Chapter Four

Public Switched Telephone

Network (PSTN)
And
Public Land Mobile
Networks (PLMN)

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 Public Switched
Telephone Network
(PSTN)

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 Lecture outlines

Public Switch Telephone Network(PSTN)

 Introduction.
 Evolution of PSTN.
 PSTN Networks and Network Elements.
 PSTN Transport Infrastructure.

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 Introductio
n
 The PSTN consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave
transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites,
and undersea telephone cables, all interconnected by switching
centers, thus allowing most telephones to communicate with each
other.

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 Evolution of the Telephone

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TN Networks and Network Elements.

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TN Networks and Network Elements ...

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 PSTN Architecture
 The PSTN includes a number of transmission links and nodes.
There are basically four types of nodes:
 CPE nodes
 Switching nodes
 Transmission nodes
 Service nodes.
 CPE nodes generally refer to the equipment that's located at the
customer site.
 Main function:
 to transmit and receive user information
 to exchange control information with the network

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 Switching nodes : interconnect transmission facilities at various
locations and route traffic through a network.
 The switching nodes include:
 The Local Exchange
 The Tandem Office
 The Toll Office
 The International Gateway

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 Public Land Mobile
Networks
(PLMN)
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 Lecture outlines
 Introduction
The cellular Concept
 Frequency reuse
 Handover
 GSM Overview and Services
 GSM Network Architecture
 Mechanisms to Support a Mobile Environment

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 Public Land Mobile Networks
(Cellular Networks)
Introduction
Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) refers to a cellular network that
has land and radio based sections.
 This network consists of:
 Mobile station (MS): A device used for communication over the
network.
•Base station transceiver (BST): A transmitter/receiver used to
transmit/receive signals over the network.
 Mobile switching center (MSC): Sets up and maintains calls made
over the network.
 Base station controller (BSC): Communication between a group of
BSTs and a single MSC is controlled by the BSC
 Public switched telephone network (PSTN): Section of the
network that is land based
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 Cellular network components

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 Cellular network components . . .
• BTS (Base Transceiver Station) – main component of a cell and
it connects the subscribers to the cellular network; for
transmission/reception of information it uses several antennas
spread across the cell.

• BSC (Base Station Controller) – it is an interface between

BTSs and it is linked to BTSs by cable or microwave links; it
routes calls between BTSs; it is also connected to the MSC.

• MSC (Mobile Switching Center) – the coordinator of a cellular

network, it is connected to several BSCs, it routes calls between
BSCs; links the cellular network with other networks like PSTN
through fiber optics, microwave or copper cable

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Components of a cellular phone (MSU – Mobile Subscriber Unit)

• Radio transceiver – low power radio transmitter and receiver

• Antenna, usually located inside the phone
• Control circuitry – formats the data sent to and from the BTS;
controls signal transmission and reception
• Man-machine interface – consists from a keypad and a
display; is managed by the control circuitry.
• Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) – integrated circuit card
that stores the identity information of subscriber
• Battery, usually Li-ion, the power unit of the phone

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The cellular Concept
Frequency Reuse
• Proposed by Bell Labs 1971
• Is a method used by service providers to improve the efficiency of
a cellular network and to serve millions of subscribers using a
limited radio spectrum
• Is based on the fact that after a distance a radio wave gets
attenuated and the signal falls bellow a point where it can no
longer be used or cause any interference
• a transmitter transmitting in a specific frequency range will have
only a limited coverage area
• beyond this coverage area, that frequency can be reused by
another transmitter

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 Cellular System - Architecture

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Telecommunication Networks by Solomon M.
 Cell Shape – Why
hexagon?
• The hexagonal shape is a simplistic assumption

(a) is theoretical coverage area and

(b) measured coverage area where red, blue, green, and yellow
indicate signal strength, in decreasing order
• Footprint: Actual radio coverage and obtained experimentally
• Actual shape is random and depends on the environment
• Circular : theoretical.
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 Cell Shape – Required

• Geometric shape that approximates

the theoretical shape?
• Shape whose non overlapping and
repetitive placement covers an entire
region?
• Possible shapes
• Triangles, squares, hexagons
• Which one to choose?
• Hexagon!

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 Cell Shape
• Hexagonal cell is conceptual, however, it is universally adopted
for most theoretical treatment because
• Hexagons are a geometric shape that approximates a circle
(for Omni-directional radiation)
• Using a hexagon geometry, fewest number of cells can cover the
entire geographic region
• When using hexagon to model coverage areas
• Center-excited cell: Base station (BS) depicted as being in the center of the cell
• Omni-directional antenna is used
• Edge-excited cell: on three of the six cell vertices
• Sectored direction antenna is used

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 Frequency Reuse
• Assume a city of 10 Million mobile users.
• Let every user is allocated a radio spectrum for analog speech of
4 kHz bandwidth.
• Thus the required bandwidth is 4 kHz * 10 Million users = 40 GHz!
• Clearly impractical!
• No other services possible using a radio transmission
• Most of the spectrum will be unused most of the time.
• Cellular radio systems rely on intelligent allocation and reuse of channels
through out the coverage area.
• Available group of channels are assigned to a cluster
• Same group of frequencies are reused to cover another cell separated by
a large enough distance, i.e., there is a tradeoff.
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 Frequency Reuse
Example
Example: Consider a
cluster of 7 cells
• Same color labeled
cells use the same
frequency
• Frequency reuse factor
is 1/7 since each cell
contains one-seventh
of the total available
channels.
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 Cell Capacity and
Reuse – Example-1
• Assume that:
• 50 MHz is available for forward channels
• GSM is deployed
• Each channel is 200 kHz
• In GSM, TDMA is used so that 8
simultaneous calls can be made on each
channel and N=4
• How large is the channel (K)?
• How many forward calls can be made
simultaneously for the deployment containing
28 cells as in the figure?

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 Cell Capacity and
Reuse - Example
Solution:
• There are 50 MHz / 0.2 MHz = 250 channels per cluster
• With N = 4, then k = 250/4 = 62.5
• With 62.5 channels, 8(62.5) = 500 simultaneous calls can be made
in each cell
• There are 28 cells on the cell map in Figure, so the total forward
calls is 28(500) = 14,000 calls can be made simultaneously

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 Cell Capacity and Reuse
– Example-2
• Suppose 33 MHz BW allocated to particular FDD cellular system, where two 25
KHz simplex channel to provide full duplex for voice/data
1. Compute the number of channels per cell if a system uses.
2. Assume 1 MHz of spectrum is allocated to control channels. Give a distribution
of voice and control channels. (Exercise).
• Four-cell reuse
• Seven-cell reuse
• Twelve-cell reuse
• Solution: Given that
• Total BW = 33 MHz, channel BW = 25 KHz x 2 = 50 KHz/duplex channel
• S = 33,000/50 = 660 channels
• For N = 4, k = 660 / 4 ≈ 165 channels
• For N = 7, k = 660 / 7 ≈ 95 channels
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Telecommunication Networks by Solomon M.
 Handoff
• The process of transferring a call, which is in progress from
one channel or BS to another is called handoff or handover
• Handoff is required when a MS moves into a different cell
• MSC facilitates the transfer
• In general, handoff involves
• Identifying the new BS
• Allocation of voice and control channels in the new BS
• Prioritize handoff requests over call initiation requests
when allocating unused channels in a cell site

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 Handoff Region –
Power Strength

• By looking at the variation of signal strength from either

base station, it is possible to decide on the optimum area
where handoff can take place

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 Handoff
• Handoffs must be performed
• Successfully
• As infrequently as possible, and
• Must be imperceptible to the user
• To meet these requirements, a minimum usable signal level must
be specified for acceptable voice quality at the base station
• If the received power drops too low prior to handoff, the call will be
dropped so that users complain about dropped calls.

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 GSM Overview
and Services
Development of Mobile
Telecommunication Systems

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 Development of Mobile
• Telecommunication Systems
1G: First generation wireless cellular: ...
Early 1980s
– Analog transmission, primarily speech: AMPS (Advanced
Mobile Phone Systems) and others .
• 2G: Second generation wireless cellular: Late 1980s
– Digital transmission
– Primarily speech and low bit-rate data (9.6 Kbps)
– High-tier: GSM, IS-95 (CDMA), etc
– Low-tier (PCS): Low-cost, low-power, low-mobility e.g. PACS
• 2.5G: 2G evolved to medium rate (< 100kbps) data
• 3G: Broadband multimedia
– 144 kbps - 384 kbps for high-mobility, high coverage
– 2 Mbps for low-mobility and low coverage
• Beyond 3G: there is 4G (>=20Mpbs)

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 Cellular Network Services

• voice communication
• Short Messaging Service (SMS)
• Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
• Global Positioning System (GPS)
• Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) – to access
the Internet
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 Architecture of the
GSM system
• Components
• MS: mobile station
• Mobile Equipment (ME)
• Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)

• BSS: base station subsystem

• Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
• Base Station Controller (BSC)

• Network Subsystem
• Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
• Home Location Register (HLR)
• Visitor Location Register (VLR)
• Authentication Center (AUC)
• Equipment Identity Register (EIR)

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 Architecture of the
GSM system . . .
• Subsystems
• RSS (Radio subsystem): covers all radio aspects
• Components: Base station subsystem + mobile station
• NSS (Network and switching subsystem): call forwarding,
handover, switching
• OSS (operation subsystem): management of the network
• Jointly forming a GSM network
• Multiple GSM networks can exist and interwork (run by providers)

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 Ingredients 1: Mobile
Phones

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 Ingredients 2: Antennas,
Basestations

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 Ingredients 3:
Infrastructure-1

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 Ingredients 3:
Infrastructure-2

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 Mobile Station (MS)
1. Mobile Equipment
– Portable, hand held device
– Uniquely identified by an IMEI (International Mobile Equipment
Identity)
– Voice and data transmission
– Power level : 0.8W – 20 W
– 160 character long SMS.

2. Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)

– Smart card contains the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI)
– Allows user to send and receive calls and receive other subscribed
services
– Protected by a password or PIN
– Can be moved from phone to phone – contains key information to
activate the phone

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 Base Station Subsystem (BSS)
1. Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
– Encodes, encrypts , multiplexes ,modulates and feeds
the RF signals to the antenna.
– Communicates with Mobile station and BSC
2. Base Station Controller (BSC)
– Assigns Frequency and time slots for all MS’s in its area
– Handles call set up
– It communicates with MSC and BTS

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 Network Switching Subsystem(NSS)
1. Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
• Heart of the network
• Manages communication between GSM and other networks
• Call setup function and basic switching
• Call routing
• Billing information and collection
• Mobility management

- Registration
- Location Updating
• MSC does gateway function while its customer roams to other network by
using HLR/VLR.

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 Network Switching Subsystem(NSS) . . .
2. Home Location Registers (HLR)

- permanent database about mobile subscribers in a large

service area (generally one per GSM network operator)
- database contains IMSI, prepaid/postpaid, roaming
restrictions, supplementary services.

3. Visitor Location Registers (VLR)

- Temporary database which updates whenever new MS

enters its area, by HLR database
- Controls those mobiles roaming in its area

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 Network Switching Subsystem(NSS) . . .
4. Authentication Center (AUC)
- Protects against intruders in air interface
- Maintains authentication keys and algorithms and
provides security.
- Generally associated with HLR

5. Equipment Identity Register (EIR)

- Database that is used to track handsets using the IMEI
(International Mobile Equipment Identity)
- Only one EIR per PLMN (public land mobile network )

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 GSM uplink/downlink frequency bands
used

• uplink and downlink take place in different time slots using TDMA
• uplink and downlink channels have a bandwidth of 25 MHz
• these channels are further split up in a 124 carrier frequencies (1 control channels
and the rest as traffic channels); each carrier frequency is spaced 200 KHz apart to
avoid interference
• these carrier frequencies are further divided by time using TDMA and each time slot
lasts for 0.577 ms.

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 GSM frequency bands – FDD
operation

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 End of
Slide
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