Mobile Technologies Computer Networks Natawut Nupairoj, Ph.D. Department of Computer Engineering Chulalongkorn University
Outline Overview How Cell Phones Work. GSM (2G). GPRS (2.5G). 3G and Other Technologies.
Overview
Mobile Cells
BSCBSC BSCBSC MSCMSC ACHLRVLREIR PSTN Mobile station BSCbasic station controller MSCmobile switching center HLRhome location register VLRvisitor location register ACaccess control EIRequipment identity register Mobile Architecture
Transmission Techniques Encoding Schemes Analog. Digital. Multiplexing Schemes FDMA. TDMA. CDMA.
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access. Good for digital encoding. Frequency hopping style. One band for all users in the cell. Modulate with a unique code for each user. Analogy: several people in a room speaking different languages to each other.
CDMA Pros More capacity than FDMA/TDMA. Require low power for Handset (0.2 Watts). Cons Complicated. Expensive (both handset and cell equipment).
Multiplexing Schemes
Additional Terminologies Mobile Originator. Mobile Terminator. Hand-off. Roaming.
Global System for Mobile communication. The dominated mobile standard 400 network operators in 182 countries. Over 700 million customers (June 2002). Considered “2G”. Transmission Techniques Digital encoding. Extended Time Division Multiple Access (ETDMA).
ETDMA TDMA with Signal compression. Silence suppression Use time slot when there are speeches. Similar to frequency hopping.
Handset Market Share
GPRS General Packet Radio Service Packet switching for Mobile Typical call session (voice) is circuit switched. More efficient. IP-enabled. “Always on”, pay as you send/receive. Speed: 14.4Kbps – 115Kbps. Considered “2.5G” – path to 3G. 114 Kbps 2 Mbps 384 Kbps
3G Mobile New mobile architecture is coming For multimedia and internet applications. Up to 2 Mbps bandwidth for data. Standards Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA).
Killer Applications Short Message Service (SMS) – 2G Become increasingly popular User: easy to use. Operator: bandwidth efficient. Currently being used for Communication. Entertainment (download logo / ringtones). Interactive applications. Future Multimedia Message Service (MMS).
SMS Architecture
SMS Mechanism Mobile Terminated Side
SMS Mechanism Mobile Originated Side
Mobile Internet Comparing to typical Internet Bandwidth limitation with long latency. Screen size. Simple browser. Wireless Access Protocol For mobile with limited HTML edition – WML.
WML The Wireless Markup Language (WML) WMLScript Adhering to XML standards. Do not assume a QWERTY keyboard or a mouse. Designed for small screen displays. WML documents divided into a set of units of interaction, called cards User navigate back and forth between cards. Reduce long latencies. Smaller set of markup tags (comparing to HTML).
WML
WAP Stack
HTTP vs. WSP Overheads
Iridium Global Personal Communication Any place, any time. Use Low Orbit Satellites (LEO) 66 LEO with 6 spares. Each covers small areas. Satellites handoff.
References J. Kurose and K. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet, Addison Wesley, M. Eng and L. Kirchoff, How Cellular Phone Technologies Compare, About.Com, Digital Technologies (CDMA, TDMA, and GSM),