I = Pi k(di /d0 ) + Pj k(dj /d0 ) ,
3G
i=1 j=1
which yields the SIR
Pt d
SIR = P .
NC 1
Pi di + Pj dj
PMNC
3G i=1 j=1
Let us therefore assume perfect power control within a cell, so that the
received power of the desired signal and interfering signals within a cell are
the same: Pr = Pt k(d/d0 = Pi k(di /d0 ) i.
The SIR can then be expressed as
Pr
SIR = PMNC .

3G (NC 1)Pr + j=1 Pj k(dj /d0 )
Furthermore, let
PMNC
j=1 Pj k(dj /d0 )
= .
(NC 1)(Pr )
The SIR can be reexpressed as
1
SIR =
.
3G (NC 1)(1 + )
Under this approximation, for a given SIR target SIRmin , we can determine
the user capacity C = NC by setting equal to the target SIR and solving for
C , which yields
1
C =1+ .
3G (1 + )SIRmin

Voice signals need not be continuously active due to their statistical nature.
The fraction of time that a voice user actually occupies the channel is called
the voice activity factor, and is denoted by : 0 < .
If the transmitter shuts off during nonactivity then the interference in CDMA
is multiplied by . This increases SIR and therefore user capacity.
1
C =1+
.
3G (1 + )SIRmin

Cellular Systems Adjacent Channel Interference
Adjacent Channel Interference

Interference resulting from signals which are adjacent to in frequency to the
desired signal is called adjacent channel interference.
Adjacent-channel interference includes
Next-channel interference: Due to the channel(s) next to the operating
channel
Neighboring-channel interference: Due to channels more than one channel
away from the operating channel
Adjacent channel interference results from imperfect receiver filters which
allows nearby frequencies to leak into the passband.
Adjacent channel interference can be minimized through careful filtering and
channel assignment.
By keeping the frequency separation between each channel in a given cell as
large as possible, the adjacent channel interference can be reduced
considerably.
Channels are allocated such that frequency separation between channels in a
given cell is maximized.

By sequentially assigning successive channels in the frequency band to

different cells, many channel allocation schemes are able to separate adjacent
channels in a cell as many as N channel bandwidths.
If the frequency reuse factor is large (i.e., small N) the separation between
adjacent channels at the base station may not be sufficient to keep the
adjacent channel interference level within tolerable limits.
Next-channel interference
Next-channel interference in an AMPS system cannot be caused by
transmitters in the common cell site but must originate from at several other
cell sites.
Any combiner at the cell site must combine the selected channels normally 21
channels (at least 8-10 channels) away from the desired one.
The channel filter (at the receiving end) characteristics are a 6 dB/oct slope in
the voice band and a 24 dB/oct fall off outside the voice band region.

Neighboring-channel interference
The channels that are several channels away from the desired channel will
cause interference with the desired signal.
If all the channels are simultaneously transmitted at one cell-site antenna, a
sufficient amount of band isolation between the channels is required for a
multichannel combiner to reduce intermodulation products.
Band separation requirements can be resolved by using multiple antennas
instead of one antenna at the cell cite.
A truly linear broadband antenna amplifier can also be used to avoid
intermodulation products.
Transmitting and receiving channels interference
In FDMA and TDMA systems, the transmitting channels and receiving
channels have to be separated by a guard band mostly 20 MHz.
It is because the transmitting channels are so strong that they can mask the
weak signals received from the receiving channels.
The duplexer can only provide 30 dB to 40 dB isolation. The band isolation is
the other means to reduce the interference.

Near-End-Far-End Interference: In One Cell

Because motor vehicles in a given cell are usually moving, some mobile units
are close to the cell site and some are not.
The close-in mobile unit has a strong signal that causes adjacent-channel
interference.
In this situation, near-endfar-end interference can occur only at the reception
point in the cell site.
If a separation of 5B (five channel bandwidths) is needed for two adjacent
channels in a cell in order to avoid the near-endfar-end interference, it is then
implied that a minimum separation of 5B is required between each adjacent
channel used with one cell.
A good frequency management chart is needed to assign the N sets of
frequency channels properly and thus to avoid this problem.
Near-far effect also occurs when an adjacent channel user is transmitting in
very close range to a subscribers receiver, while receiver attempts to receive
a base station on the desired channel.

Near-End-Far-End Interference: In Cells of Two Systems
Adjacent-channel interference can occur between two systems in a

duopoly-market system. In this situation, adjacent-channel interference can
occur at both the cell site and the mobile unit.
For instance, mobile unit A can be located at the boundary of its own home
cell A in system A but very close to cell B of system B as shown.
The other situation would occur if mobile unit B were at the boundary of cell
B of system B but very close to cell A of system A.
The solid arrow indicates that interference may occur at cell site A and the
dotted arrow indicates that interference may occur at mobile unit A.
The same interference will be introduced at cell site B and mobile unit B.
The frequency channels of both cells of the two systems must be coordinated
in the neighborhood of the two-system frequency bands.

Figure: Near-endfar-end (ratio) interference. (a) In one cell; (b) in two-system cells

Cellular Systems Improving Capacity and coverage in Cellular Systems
Improving Capacity and coverage in Cellular Systems
As the demand for wireless service increases, the number of channels assigned
to a cell eventually becomes insufficient to support the required number of
users.
At this point, cellular design techniques are needed to provide more channels
per unit coverage area. Following techniques are commonly used in practice
to expand the capacity of cellular systems:
Cell splitting: Allows an orderly growth of the cellular system
Sectoring: Uses directional antennas to further control the interference and
frequency reuse of channels.
Zone microcell (smallcells): Distributes the coverage of a cell and extends the
cell boundary to hard-to-reach places.
While cell splitting increases the number of base stations in order to increase
capacity, sectoring and zone microcells rely on base station antenna
placements to improve capacity by reducing co-channel interference.

Cell Splitting
When the call traffic in an area increases, we must split the cell so that we
can reuse frequency more often.
Cell splitting is the process of subdividing a congested cell into smaller cells,
each with its own base station and a corresponding reduction in antenna
height and transmitter power.
Cell splitting increases the capacity of a cellular system since it increases the
number of times that channels are reused.
By defining cells which have a smaller radius than the original cells and by
installing these smaller cells (called microcells) between the existing cells,
capacity increases due to the additional number of channels per unit area.
Imagine if every cell were reduced in such a way that the radius of every cell
was cut in half. In order to cover the entire service area with smaller cells,
approximately four times as many cells would be required.
The increased number of cells would increase the number of clusters over the
coverage region, which in turn would increase the number of channels, and
thus capacity, in the coverage area.

Figure: Illustration of cell splitting

Cell splitting allows a system to grow by replacing large cells with smaller
cells, while not upsetting the channel allocation scheme required to maintain
the minimum co-channel reuse ratio Q between co-channel cells.
For the new cells to be smaller in size, the transmit power of these cells must
be reduced.
The transmit power of the new cells with radius half that of the original cells
can be found by examining the received power at the new and old cell
boundaries and setting them equal to each other.
This is necessary to ensure that the frequency reuse plan for the new
microcells behaves exactly as for the original cells.
Pr [ at old cell boundary ] Pt0 R
and
Pr [ at new cell boundary ] Pt1 (R/2)
where Pt0 and Pt1 are the transmit powers of the larger and smaller cell
basestations, respectively, and is the path loss exponent.

If we take n = 4 and set the received powers equal to each other, then
Pt0
Pt1 =
16
i.e., the transmit power must be reduced by 12 dB in order to fill in the
original coverage area with microcells, while maintaining the S/I requirement.
A general formula is for a new cell which is split repeatedly n times, and
every time the new radius is one-half of the old one; then Rn = R0 /2n .
Ptn = Pt0 12 dB.
When cell splitting occurs, the value of the frequency-reuse ratio Q = D/R is
always held constant.
The traffic load can increase four times in the same area after the original cell
is split into four subcells. As the cell splitting continues, the general formula
can be expressed as
New traffic load = 4n (the traffic load of start up cell)
where n is the number of splittings.

In practice, not all cells are split at the same time. It is often difficult for
service providers to find real estate that is perfectly situated for cell splitting.
Therefore, different cell sizes will exist simultaneously. In such situations,
special care needs to be taken to keep the distance between co-channel cells
at the required minimum, and hence channel assignments become more
complicated.
Also, handoff issues must be addressed so that high speed and low speed
traffic can be simultaneously accommodated.
When there are two cell sizes in the same region that one can not simply use
the original transmit power for all new cells or the new transmit power for all
the original cells.
Channels in the old cell must be broken down into two channel groups, one
that corresponds to the smaller cell reuse requirements and the other that
corresponds to the larger cell reuse requirements.
The larger cell is usually dedicated to high speed traffic so that handoffs
occur less frequently.

Antenna downtilting, which deliberately focuses radiated energy from the

base station towards the ground (rather than towards the horizon), is often
used to limit the radio coverage of newly formed microcells.
The two techniques of cell splitting
Permanent splitting
Real-time splitting (Dynamic splitting)

Figure: Illustration of cell splitting within 3 km by 3 km square centered around base

station A
Sectoring
Another way to increase capacity is to keep the cell radius unchanged and
seek methods to decrease the Q = D/R ratio.
In this approach, capacity improvement is achieved by reducing the number
of cells in a cluster and thus increasing the frequency reuse.
However, in order to do this, it is necessary to reduce the relative interference
without decreasing the transmit power.
The co-channel interference in a cellular system may be decreased by
replacing a single omni-directional antenna at the base station by several
directional antennas, each radiating within a specified sector.
By using directional antennas, a given cell will receive interference and
transmit with only a fraction of the available co-channel cells. The technique
for decreasing co-channel interference and thus increasing system capacity by
using directional antennas is called sectoring.
The factor by which the co-channel interference is reduced depends on the
amount of sectoring used. A cell is normally partitioned into three 120o
sectors or six 60o sectors.
Figure: (a) 120o sectoring (b) 60o sectoring
When sectoring is employed, the channels used in a particular cell are broken
down into sectored groups and are used only within a particular sector.
Assuming 7-cell reuse, for the case of 120o sectors, the number of interferers
in the first tier is reduced from 6 to 2.

Referring to the next figure, consider the interference experienced by a mobile

located in the right-most sector in the center cell labeled 5.
Out of these 6 co-channel cells, only 2 cells have sectors with antenna
patterns which radiate into the center cell, and hence a mobile in the center
cell will experience interference on the forward link from only these two
sectors.
The resulting S/I for this case can be found using equation to be 24.2 dB,
which is a significant improvement over the omni-directional case, where the
worst case S/I was shown to be 17 dB.
The improvement in S/I implies that with 120o sectoring, the minimum
required S/I of 18 dB can be easily achieved with 7-cell reuse, as compared
to 12-cell reuse for the worst possible situation in the unsectored case.
Thus, sectoring reduces interference, which amounts to an increase in
capacity by a factor of 12/7. or 1.714.
In practice, the reduction in interference offered by sectoring enable planners
to reduce the cluster size N, and provides an additional degree of freedom in
assigning channels.

The penalty for improved S/I and the resulting capacity improvement is an
increased number of antennas at each base station, and a decrease in
trunking efficiency due to channel sectoring at the base station.
Since sectoring reduces the coverage area of a particular group of channels,
the number of handoffs increases, as well.
It is the loss of traffic due to decreased trunking efficiency that causes some
operators to shy away from the sectoring approach, particularly in dense
urban areas.


Microcell Zone Concept

The increased number of handoffs required when sectoring is employed
results in an increased load on the switching and control link elements of the
mobile system.
Lee presented a solution to this problem based on a microcell concept for 7
cell reuse, as illustrated in the figure.
In this scheme, each of the three (or possibly more) zone sites (represented as
Tx/Rx) are connected to a single base station and share the same radio
equipment.
The zones are connected by coaxial cable, fiberoptic cable, or microwave link
to the base station.
Multiple zones and a single base station make up a cell. As a mobile travels
within the cell, it is served by the zone with the strongest signal.
This approach is superior to sectoring since antennas are placed at the outer
edges of the cell, and any base station channel may be assigned to any zone
by the base station.
As a mobile travels from one zone to another within the cell, it retains the
same channel.
Figure: The microcell concept

Thus, unlike in sectoring, a handoff is not required at the MSC when the
mobile travels between zones within the cell. The base station simply
switches the channel to a different zone site.
The channels are distributed in time and space by all three zones and are also
reused in co-channel cells in the normal fashion.
The advantage of the zone cell technique is that while the cell maintains a
particular coverage radius, the co-channel interference in the cellular system
is reduced since a large central base station is replaced by several lower
powered transmitters (zone transmitters) on the edges of the cell.
Decreased co-channel interference improves the signal quality and also leads
to an increase in capacity, without the degradation in trunking efficiency
caused by sectoring.
With respect to the zone microcell system, since transmission at any instant
is confined to a particular zone, this implies that a Dz /Rz of 4.6 (where Dz is
the minimum distance between active co-channel zones and Rz is the zone
radius) can achieve the required link performance.


Let each individual hexagon represents a zone, while each group of three
hexagons represents a cell. The zone radius is approximately equal to one
hexagon radius.
The capacity of the zone microcell system is directly related to the distance
between co-channel cells, and not zones.
For a value of 4.6, the value of co-channel reuse ratio, Q = D/R = 3, where
R is the radius of the cell and is equal to twice the length of the hexagon
radius.
D/R = 3 corresponds to a cluster size of N = 3. This reduction in the
cluster size from N = 7 to N = 3 amounts to a 2.33 times increase in
capacity for a system completely based on the zone microcell concept.


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EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

Cellular System Fundamentals

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

Figure: Cellular System

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

Radio coverage within a cell is accomplished by a base station (BS). Each BS

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

Figure: Architecture of a cellular mobile radio network

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The amount of both intercell and intracell interference experienced by a given

In this case SINR reduces to the signal-to-interference power ratio (SIR)

EN4382-Wireless & Mobile Communications

On the Cell Shape

Figure: Reuse distance D for hexagonal and diamond shaped cells

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The actual radio coverage of a cell is known as the footprint and is

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Figure: Occurrence of handoff

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Basic Cellular Systems

There are two basic cellular systems: circuit-switched system and

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Analog Cellular System

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Digital Cellular System

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Cellular Packet System

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Frequency Reuse: By limiting the coverage area to within boundaries to of a

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The channel reuse considerations are different for channelization via

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A hybrid technique can also be used where a non-orthogonal code that is

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Figure: Axes for Reuse Distance in Hexagonal Cells

Figure: Channel Assignment in Hexagonal Cells: i = 3, j = 2

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Figure: Cell Clusters for Diamond Cells, N = 16

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Figure: Cell Clusters for Hexagonal Cells, N = 19

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For diamond shaped cells a tesselating cell cluster

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The capacity of a cellular system is directly proportional to the number of

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For a hexagonal geometry, the co-channel ratio Q is given by

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Let M be the number of co-channel interfering cells. Then, the

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Capacity of Cellular Systems

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