Cellular Technologies
Basic Network Design
Frequency Reuse and Planning
1. Cellular Technology enables mobile communication because
they use of a complex two-way radio system between the
mobile unit and the wireless network.
2. It uses radio frequencies (radio channels) over and over again
throughout a market with minimal interference, to serve a large
number of simultaneous conversations.
3. This concept is the central tenet to cellular design and is called
frequency reuse.
Frequency reuse
1. Repeatedly reusing radio frequencies over a geographical
area.
2. Most frequency reuse plans are produced in groups of seven
cells.
Frequency reuse
Note: Common frequencies are never contiguous i.e. in sequence
The security armed Border Patrol uses a similar scheme with Mobile Radio
Frequencies along the Southern border. By alternating frequencies between sectors,
all USBP offices can communicate on just two frequencies
Frequency reuse
1. There are numerous, seven cell, frequency reuse groups in each
cellular carriers Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or Rural Service
Areas (RSA).
2. Higher traffic cells will receive more radio channels according to
customer usage or subscriber density.
A frequency reuse plan is defined as how radio frequency (RF) engineers
subdivide and assign the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
allocated radio spectrum throughout the carriers market in US.
Frequency reuse
How Frequency Reuse Systems Work
In concept frequency reuse maximizes coverage area and
simultaneous conversation handling.
Cellular communication is made possible by the transmission of RF.
This is achieved by the use of a powerful antenna broadcasting the
signals.
If you have one powerful antenna you would be able to handle
conversations based on the number of channels you have available.
The first step necessary for frequency reuse is the cell system of the
network.
Frequency reuse
Each antenna in the various cells operate on the same RF that are assigned.
If your original antenna could handle 7 calls and you increased the number of
antennas by 10 , 70 simultaneous calls.
The concept goes beyond the number of antennas and deals with how the radio
frequency itself is used and reused.
Frequency reuse
1. Each cell has its own antenna and low power Base Station to handle
the traffic within it’s area.
2. Each Base Station is assigned frequencies with neighbouring base
Stations being assigned different frequencies.
3. Carriers are then able to reassign these frequencies to other areas
that are not too geographically close to the other Base Stations and
cells.
Frequency reuse
Consider your local radio station broadcast. As you travel further away
from the radio base it weakens until you lose the signal.
Now consider all the cars driving around you are listening are listening
to different stations.
The radio station would be the Base Station and the vehicles would be
the cells.
Frequency reuse
Distance to Reuse Ratio
1. The Distance to Reuse ratio defines how much geographical
distance is required between cells in a cell system to avoid and limit
interference.
2. The overall geographic size of cell base stations along with the
power of the antenna determine the distance to reuse ratio.
Frequency reuse
Distance to Reuse Ratio
1. What happens when I move about a cell coverage area or move into
another cell area?
2. Another requirement of the wireless system is frequency agility.
3. This is the ability of the mobile unit to operate on any given
frequency within their assigned spectrum.
4. This allows the mobile unit to switch from one channel to the
another seamlessly and allows for another an important component
of cellular technology –Call Hand Off
Frequency reuse
Call Handoff
1. Call handoff can best be described as the process of passing from
one Base Transceiver Station (BTS) to another while maintaining
connection to your network.
2. When you leave your particular network and move into another
network -the roaming process.
This is transparent to the user.
Frequency reuse
Call Handoff
1. Without Call Handoff, Frequency Reuse would not be possible and
vice versa.
2. The Mobile Switch Center (MSC) monitors the power levels of the
mobile units.
3. When the MSC detects the mobile unit power levels degrading it
seeks out other BTSs.
Base station coverage overlap with other cells in the area and it is this
overlapping that allows call handoff to occur.
Frequency reuse
Call Handoff
1.Base station coverage overlap with other cells in the area and it is
this overlapping that allows call handoff to occur.
2.This action is handled by a microprocessor at the MSC and is
seamless to the user.
3.This is a complex act that uses frequency synthesizers, the
controller, and memory functions within the wireless handset.
4.This is why cellular phones must have frequency agility or the ability
to change from one channel to another.
Frequency reuse
Wireless Network Design Maps
CRAN in Namibia requires the use of NSA geographical Survey maps in
the planning and development of the wireless network.
As it relates to planning it is important that all carriers use the same
maps to lend conformity to the planning process.
Since the BTS operates at specific power levels it is very important to
know where other towers are to avoid and/or minimize interference.
To minimise costs CRAN has implemented ‘infrastructure sharing’
amongst service providers
Frequency reuse
Hexagon Grid
The hexagon grid design is the predominant engineering design tool in
the wireless industry.
There are other design models configured in squares, circles,
octagons, etc. depending on the number of cell towers in the design.
The hexagon is used because it best represents and simulates the
seven towers overlapping of circles. Circles being the way radio
frequencies are depicted.
Frequency reuse
Hexagon Grid
The hexagon grid design is the predominant engineering design tool in
the wireless industry.
In viewing our hexagon grid we can see where frequencies overlap from one cell to
the other.
Frequency reuse: Hexagon Grid
Figure Illustration of the cellular frequency reuse concept. Cells with the same letter use the
same set of frequencies. A cell cluster is outlined in bold and replicated over the coverage
area. In this example, the cluster size, N, is equal to seven, and the frequency reuse factor is
1/7 since each cell contains one-seventh of the total number of available channels.
Cell structure
• Implements space division multiplex: base station covers a certain
transmission area (cell)
• Mobile stations communicate only via the base station
• Advantages of cell structures:
– higher capacity, higher number of users
– less transmission power needed
– more robust, decentralized
– base station deals with interference, transmission area etc. locally
• Problems:
– fixed network needed for the base stations
– handover (changing from one cell to another) necessary
– interference with other cells
• Cell sizes from some 100 m in cities to, e.g., 35 km on the country side
(GSM) - even less for higher frequencies
Frequency planning I
• Frequency reuse only with a certain distance between
the base stations
• Standard model using 7 frequencies:
f3
f5 f2
f4 f6 f5
f1 f4
f3 f7 f1
f2
• Fixed frequency assignment:
– certain frequencies are assigned to a certain cell
– problem: different traffic load in different cells
• Dynamic frequency assignment:
– base station chooses frequencies depending on the
frequencies already used in neighbor cells
– more capacity in cells with more traffic
– assignment can also be based on interference
measurements
Frequency planning II
f3 f3 f3
f2 f2
f1 f1 f1 f2 f3 f7
f3 f3
f2 f2 f2
3 cell cluster f5 f2
f4 f6 f5
f1 f1 f1 f4
f3 f3 f3 f3 f7 f1
f2 f3
f6 f5 f2
7 cell cluster
f2 f2 f2
f1 f f1 f f1 f
3 h 3 h 3
h 2 h 2 3 cell cluster
g2 1 h3 g2 1 h3 g2
g1 g1 g1
g3 g3 g3 with 3 sector antennas
Cell breathing
• cell size depends on current load
• Additional traffic appears as noise to other users
• If the noise level is too high users drop out of
cells
Frequency Reuse
• Bandwidth (spectrum) is scarce
– Tradeoff between transmission-capacity and reception-
– quality that best utilize a given spectrum
• If the total BW assigned is B , f is the frequency assigned
per channel.
BW =B Hz total spectrum
• channels f Hz per channel
• The number of channels a single base station
• can accommodate =BW/ f 22
Frequency Reuse (cont.)
Transmission power attenuates with distance
Reuse channel frequency is sufficiently apart
Sufficiently apart distance
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Frequency Reuse
• Partition the service region into cells
A cell comprises the BTS coverage area
Mobiles at each cell are served by cell’s BTS
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Frequency Reuse
• Hexagon is a geometrical shape that is most close to a circle
• that covers a region w/o overlapping
• Commonly accepted abstraction for resource and capacity
• planning in cellular networks
• Characterized by its radius R
• We need to study R
❑ For a given traffic (calls/unit area), how to select R ?
❑ How to select transmitter power as a function of R ?
❑ How to allocate frequencies (channels) among cells ?
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Frequency Reuse
The Reuse Principle for Uniform Traffic
• Uniformly distribute all channels to a cell cluster of size N
❑ Example: A cluster with N=7
B
❑ 1/N is called “frequency reuse factor”
G C
❑ Keep co-channel cells as far apart A
F D
The feasible N are determined from: E
(3.1) N = i +i j + j ,
2 2
i, j 0 integers
j
Examples: N=3,4,7,9,12 1200
i
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Frequency Reuse
The Reuse Principle
B
Replicate cluster keeping
G C
co-channel cells as far apart
A
Transmission capacity: F D
E B
C=S N B G C
G C A
S – Total no. of channels
N – Cluster size A F D
F D E
Lowering N E
❑ Increases capacity C
❑ Increases co-channel interference
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Frequency Reuse
Trading off Capacity and Interference
Measurements show that the average received power
approximately follows the “exponent decay law”
Pr (d ) = P0 (d d0 ) − n
(3.3)
Pr' (d ) = P0' −10n log(d d0 )
(Power in dB)
d0 d
P0 - Power received at reference point Fig. 3.8
n - Path loss exponent (typically between 2 – 4)
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