Wireless Communication Systems

Wireless Communication Systems

Module – 3

Evolution of Cellular Technologies: First Generation Cellular Systems, 2G Digital cellular

systems – GSM and its Evolution, 3G Broadband Wireless Systems, Key Enabling Technologies
and features of LTE, LTE Network Architecture.
Frequency Domain Multiple Accesses: Multiple Access for OFDM Systems, Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiple Access, Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access.
[Text2: 1.2.1, [Link], 1.2.2, [Link], 1.2.3 (Only the mentioned sections and subsections), 1.4, 1.5,
4.1, 4.2, 4.3]

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Text Book: Arunabha Ghosh, Jun Zhang, Jeffrey G. Andrews, Rias Muhamed, “Fundamentals of
LTE”, Pearson India Education Services Private Limited, 2018, ISBN: 978-93-530-6239-2.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

Evolution of Cellular Technologies:

History of Wireless Technology:

Mobile wireless communication system has gone through several evolution stages in the past few
decades after the introduction of the first generation mobile network in early 1980s. Due to huge
demand for more connections worldwide, mobile communication standards advanced rapidly to
support more users. Let’s take a look on the evolution stages of wireless technologies for mobile
communication.

Year Important Milestone:

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Before Nikola Tesla found theoretical basis for radio communication and
1892
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demonstrated radio transmission.
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1897 Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated radio communications; awarded patent
for it.
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1902 First verifiable transatlantic radio transmission (telegraphy) made from

an Italian cruiser with Marconi aboard using 272kHz signals
1906 Reginald Fessendon made first successful two-way transmission over
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North Atlantic and demonstrated voice transmission using amplitude

modulation
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1915 First transatlantic radio transmission of voice from Arlington, Virginia to

Paris, France.
1921 Short wave radio (HF radio: 2.3MHz to 25.82MHz) developed.
1934 AM radio systems used in 194 U.S. municipalities for public safety.
1935 Edwin Armstrong demonstrated FM.
1946 First mobile telephone service in St. Louis, Missouri introduced by
AT&T.
1948 Claude Shannon published his seminal theory on channel capacity;
C=Blog2(1+SNR).
1956 Ericsson developed first automatic mobile phone called Mobile Telephone
A (weighed 40kg).
1960– Bell Labs developed cellular concept.
1970
1971 AT&T submits proposal for a cellular mobile system concept to FCC.

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 Wireless Communication Systems
1979 First commercial cellular system deployed by NTT in Japan.
1983 FCC allocated 40MHz of spectrum in 800MHz for AMPS.
1983 Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) launched in Chicago.
1989 Qualcomm proposes CDMA as a more efficient, wireless voice
technology.
1991 First commercial GSM deployment in Europe (Finland).
1995 First commercial launch of CDMA (IS-95) service by Hutchinson
Telecom, Hong Kong.
1995 Personal Communication Services (PCS) license in the 1800/1900MHz
band auctioned in the United States.
2001 NTT DoCoMo launched first commercial 3G service using UMTS
WCDMA.

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2002 South Korea Telecom launches first CDMA2000 EV-DO network.
2005 UMTS/HSDPA launched in 16 major markets by AT&T.
2005 IEEE 802.16e standard, the air-interface for Mobile WiMAX, completed
and approved.
2006 C
WiBro (uses the IEEE 802.16e air-interface) commercial services
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launched in South Korea.
2007 Apple iPhone launched, driving dramatic growth in mobile data
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consumption.

2009 3GPP Release 8 LTE/SAE specifications completed.

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Evolution of wireless technologies 1G to 5G in mobile communication:

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 Wireless Communication Systems
1G – First generation mobile communication system:

• The first generation of mobile network was deployed in Japan by Nippon Telephone and
Telegraph Company (NTT) in Tokyo during 1979.
• In the beginning of 1980s, it gained popularity in the US, Finland, UK and Europe.
• This system used analogue signals and it had many disadvantages due to technology
limitations.
Most popular 1G system during 1980s

• Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS)

• Nordic Mobile Phone System (NMTS)
• Total Access Communication System (TACS)
• European Total Access Communication System (ETACS)

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Key features (technology) of 1G system

• Frequency 800 MHz and 900 MHz

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Bandwidth: 10 MHz (666 duplex channels with bandwidth of 30 KHz)
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• Technology: Analogue switching
• Modulation: Frequency Modulation (FM)
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• Mode of service: voice only

• Access technique: Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)

Disadvantages of 1G system
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• Poor voice quality due to interference

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• Poor battery life

• Large sized mobile phones (not convenient to carry)
• Less security (calls could be decoded using an FM demodulator)
• Limited number of users and cell coverage
• Roaming was not possible between similar systems

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2G – Second generation communication system GSM:

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• Second generation of mobile communication system introduced a new digital technology for
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wireless transmission also known as Global System for Mobile communication (GSM).
• GSM technology became the base standard for further development in wireless standards later.
This standard was capable of supporting up to 14.4 to 64kbps (maximum) data rate which is
sufficient for SMS and email services.
• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system developed by Qualcomm also introduced and
implemented in the mid 1990s.
• CDMA has more features than GSM in terms of spectral efficiency, number of users and data
rate.

Key features of 2G system

• Digital system (switching)

• SMS services is possible
• Roaming is possible
• Enhanced security
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• Encrypted voice transmission
• First internet at lower data rate
• Disadvantages of 2G system
• Low data rate
• Limited mobility
• Less features on mobile devices
• Limited number of users and hardware capability

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3G – Third generation communication system:

• Third generation mobile communication started with the introduction of UMTS – Universal
Mobile Terrestrial / Telecommunication Systems.
• UMTS has the data rate of 384kbps and it support video calling for the first time on mobile
devices.
• After the introduction of 3G mobile communication system, smart phones became popular
across the globe.
• Specific applications were developed for smart phones which handles multimedia chat, email,
video calling, games, social media and healthcare.

Key features of 3G system

• Higher data rate

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• Video calling
• Enhanced security, more number of users and coverage
• Mobile app support
• Multimedia message support
• Location tracking and maps
• Better web browsing
• TV streaming
• High quality 3D games
• Global roaming

Disadvantages of 3G systems

• Expensive spectrum licenses

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• Costly infrastructure, equipments and implementation
• Higher bandwidth requirements to support higher data rate
• Costly mobile devices
•
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Compatibility with older generation 2G system and frequency bands
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4G – Fourth generation communication system:
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• 4G systems are enhanced version of 3G networks developed by IEEE, offers higher data rate
and capable to handle more advanced multimedia services.
• LTE and LTE advanced wireless technology used in 4th generation systems.
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• Furthermore, it has compatibility with previous version thus easier deployment and upgrade of
LTE and LTE advanced networks are possible.
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• Simultaneous transmission of voice and data is possible with LTE system which significantly
improve data rate.
• All services including voice services can be transmitted over IP packets. Complex modulation
schemes and carrier aggregation is used to multiply uplink / downlink capacity.

The following are some possible features of the 4G systems :

1. Support interactive multimedia, voice, video, wireless internet and other broadband services.
2. High speed, high capacity and low cost per bit.
3. Global mobility, service portability, scalable mobile networks.
4. Seamless switching, variety of services based on Quality of Service (QoS) requirements
5. Better scheduling and call admission control techniques.
6. Ad hoc networks and multi-hop networks.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

Key features of 5G are given below :

• 5G has better coverage area and high data rate at the edge of the cell.
• It has low battery consumption.
• Availability of multiple data transfer rate.
• Around 1 Gbps data rate is easily possible.
• Security is more.
• Energy efficiency and spectral efficiency are good.
• The latency of only one millisecond; remember that latency is the time it takes to go the
information from origin to destination, which will allow a noticeable improvement in
communication.

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• 100% coverage for which it will be necessary to make million-dollar investments at the
physical infrastructure level
• It will have a bandwidth of 1,000 per unit area
• An IoT device will have a 10-year low power life
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It will have high-speed, depending on the device, up to 10 GB per second
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• Reduce energy consumption in the network by up to 90%
• It will increase the number of devices connected from 10 to 100x which is calculated in an
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average of 50,000 million connected devices simultaneously

• 99% network availability
• The 5G networks will use the security standards SE, HSM, OTA, and KMS in order that the
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information sent will not be attacked.

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Disadvantages :

• Technology is still under process and research on its viability is going on.
• The speed of this technology is claiming seems difficult to achieve.
• Developing infrastructure needs high cost.
• Many of the old devices would not be competent to 5G.

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GSM and Its Evolution

• In 1982, many European countries came together to develop and standardize a
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pan-European system for mobile services.

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• The group was called the Groupe Sp´ecial Mobile (GSM) and their main aim was to develop
a system that could deliver inexpensive wireless voice services across all of Europe.
• By 1989, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) took over the
development of the GSM standard and the first version, called GSM Phase I, was released
in 1990.
• GSM quickly gained acceptance beyond Europe and the standard was
appropriately renamed as the Global Systemfor Mobile Communications.
• The GSM air-interface is based on a TDMA scheme where eight users are multiplexed on a
single 200kHz wide frequency channel by assigning different time slots to each user.
• GSM employed Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK- variant of FSK) modulation
technique due to its constant envelope providing good power and spectral efficiency

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 Wireless Communication Systems
characteristics.
• Besides voice and SMS, the original GSM standard also supported circuit-switched
data at 9.6kbps.
• By the mid-1990s, ETSI introduced the GSM Packet Radio Systems (GPRS-General Packet
Radio Service) as an evolutionary step for GSM systems toward higher data rates.
• GPRS and GSM systems share the same frequency bands, time slots, and signaling
links.
• GPRS defined four different channel coding schemes supporting 8kbps to 20kbps
per slot.

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The original GSM architecture had two sub-components:

Base Station Subsystem (BSS): This is comprised of the base-station transceiver (BTS) units
that the mobile stations (MS) connect with over the air-interface and the base station controller
(BSC), which manages and aggregates traffic from several BTSs for transport to the switching
core, and manages mobility across BTSs connected directly to them.

Network Switching Sub-system (NSS): This is comprised of the Mobile Switching Center
(MSC) and subscriber data bases. The MSC provides the required switching to connect the calling
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 Wireless Communication Systems
party with the called party and is interconnected with the Public Switched Telephone Network
(PSTN). The MSC uses the Home Location Register (HLR) and Visitor Location Register (VLR)
to determine the location of mobile subscribers for call control purposes.

• A GSM system may be upgraded to a GPRS system by introducing new elements, such as
the Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN), and
upgrading existing network elements such as the BTS with a packet control unit (PCU) for
handling data.

• SGSN provides location and mobility management and may be thought of as the packet data
equivalent of MSC.

• GGSN provides the IP access router functionality and connects the GPRS network
to the Internet and other IP networks.

• The GSM standard got a further boost in its data handling capabilities with the

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introduction of Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution, or EDGE, in the 1997.

• EDGE added support for 8PSK modulation to boost the data rate. This allowed for a
maximum per slot data rate of 59.2kbps—a three-fold increase from GPRS speeds.
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Typical user rates for EDGE varied from 80 to 120kbps.
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Key Enabling Technologies and Features of LTE:

Following are the key enabling technologies used in the LTE design to meet its service and
performance.
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1. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)

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2. SC-FDE and SC-FDMA

3. Channel Dependent Multi-user Resource Scheduling
4. Multiantenna Techniques
5. IP-Based Flat Network Architecture.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM):

➢ Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a method
of digital signal modulation in which a single data stream is split across several
separate narrowband channels at different frequencies to reduce interference and crosstalk.
➢ OFDM is a special form of the frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) multicarrier
modulation technique. In multicarrier systems, the information to be transmitted is split into
multiple smaller chunks and transmitted independently.
➢ One of the key differences between existing 3G systems and LTE is the use of Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) as the underlying modulation technology.

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➢ Widely deployed 3G systems such as UMTS and CDMA2000 are based on Code Division
Multiple Access (CDMA) technology.
➢ CDMA works by spreading a narrow band signal over a wider bandwidth to achieve
interference resistance, and performs remarkably well for low data rate communications such
as voice, where a large number of users can be multiplexed to achieve high system capacity.
➢ However, for high-speed applications, CDMA becomes untenable due to the large bandwidth
needed to achieve useful amounts of spreading.
➢ OFDM has emerged as a technology to achieve high data rates.
➢ It is the core technology used by a variety of systems including Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

The following advantages of OFDM led to its selection for LTE:

(a). Elegant solution to multipath interference:

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• The critical challenge to high bit-rate transmissions in a wireless channel is inter symbol
interference caused by multipath.
• In a multipath environment, when the time delay between the various signal paths is a

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significant fraction of the transmitted signal’s symbol period, a transmitted symbol may
arrive at the receiver during the next symbol and cause inter symbol interference (ISI).
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• At high data rates, the symbol time is shorter; hence, it only takes a small delay to cause ISI,
making it a bigger challenge for broadband wireless.
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• OFDM is a multicarrier modulation technique that overcomes this challenge in an elegant

manner.
• ISI can be completely eliminated. Adding a guard interval, however, implies power
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wastage and a decrease in bandwidth efficiency.

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(b) Reduced computational complexity:

• OFDM can be easily implemented using Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT/IFFT), and the
computational requirements grow complexity of OFDM can be shown to be
O(BlogBTm), where B is the bandwidth and Tm is the delay spread.
• This complexity is much lower than that of a time domain equalizer-based system—the
traditional means for combating multipath interference—which has a complexity of
O(B2Tm).
• Reduced complexity is particularly attractive in the downlink as it simplifies receiver
processing and thus reduces mobile device cost and power consumption.

( c) Graceful degradation of performance under excess delay:

• The performance of an OFDM system degrades gracefully as the delay spread exceeds the
value designed for.
• Greater coding and low constellation sizes can be used to provide fallback rates that are
significantly more robust against delay spread.
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• In other words, OFDM is well suited for adaptive modulation and coding, which allows the
system to make the best of the available channel conditions.

(d). Exploitation of frequency diversity:

• OFDM also allows for the channel bandwidth to be scalable without impacting the
hardware design of the base station and the mobile station.
• This allows LTE to be deployed in a variety of spectrum allocations and different channel
bandwidths.
(e) Enables efficient multi-access scheme:
• OFDM can be used as a multi-access scheme by partitioning different subcarriers among
multiple users.
• OFDMA offers the ability to provide fine granularity in channel allocation, which can be
exploited to achieve significant capacity improvements, particularly in slow time-varying

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channels.

(f).Robust against narrowband interference:

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• OFDM is relatively robust against narrowband interference, since such interference affects
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only a fraction of the subcarriers.
(g) Suitable for coherent demodulation:
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• It is relatively easy to do pilot-based channel estimation in OFDM systems, which renders

them suitable for coherent demodulation schemes that are more power efficient.
(h).Facilitates use of MIMO:
• MIMO stands for multiple inputs multiple outputs and refers to a collection of signal
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processing techniques that use multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to
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improve system performance.

• For MIMO techniques to be effective, it is required that the channel conditions are such
that the multipath delays do not cause inter symbol interference—in other words, the
channel has to be a flat fading channel and not a frequency selective one.
• MIMO and OFDM have already been combined effectively in Wi-Fi and WiMAX
systems.

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(i) Efficient support of broadcast services:

• By synchronizing base stations to timing errors well within the OFDM guard interval, it is
possible to operate an OFDM network as a single frequency network (SFN).
• This allows broadcast signals from different cells to combine over the air to significantly
enhance the received signal power, thereby enabling higher data rate broadcast
transmissions for a given transmit power.
• LTE design leverages this OFDM capability to improve efficient broadcast services.

2.1. SC-FDE and SC-FDMA

•

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To keep the cost down and the battery life up, LTE incorporated a power efficient
transmission scheme for the uplink.
• Single Carrier Frequency Domain Equalization (SC-FDE) is conceptually similar to OFDM
but instead of transmitting the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) of the actual data
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symbols, the data symbols are sent as a sequence of QAM symbols with a cyclic prefix
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added; the IFFT is added at the end of the receiver.
• SC-FDE retains all the advantages of OFDM such as multipath resistance and low
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complexity, while having a low peak-to-average ratio of 4-5dB.

• The uplink of LTE implements a multi-user version of SC-FDE, called SC-FDMA, which
allows multiple users to use parts of the frequency spectrum. SC-FDMA closely resembles
OFDMA and can in fact be thought of as “DFT precoded OFDMA.” SC-FDMA also
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preserves the PAR properties of SC-FDE but increases the complexity of the transmitter and
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the receiver.

2.2. Channel Dependent Multi-user Resource Scheduling

• The OFDMA scheme used in LTE provides enormous flexibility in how channel resources
are allocated.
• OFDMA allows for allocation in both time and frequency and it is possible to design
algorithms to allocate resources in a flexible and dynamic manner to meet arbitrary
throughput, delay, and other requirements.
• It supports dynamic, channel-dependent scheduling to enhance overall system capacity.
• It is possible to allocate subscribers among the users to increase the system capacity this
technique is called frequency selective multiuser scheduling.

2.3. Multiantenna Techniques:

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 Wireless Communication Systems
The LTE standard provides extensive support for implementing advanced multi antenna solutions
to improve link robustness, system capacity, and spectral efficiency.

Multi antenna techniques supported in LTE include:

(a) Transmit diversity:

• This is a technique to avoid multipath fading in the wireless channel.
• The idea here is to send copies of the same signal, coded differently, over
multiple transmit antennas.
• Transmit diversity is primarily intended for common downlink channels that cannot make
use of channel-dependent scheduling.
• It can also be applied to user transmissions such as low data rate VoIP

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• Transmit diversity increases system capacity and cell range.
(b) Beamforming:
• Multiple antennas in LTE may also be used to transmit the same signal appropriately
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weighted for each antenna element. So that it improve the received signal-to-interference
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ratio.
• Beamforming can provide significant improvements in coverage range, capacity,
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reliability, and battery life.

• It can also be useful in providing angular information for user tracking.
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(c) Spatial multiplexing:

• The idea behind spatial multiplexing is that multiple independent streams can be transmitted
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in parallel over multiple antennas and can be separated at the receiver using multiple receive
chains through appropriate signal processing.
• This can be done as long as the multipath channels as seen by the different antennas are
sufficiently de correlated as would be the case in a scattering
• LTE standard supports spatial multiplexing with up to four transmits antennas and four
receiver antennas.

(d) Multi-user MIMO:

• However, multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), which allows multiple users in the uplink, each
with a single antenna, to transmit using the same frequency and time resource, is supported.
• The signals from the different MU-MIMO users are separated at the base station receiver
using accurate channel state information of each user obtained through uplink reference
signals that are orthogonal between users.

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2.4. IP-Based Flat Network Architecture

• Figure shows how the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network architecture
evolved over a few releases.
• 3GPP Release 6 architecture, which is conceptually very similar to its predecessors,
has four network elements in the data path:
1. Base station or Node-B,
2. Radio Network Controller (RNC),
3. Serving GPRS service node (SGSN),
4. Gateway GRPS service node(GGSN)
• Release 7 introduced a direct tunnel option from the RNC to GGSN, which eliminated
SGSN from the data path.
• LTE on the other hand, will have only two network elements in the data path:

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the enhanced Node-B or eNode-B, and a System Architecture Evolution Gateway (SAE-
GW).
• Unlike all previous cellular systems, LTE merges the base station and radio network
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controller functionality into a single unit.
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The control path includes a functional entity called the Mobility Management Entity (MME),
which provides control plane functions related to subscriber, mobility, and session
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management.
• The MME and SAE-GW could be collocated in a single entity called the access gateway (a-
GW).
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C
Base station Transceiver System (BTS):
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• A base transceiver station (BTS) is a piece of equipment that
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facilitates wireless communication between user equipment (UE) and a network.

• It interface to Mobile Station (MS)
• It contains transmitter and Receiver
• It has a power amplifier, RF amplifiers, and array of omni directional antennas.
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• It txt and Rx signal from MS to Base station over two separate frequency.
• Contains 3- transceiver to serve cell site with 120 degree coverage.
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Base Station Controller (BSC):

• Supervise the operation of the BTS

• Hand-off
• Channel assignment to MS via BTS
Serving GPRS support node (SGSN):

• The Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN)]is the node that is serving the MS/UE.
• The SGSN supports GPRS and/or UMTS.
• The SGSN keeps track of the location of an individual MS/UE and performs security functions
and access control.
• A SGSN is responsible for the delivery of data packets from and to the mobile stations within
its geographical service area.

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• Its tasks include packet routing and transfer, mobility management (attach/detach and location
management), logical link management, and authentication and charging functions.
• The location register of the SGSN stores location information (e.g., current cell(HLR), current
VLR) and user profiles (e.g., IMSI, address (es) used in the packet data network) of all GPRS
users registered with it.

Common SGSN function:

• Carry out mobility management when a standby mode mobile moves from one routing area to
another routing area
• Billing a user according to data used.
• Mobile Equipment Identity Check Procedure.

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Gateway GPRS support node (GGSN):

• The gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) is one of two components of the GPRS PS domain.
• The GGSN together with the SGSN handle packet transmissions between the GPRS network
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and external packet switched networks, such as the Internet.
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• The GGSN converts the GPRS packets coming from the SGSN into the appropriate packet
data protocol (PDP) format (e.g., IP ) and sends them out on the corresponding packet data
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network.
• In the other direction, PDP addresses of incoming data packets are converted to the GSM
address of the destination user.
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• The GGSN is responsible for IP address assignment and is the default router for the connected
user equipment (UE). The GGSN also performs authentication and charging functions.
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• Other functions include subscriber screening, IP pool management and address mapping,
QoS and PDP context enforcement.

SAE-GW:

• System Architecture Evolution (SAE) is new network architecture designed to simplify LTE
networks and establish a flat architecture similar to other IP based communications networks.
• SAE uses an eNB and Access Gateway (aGW) and removes the RNC and SGSN from the
equivalent 3G network architecture to create a simpler mobile network.
• This allows the network to be built with an “All-IP” based network architecture.
• SAE also includes entities to allow full inter-working with other related wireless technology
(WCDMA, WiMAX, WLAN, etc.).

MME (Mobility Management Entity)

• The MME is the key control-node for the LTE access-network.

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• It is responsible for idle mode UE (User Equipment) paging and tagging procedure including
retransmissions.
• It is involved in the bearer activation/deactivation process and is also responsible for choosing
the SGW for a UE at the initial attach and at time of intra-LTE handover involving Core
Network (CN) node relocation.
• It checks the authorization of the UE to camp on the service provider's Public Land Mobile
Network (PLMN) and enforces UE roaming restrictions.
• The MME also provides the control plane function for mobility between LTE and 2G/3G
access networks with the S3 interface terminating at the MME from the SGSN.

Node B is the telecommunications node in particular mobile communication networks, namely

those that adhere to the UMTS standard. The Node B provides the connection between mobile

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phones and the wider telephone network. UMTS is the dominating 3G standard.

3. LTE Network Architecture:

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• As already mentioned, the core network design presented in 3GPP Release 8 to support LTE
is called the Evolved Packet Core (EPC).
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• EPC is designed to provide a high capacity, all IP, reduced latency, flat architecture that
dramatically reduces cost and supports advanced real-time and media-rich services with
enhanced quality of experience.
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• It is designed not only to support new radio access networks such as LTE, but also provide
interworking with legacy 2G GERAN and 3G UTRAN networks connected via SGSN.
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• Functions provided by the EPC include access control, packet routing and transfer, mobility
management, security, radio resource management, and network management.

The EPC includes four new elements:

(1) Serving Gateway (SGW), which terminates the interface toward the 3GPP radio access
networks;
(2) Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW), which controls IP data services, does routing,
allocates IP addresses, enforces policy, and provides access for non-3GPP access networks;
(3) Mobility Management Entity (MME), which supports user equipment context and
identity as well as authenticates and authorizes users;
(4) Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), which manages QoS aspects.

A brief description of each of the four new elements is provided here:

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 Wireless Communication Systems
Serving Gateway (SGW):
• The SGW acts as a demarcation point between the RAN and core network, and manages user
plane mobility.
• It serves as the mobility anchor when terminals move across areas served by different eNode-
B elements in E-UTRAN, as well as across other 3GPP radio networks such as GERAN and
UTRAN.
• Other functions include lawful interception, packet routing and forwarding, transport level
packet marking in the uplink and the downlink, accounting support for per user, and inter-
operator charging.
Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW):
• The PGW acts as the termination point of the EPC toward other Packet Data Networks (PDN)
such as the Internet, private IP network, or the IMS network providing end-user services.
• It serves as an anchor point for sessions toward external PDN and provides functions such

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as user IP address allocation, policy enforcement, packet filtering, and charging support.
Mobility Management Entity (MME):
• The MME performs the signaling and control functions to manage the user terminal access
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to network connections, assignment of network resources, and mobility management
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function such as idle mode location tracking, paging, roaming, and handovers.
• MME controls all control plane functions related to subscriber and session management.
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The MME provides security functions such as providing temporary identities for user
terminals, interacting with Home Subscriber Server (HSS) for authentication, and
negotiation of ciphering and integrity protection algorithms.
• It is also responsible for selecting the appropriate serving and PDN gateways, and selecting
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legacy gateways for handovers

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• It should be noted that an MME manages thousands of eNode-B elements, which is one of
the key differences from 2G or 3G platforms using RNC and SGSN platforms.

Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF):

• The Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is a concatenation of Policy Decision
Function (PDF) and Charging Rules Function (CRF).
• The PCRF interfaces with the PDN gateway and supports service data flow detection, policy
enforcement, and flow-based charging.
• PCRF functionality to include support for non-3GPP access (e.g., Wi-Fi or fixed line access)
to the network.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

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Frequency Domain Multiple Accesses
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4.1 Multiple Access for OFDM Systems

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4.1.1 Multiple Access Overview

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• Multiple-access strategies typically attempt to provide orthogonal, that is, non-interfering,

communication channels for each active base station–subscriber link.
• The most common ways to divide the available dimensions among the multiple users is
through the use of frequency, time, or code division multiplexing.
• In Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), each user receives a unique carrier
frequency and bandwidth.
• In Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), each user is given a unique time slot, either on
demand or in a fixed rotation.
• Orthogonal Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems allow each user to share the
bandwidth and time slots with many other users, and rely on orthogonal or nearly
orthogonal binary codes to separate out the users.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

4.1.2 Random Access vs. Multiple Access

• In random access, users contend for the channel, rather than being allocated a reserved time,
frequency, or code resource. Well-known random access techniques include ALOHA and
slotted ALOHA, as well as CSMA.
• In ALOHA, users simply transmit packets at will without regard to other users. If the packet
is not acknowledged by the receiver after some period, it is assumed lost and is retransmitted.
• this scheme becomes increasingly inefficient and delay prone as the intensity of the traffic
increases, as many transmissions result in collisions and hence retransmissions.
• Slotted ALOHA improves on this by about a factor of two since users transmit on specified
time boundaries, and hence collisions are about half as likely.
• CSMA improves upon ALOHA and slotted ALOHA through carrier sensing, in which users

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“listen” to the channel before transmitting in order to avoid collisions whenever possible.
• Numerous contention algorithms have been developed for CSMA systems; the most well
known includes the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) of 802.11

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• In which users wait for a random amount of time after the channel is clear before
transmitting in order to reduce the probability of two stations transmitting immediately after
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the channel becomes available.
• Although the theoretical efficiency of CSMA is often around 60–70%, in wireless LANs the
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efficiency is often empirically observed to be less than 50%, even when there is only a single
user.
• Because random access tends to be inefficient, systems sophisticated enough to have
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frequency and especially code slots generally opt for coordinated multiple access, rather than
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random access.
• Although FDMA and TDMA are certainly more efficient than CSMA when all users have
packets to send, wasted (unused) frequency and time slots in FDMA and TDMA can also
bring down the efficiency considerably.
• In fact, around half the bandwidth is typically wasted in TDMA and FDMA voice systems,
which is one major reason that CDMA has proven so successful for voice.

4.1.3 Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDM-FDMA)

• Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) can be implemented in OFDM systems by

assigning different users their own sets of subcarriers.
• The simplest method is a static allocation of subcarriers to each user, as shown on the left of
Figure 4.1
• For example, in a 64-subcarrier OFDM system, user 1 could take subcarriers 1–16, with
users 2, 3, and 4 using subcarriers 17–32, 33–48, and 49–64, respectively.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

• The allocations are enforced with a multiplexer for the various users before the IFFT
operation.
• There could also be uneven allocations with high data rate users being allocated more
subcarriers than lower rate users.
• An improvement upon static allocation made possible in LTE is dynamic subcarrier
allocation based upon channel state conditions.

4.1.4 Time Division Multiple Access (OFDM-TDMA)

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• All wireless TDMA systems employ both FDMA and TDMA at some level since the
electromagnetic spectrum must be shared with many other users and systems.
• In an OFDM cellular system, some degree of TDMA is essential since there will generally
be more users in the system than can be simultaneously carried on a single OFDM symbol.
• Static TDMA is shown on the right of Figure 4.1. Such a static TDMA methodology is
appropriate for constant data-rate (i.e., circuit-switched) applications like voice and
streaming video.
• But in general, a packet-based system like LTE can employ more sophisticated scheduling
algorithms based on queue-lengths, channel conditions, and delay constraints to achieve
much better performance than static TDMA.

• In the context of a packet-based system, static TDMA is often called round robin scheduling:
each user simply waits for their pre-determined turn and then transmits.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

4.1.5 Code Division Multiple Access (OFDM-CDMA or MC-CDMA)

• CDMA is the dominant multiple access technique for 3G cellular systems, at least as of 2009.
• But is not particularly appropriate for high-speed data since the entire premise of CDMA is
that a bandwidth much larger than the data rate is used to suppress the interference (Figure
4.2).
• In wireless broadband networks the data rates already are very large, so spreading the
spectrum further is not viable.
• CDMA broadband standards such as HSDPA and 1xEVDO3 have very small spreading
factors and/or allow each user to employ multiple codes at the same time.
• OFDM and CDMA are not fundamentally incompatible; they can be combined to create a

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Multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) waveform.
• It is possible to use spread spectrum signaling and to separate users by codes in OFDM by
spreading in either the time or frequency domain.

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• Time domain spreading entails each subcarrier transmitting the same data symbol on several
consecutive OFDM symbols, that is, the data symbol is multiplied by a length N code
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sequence and then sent on a specific subcarrier for the next N OFDM symbols.
• Frequency domain spreading, which generally has slightly better performance than time
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domain spreading, entails each data symbol being sent simultaneously on N different
subcarriers.
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 Wireless Communication Systems

4.2 Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

• OFDMA systems allocate subscribers time-frequency slices (in LTE, “resource grids”)
consisting of M subcarriers over some number of consecutive OFDM symbols in time (in
LTE, most commonly seven).
• The M subcarriers can either be
1) spread out over the band, often called a “distributed,” “comb,” or “diversity” allocation.
2) Bunched together in M contiguous subcarriers, which is often called a “band AMC,”
“localized,” or “grouped” cluster.

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4.2.2 OFDMA: How It Works

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 Wireless Communication Systems

• The basic flow is very similar to an OFDM system except for now K users share the L
subcarriers, with each user being allocated Mk subcarriers.
• theory it is possible to have users share subcarriers, this never occurs in practice, so
and each subcarrier only has one user assigned to it.
• At each receiver, the user cares only about its own Mk subcarriers, but still has to apply an L
point FFT to the received digital waveform in order to extract the desired subset of
subcarriers.
• The receiver has to know which time-frequency resources it has been allocated in order to
extract the correct subcarriers.
• An OFDMA downlink receiver must mostly demodulate the entire waveform, which waste
power.

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• But Digital separation of users is simple to enforce at the receiver and the amount of residual
inter user interference is very low compared to either CDMA or conventional FDMA where
analog filters must be used to separate the users.

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 Wireless Communication Systems

• The transmitter modulates user k’s bits over just the Mk subcarriers of interest: in this case,
we have chosen Mk = M for all users, and shown user 1 occupying subcarriers 1, 2, ··· , M
of the L total subcarriers.
• All the users’ signals collide at the receiver’s antenna, and are collectively demodulated
using the receiver’s FFT.
• Assuming each subcarrier has only a single user on it, the demodulated subcarriers can be
de-mapped to the detectors for each of the K served users.
• uplink OFDMA is considerably more challenging than downlink OFDMA since the uplink
is naturally asynchronous, that is the users’ signals arrive at the receiver offset slightly in
time (and frequency) from each other.
• In LTE the uplink multiaccess scheme uses only the localized subcarrier mode due to the

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SC-FDMA nature of the uplink.
• In this case, the lack of perfect frequency and time synchronization between the multiple
users leads to some inter-carrier interference but this is limited only to the subcarriers at the
edge of the transmission band of each user.
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• A higher level view of OFDMA can be seen in Figure 4.7. Here, a base station is transmitting
a band AMC-type OFDMA waveform to four different devices simultaneously.
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 Wireless Communication Systems
• The three arrows for each user indicate the signalling that must happen in order for band
AMC-type OFDMA to work.
• First, the mobiles measure and feed back the quality of their channel, or channel state
information (CSI) to the base station.
• The base station would then allocate subcarriers to the four users and send that subcarrier
allocation information to the four users in an overhead message.
• Finally, the actual data is transmitted over the subcarriers assigned to each user. Here, it can
be seen that the base station was successful in assigning each user a portion of the spectrum
where it had a relatively strong signal

4.2.3 OFDMA Advantages and Disadvantages

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• The advantages of single-user OFDM in terms of robust multipath suppression, relatively
low complexity, and the creation of frequency diversity.
• OFDMA is a flexible multiple access technique that can accommodate many users with
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widely varying applications, data rates, and QoS requirements.
• Because the multiple access is performed in the digital domain (before the IFFT operation),
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dynamic, flexible, and efficient bandwidth allocation is possible.
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• Lower data rates (such as voice) and bursty data are handled much more efficiently in
OFDMA than in single-user OFDM (i.e., OFDM-TDMA) or with CSMA.
• Take the first case, voice, as an example. If OFDMA was not used, each downlink user would
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receive a very high rate signal for a very short period of time—especially in channels with a
large bandwidth such as 10 or 20MHz—and then be dormant for a relatively long time.
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• This would require the receiver to quickly process a large amount of data, and could have
bad latency and jitter properties as voice decompressor (vocoder) would frequently have to
wait for a while before new decoded bits were available.

4.3 Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access.

4.3.1 SC-FDMA: How It Works

• An SC-FDMA uplink transmitter is shown in Figure 4.8. Clearly, this is very similar to the
OFDMA uplink transmitter in Figure 4.5, the only difference being that the user’s Mk
complex symbols are pre-processed with an FFT of size Mk.
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 Wireless Communication Systems
• Let us refer to these time-domain complex symbols as x[n]. In LTE, Mk is related to the
number of resource blocks allocated to the user k for its uplink transmission.
• The FFT operation creates a frequency domain version of the signal X[m] = FFT(x[n]).
• So that when the L point IFFT is applied later, the time-domain outputs of the IFFT
correspond to an oversampled and phase-shifted version of the original time-domain signal
x[n].
• x[n] is oversampled by a factor of L/M and experiences a phase shift that depends on which
inputs to the IFFT are used. Although L/M is not required to be an integer.
• The SC-FDMA uplink receiver is shown in Figure 4.9. Clearly, this is also very similar to
the OFDMA uplink receiver of Figure 4.6, the difference is for each user’s Mk “subcarriers,”
an additional small IFFT must be applied prior to detection to bring the received data back
into the time domain.

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4.3.2 SC-FDMA Advantages and Disadvantages

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• The rationale for SC-FDMA is twofold. First, the key advantage of OFDMA is preserved:
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only part of the frequency spectrum is used by any one user at a time.
• The second rationale is that the PAR of SC-FDMA is significantly lower than OFDMA.
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• Because the transmitted SC-FDMA signal for each user is simply an oversampled single-
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carrier signal, the PAR is about the same as for the corresponding single-carrier signal.
• The tradeoffs between SC-FDMA and OFDMA are also closely related to the tradeoffs SC-
FDE faces versus OFDM.
• SC-FDMA can experience more spectral leakage than OFDMA, and achieve frequency
diversity differently, leading to slight differences in performance.
• On the complexity side, unlike SC-FDE, which had very favorable complexity for the uplink
due to its simple transmitter.

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 Wireless Communication Systems
• SC-FDMA has a complexity disadvantage versus OFDMA in both the transmitter and
receiver as an additional FFT of size Mk has to be performed for each user at the transmitter
and receiver.

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