1789-02 Channel Configuration
1789-02 Channel Configuration
1789-02 Channel Configuration
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Channel Configuration
Objectives
Contents
4 Exercises
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On the radio interface Um two subbands for the BTS-MS duplex connection are specified:
Uplink UL MS-BTS
Downlink DL BTS-MS
The radio frequency channel spacing in 200 kHz, allowing 124 RFC in P-GSM, 174 RFC in E-GSM, 374 in
DCS, 20 RFC in GSM-R and 299 in PCS1900.
Within the database or within the protocol messages a carrier frequency is characterized by its absolute radio
frequency channel number (ARFCN).
Using the abbreviation n = ARFCN, there is the following relation between ARFCN and the frequency in MHz
in the uplink Fu [MHz] and the downlink Fd [MHz].
E-GSM 960 Fu(n) = 890 + 0.2 n 0< n < 124 Fd(n) = Fu(n) + 45
Fu(n) = 890 + 0.2 x (n -1024) 975 < n < 1023
DCS1800 Fu(n) = 1710.2 + 0.2 x (n -512) 512 < n < 885 Fd(n) = Fu(n) + 95
GSM-R Fu(n) = 876.2 + 0.2 x (n -955) 955 < n < 974 Fd(n) = Fu(n) + 45
PCS1900 Fu(n) = 1850.2 + 0.2 x (n -512) 512 < n < 810 Fd(n) = Fu(n) + 80
Fig. 1
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(880) 890 Mhz 915 Mhz (925) 935 Mhz 960 Mhz GSM 900
1710 MHz 1785 MHz 1805 MHz 1880 MHz DCS 1800
UPLINK (UL) DOWNLINK (DL)
Transmit band of the Transmit band of the base
mobile station station
C C
C C C 124 C C C 124’
1 2 3 (174) 1’ 2’ 3’ (174’)
374 374
512...............885 975....1024
01...............124
DCS1800 GSM900 ARFCN
(Absolute RF channel number)
E-GSM900
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Each RFC offers 8 physical channels a time division multiplex access TDMA
4
3
2
1
0
7
6
5
4
3
2 Time
1
200 kHz 0 4,615 msec
= 8 577 µs
Fig. 3
The physical channels are subdivided into logical channels, divided in traffic channels and control channels
according GSM 04.03.
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Speech
Channels
(Full/Half)
Traffic
Channels TCH
Data
Channels
(Data Rate)
Logical
Channels
Broadcast
Control
Channel BCCH
Control Common
Channels CCH Control
Channel CCCH
Dedicated
Control
Channel DCCH
Fig. 4
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1 physical channel (time slot) can carry one of the following logical channel combinations:
b) TCH/H (0, 1) + FACCH/H (0, 1) + SACCH/H (0, 1) 2 half rate subscriber (speech or data)
c) FCCH + SCH + BCCH + CCCH uplink: 800 000 RACH slots per hour
downlink: 140 000 CCCH blocks per hour
d) FCCH + SCH + BCCH + CCCH uplink: 400 000 RACH slots per hour
downlink: 46 000 CCCH blocks per hour
+ SDCCH / 4 (0...3) + SACCH / 4 (0...3) + dedicated signaling channels for 4 subscribers
Fig. 8
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- 8 (SDCCH + SACCH)........................................................................................................SDCCH
- BCCH + CCCH...................................................................................................................CCCH
F S BCCH CCCH F S CCCH CCCH F S SDCCH0 SDCCH1 F S SDCCH2 SDCCH3 F S SACCH0 SACCH1 I
1. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
F S BCCH CCCH F S CCCH CCCH F S SDCCH0 SDCCH1 F S SDCCH2 SDCCH3 F S SACCH2 SACCH3 I
2. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
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26 frames = 120 ms
In a cell with 2 RFC there are more possibilities, depending on the used traffic model [SDCCH dimensioning],
for example:
or
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Introduction:
In a MOC, MTC, LU the MS has to request an SDCCH using the RACH. There is a time delay between the
request and the SDCCH allocation due to the traffic load. If there is a free SDCCH, it is allocated using the
AGCH. The SDCCH is used for the authentication, transmission of cipher parameters and call initialization.
Next a traffic channel is requested and allocated, if available. After this, the SDCCH is relaesed. The MS
acknowledges the allocation on the FACCH. The TCH with its FACCH and SACCH is occupied until the end
of the call. So the blocking probalility is a function of
· availability of SDCCH
· availability of TCH
2.1Dedicated Channels
If we evaluate a given traffic model, we find a certain traffic load per subscriber. Additionally we have to
calculate the SDCCH load per subsriber.
According to the traffic model given in chapter 1, there are four values to be considered:
At the following page an example for a channel configuration of a 2 carrier cells is given using the
assumptions above.
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Configuration A Configuration B
- 14 TCH
Fig. 11
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RACH
The RACH is used by the MS to request a dedicated channel, the SDCCH. The channel request needs one
RACH timeslot. The cause for the channel request can be a paging response in MTC, an emergency call, a
MOC, LU or IMSI attach/detach. According to the traffic model from chapter 1 there are about 4 RACH
activities per subscriber per hour.
The RACH is configured only uplink, his frequency corresponds to the downlink BCCH frequency. The
RACH may be combined with the uplink part of the SDCCH. In the combined case, the RACH is multiplexed
onto 27 timeslots 0 out of 51 of a BCCHcombined. These 27 RACH are spread over the multiframe as follows:
SSSSRRSSSSSSSSRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSRRSSSS
This gives the following capacities, the frame duration is 4.6 ms (period between two successive timeslots 0):
combined: 27/51 of all timeslots 0 => 400000 RACH slots per hour
uncombined: timeslot 0 => 800000 RACH slots per hour
uncombined: timeslot 0,2 => 1560000 RACH slots per hour (not in BR2.1)
uncombined: timeslot 0,2,4 => 2340000 RACH slots per hour (not in BR2.1)
uncombined: timelsot 0,2,4,6 => 3120000 RACH slots per hour (not in BR2.1)
In a cell with 5000 subscriber normally there are about 20 000 RACH activities per hour only !!
RACH busy threshold, defines a threshold for the signal level during the RACH bursts. The BTS measures
the signal level on each RACH timeslot and determines whether a channel request is successfully received or
not: If the received signal level is greater than or equal to the value of RACHBT then the RACH burst in
question will be indicated as busy (one or more mobile stations have tried to access the network). The purpose
of this parameter is to avoid unnecessary load on the BSS by normal noise signals being decoded as RACH
bursts (followed by seizure of SDCCH) by mistake. However, to be on the safe side the BTS does not only
evaluate the RACH level but additionally decodes the Synch sequence bits of the RACH burst.
Note: The value entered for this parameter is not only relevant for the CHANNEL REQUEST message on the
RACH but also for the HANDOVER ACCESS message on the FACCH!
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The MS recieves the RACH control parameters from the base station on the BCCH :
If a channel request is not acknowledged by the base station, the MS repeats the request until the given value
of MAXRETR.
· Number of slots to spread transmissions ( tx_integer ) NSLOTST = 0,..15 representing the real values
This value determines the time period between sending of two channel requests. This period is measured in
RACH slots and is the sum of a deterministic part td and a random part tr:
The random part tr is an integer between 1 and tx_integer where the probability of choosing a certain time slot
i is given by :
retransmission
td = 163 slots
Fig. 13
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IMMEDIATE
ASSIGNMENT
PROCEDURE
number of
retransmissions = 0
Send CHANNEL
REQUEST msg.
N Y
Select RACH slot for
next transmission, CELL
wait for grant RESELECTION
immediate Y
assignment
Y
Rejection
N
number of
N
retransmissions + 1
SDCCH WAIT
Allocation T3122
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The relative traffic load is the average number of initiated immediate assignment procedures or RACH
activities in a timeslot:
traffic load = total number of immediate assignment procedures / total number of RACH slots
The absolute number of RACH activities per hour is obtained by multiplying this relative load with the
number of RACH slots per hour.
Blocking
The blocking shows the percentage of not successful immediate assignment procedures initialized by the MS.
blocking [%] = (number of unsucc. imm. ass. proc. / total number of imm. ass. Proc. ) * 100
Throughput
The channel throughput is the average number of successful transmissions per time slot.
Wait Time
The wait time is the time between the initiation of the immediate assignment procedure and the arrival of the
immediate assignment message. For the waiting time it is useful to consider the 90% quantile of the wait time:
for 90% of the immediate assignment procedures, the wait time is less than the time t 90.
The blocking and the 90% (95%) quantile for different values of the RACH control parameters is shown in the
following tables for a combined RACH/SDCCH:
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The results of these studies show, that even the RACH minimal configuration (combined RACH/SDCCH is
able to serve 50000 RACH activities per hour at a low blocking (< 0.5%) with an acceptable wait time. An
uncombined RACH is able to serve twice the traffic load with the same grade of service. The minimum
blocking for the considered traffic load is achieved by the following setting of parameters: max_retrans = 7,
tx_integer = 50.
Though a combined RACH can serve the expected traffic load, another RACH configuration may have to be
choosen. The RACH is only the uplink part of the CCCH. The downlink parts (AGCH,PCH) may need a
higher capacity. Therefore, the configuration of CCCH is determined by the capacity needed by the downlink
channels, the RACH configuration is uncritical.
PCH / AGCH
The paging channel and the access grant channel share the same TDMA frame mapping (modulo 51) when
combined onto a basic physical channel. The channels are shared on a block by block basis. The information
within each block allows the MS to determine if it is a paging or an access grant message. Every paging
channel can be used by the system as access grant channel but it is not allowed to the system to use access
grant channels as paging channels. However, to ensure a mobile a satisfactory access to the system, there is a
control parameter to define a fixed number of access grant blocks in the 51 multiframe. The number of blocks
reserved for AGCH is broadcasted on the BCH. The number of available paging blocks is reduced by this
number.
Paging channels may be used as access grant channels but not vice versa. Therefore it is useful to set the
parameter BS_AG_BLKS_RES to the smallest value and let the system organize the use of channels. In case
of MOC more AGCH are needed, in case of MTC more PCH are needed. In average the number of MOC is
higher than the number of MTC. If the BS_AG_BLKS_RES value is set too high with the result of a PCH
shortage, a overload indication for the PCH may arise in high traffic time.
In GSM traffic model the paging per subsriber per hour is 0.93.
The second parameter to be set is called BS_PA_MFRMS ( value = 2..9, number of multiframes between
paging). It indicates the number of TDMA multiframes between transmission of paging messages to the same
paging subgroup. The MS gets the information on BCH, to which paging groups it should listen to. By this
way the MS can save battery because it only listens to its own paging group. If the value is too high so that the
time between two blocks of the same paging sub-channel is high, the time for setting up an MTC is high.
In a medium cell the common channel pattern on timeslot 0 on one of the TRX can use the following
combination downlink (in uplink all channels are used as RACH):
FSBBBBPPPPFSPPPPPPPPFSPPPPPPPPFSPPPPPPPPFSPPPPPPPP
F = FCCH
S = SCH
B = BCCH
P = PACH / AGCH
An example for the load and the servable number of subscribers is given the following pages:
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CCCH Load
random messages per hour: SUBSCR * (MTC_PR_ph + MOC_ph + LU_ph + IMSI_ph + SMS_ph)
access grant messages per hour: SUBSCR * (MTC_PR_ph + MOC_ph + LU_ph + IMSI_ph +
SMS_ph) / subscr_per_agch_message
MTC_ph mobile terminating calls per subscriber per hour (with and without paging response)
REPET mean number of repetitions of a paging message (no paging response to first paging)
MTC_PR_ph mobile terminating calls per subscriber per hour with paging response to first paging)
Fig. 17
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access grant messages per hour: SUBSCR * (MTC_PR_ph + MOC_ph + LU_ph + IMSI_ph +
SMS_ph) / subscr_per_agch_message
random messages per hour: SUBSCR * (MTC_PR_ph + MOC_ph + LU_ph + IMSI_ph + SMS_ph)
SUBSCR: ?
LA_size: 20
MTC_ph: 0.46
REPET: 1.33
MTC_PR_ph 0.30
MOC_ph 0.64
LU_ph 2.2
IMSI_ph 1.0
SMS_ph -
subscr_per_pag_message = 2
subscr_per_agch_message = 1.0
Fig. 18
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Fig. 19
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In a normal GSM standard cell the maximum MS-BTS distance is 35 km; this is the limit given by the
maximum TA (timing advance 0...63 bit) which is possible on one radio timeslot.
Distance calculation:
The feature ‘Extended Cells’ supports a larger distance between MS and BTS by using two subsequent radio
timeslots to compensate the longer delay of the bursts. The first timeslot of a double timeslot has always an
even number (0,2,4,6), the following corresponding channel must not be created.
For a double timeslot the maximum propagation delay can be 219 bit ( 120 km), but note that the maximum
distance which can be configured by O&M is 100 km.
When activating the SDCCH and later the TCH for that corresponding MS, the evaluated initial TA value
forms part of the layer 1 header downlink, the initial TO is used BTS-internally.
If the average of the deviation exceeds 1 bit period (48/13 µs) in comparison to the TA confirmed by the MS
(contained in every uplink SACCH header information), the previously ordered TA is
incremented/decremented by one and sent as new ordered TA in the layer 1 header downlink to MS. As
previously mentioned TA cannot exceed 63 bit. TO is used internally for processing further delay in case of
extended cells. Note that TO may only be greater then 0 when TA has the maximum value 63.
In extended cells all control and signalling channels must be defined in extended (double) mode.
Fig. 20
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4Exercises
The object in SBS configuration language specifying a RFC is called TRX (transceiver).
Take the UMN: BSC-CML (command list) for checking the input parameter required.
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Solutions
Exercise 1
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