gsm overview 01

Information & Communications Technology

GSM Overview - 1 -

1.1 Mobile Telephony Mobile telecommunications is one of the fastest growing and most demanding of all telecommunications technologies.

Currently, it represents an increasingly high percentage of all new telephone subscriptions worldwide. In many cases, cellular solutions successfully compete with traditional wire line networks and cordless telephones. In the future, cellular systems employing digital technology will become the universal method of telecommunication.

1.2 Development of Mobile Communication Messages traveling far away from a ship inside deep waters were the first application of the invention of Radio Morse Code in late 1800. The development of radio communications allowed the applications to go wider and wider starting from commercial broadcasting to police and military applications lasting with the appearance of different wireless solutions.

Date Place Activity 1921 Chicago 2 MHz Vehicular Mobile Radio system for Police Applications 1930s US Invention of Amplitude Modulation. Half Duplex transmission 1935 US Invention of Frequency Modulation. Improved Audio Quality 1946 St. Louis FCC First Domestic Public Land Mobile service at 150 MHz

1969 Europe Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden form the first standardization group: Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT)

1973 Europe NMT specifies standards to allow mobiles phones to be located within or across their networks. Basis for roaming idea

1979 Chicago Advanced Mobile Phone System. First Cellular Analog network 1991 Europe The First Digital Cellular Standard (GSM) is launched

Table 1-1 History of Mobile Communications

The previous table shows the existence of different solutions in many spots of the world, each working separately, each having its own technical specifications and modulation technique.

The need to have a solution that can be applied globally raised in first 1980s. Having a standard plays a major role in telecommunications by allowing products from diverse suppliers to be interconnected and Facilitating innovation by creating large markets for common products.

To make a standard, national and international channels of cooperation must exist taking care of industrial concerns within a country, these industrial concerns and their governments and national governments at an international level.

The primary purpose of a standard for mobile communications is to specify how mobile phone calls are to be handled by a mobile network. For example, this includes specification of the signals to be transmitted and received by the mobile phone, the format of these signals, the interaction of network nodes, the basic network services that should be available to mobile subscribers and the basic network structure (i.e. cells, etc…).

Since the development of NMT 450 in 1981, many standards for mobile communication have been developed throughout the world. Each mobile standard has been developed to meet the particular requirements of the country or interest groups involved in its specification. For this reason, although a standard may be suitable for one country, it may not be suitable for another.


GSM Overview - 2 -

The main standards and the main markets in which they are used are summarized in the following table.

Year Standard Mobile Telephone System Tech. Primary Markets 1981 NMT-450 Nordic Mobile Telephony Analogue Europe and M. East 1983 AMPS Advanced Mobile Phone System Analogue N& S America 1985 TACS Total Access Communication System Analogue Europe and China 1986 NMT 900 Nordic Mobile Telephony Analogue N. & S. America 1991 GSM Global System for Mobile Digital World Wide

1991 TDMA (D-AMPS)

Time Division Multiple Access (Digital AMPS) Digital N& S America

1992 GSM1800 Global System for Mobile Digital Europe 1993 CdmaOne Code Division Multiple Access One Digital N. America and Korea 1994 PDC Personal Digital Cellular Digital Japan 1995 PCS1900 Personal Communication Services Digital North America

Table 1-2 Main Wireless Standards since 1981

1.3 Development of GSM Global System for Mobile communication is the European digital cellular telecommunications standard. GSM is the current digital mobile telephony standard specified by the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) and provides a common standard that means cellular subscribers can use their mobile telephones all over Europe and increasingly throughout the world.

Global System for Mobile Communications development steps continued since introduced in 1982 till now. As mentioned before, GSM is a set of standards that is agreed upon so that possible benefits are shared between different parties involved in manufacturing and operating and using this standard. The following table shows the milestones of GSM evolution.


GSM Overview - 3 -

Date Activity

1982

• Nordic Telecom and Netherlands PTT send a proposal to the Conférence Européenne des Postes et Télécommunications (CEPT) to specify a common European mobile telecommunication service.

• The European Commission (EC) issues a directive, which requires member states to reserve frequencies in the 900 MHz band for GSM.

1986

• Field tests were held in Paris and a GSM permanent nucleus was created and comparative tests of 8 prototypes were performed.

• The choice was Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA).

1987

• A Combination of TDMA and FDMA selected as the transmission tech. for GSM. • September – 13, operators and administrators from 12 areas in the CEPT GSM

advisory group sign the charter GSM (Groupe Spéciale Mobile) MoU "Club" agreement, with a launch date of 1 July 1991.

• The original French name was later changed to Global System for Mobile Communications, but the original GSM acronym stuck.

• GSM spec drafted. (Digital Transmission, Time Multiplexing of order 8 and slow Hopping)

1988 • CEPT began producing GSM specifications for phased implementation. • Another five countries signed the MoU

1989 • The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) defined GSM as the

internationally accepted digital cellular telephony standard and took over responsibility of GSM specifications.

1990 • ere frozen to allow manufacturers to develop network requirements and the first GSM prototype was brought to service. Phase 1 specifications w

1991 • • An addendum was added to the MoU allo

The GSM 1800 standard was released. wing countries outside CEPT to sign.

1992

network operator is Oy Radiolinja Ab in

• 992 - 13 networks on air in 7 areas d between Telecom Finland and

• Phase 1 specifications were completed. • January - First commercial phase 1 GSM

Finland December 1

• First International roaming agreement was signeVodafone in UK.

1993

• the first non-European country to sign the MoU. The MoU now had

• e first time in Africa at Telkom '93 in Cape Town Australia.

n the U.K.

Australia becamea total of 70 signatories. GSM demonstrated for th

• GSM networks were launched in Norway, Austria, Ireland, Hong Kong and• The number of GSM subscribers reached one million. • The first commercial DCS 1800 system was launched i• December 1993 - 32 networks on air in 18 areas

1994

plement data/fax

• The MoU now had over 100 signatories covering 60 countries. • The total number of GSM subscribers exceeded 3 million. • First GSM networks in Africa launched in South Africa • Phase 2 data/fax bearer services launched

Vodacom becomes first GSM network in the world to im• • December 1994 - 69 networks on air in 43 ar eas

1995

• GSM MoU is formally registered as an Association registered in Switzerlan members from 86 areas.

d - 156

• g started g adaptation for PCS 1900

the USA

S licenses gh 1995, with the number of GSM

subscribers increasing at the rate of 10,000 per day and rising.

• December 1995 - 117 networks on air in 69 areas Fax, data and SMS roamin

• GSM phase 2 standardization is completed, includin• First PCS 1900 network live 'on air' in• Telecom '95 Geneva - Nokia shows 33.6 kbps multimedia data via GSM • Namibia goes on-line • Ericsson 337 wins GSM phone of the year • US FCC auctions off PC• GSM growth trends continued steadily throu


GSM Overview - 4 -

1996

• • GSM MoU Plenary held in Atlanta GA, USA • 8K SIM launched

l launches world's first GSM/Fixed-line modem tor in Egypt goes online.

• GSM MoU is formally registered as an Association registered in Switzerland December 1996 120 networks on air in 84 areas

• Pre-Paid GSM SIM Cards launched • Bundled billing introduced in South Africa • Libya goes on-line • Option Internationa• Nov 1996 - Sole Governmental opera

1997 sch • Iridium birds launched

900-1900 phone launched by Bo• First dual-band GSM

1998

countries scribers account

•

8)

• At the beginning of 1998 the MoU has a total of 253 members in over 100 suband there are over 70 million GSM subscribers worldwide. GSM

obile market for 31% of the world’s m• Vodacom Introduces Free Voice Mail • GSM SIM Cracked in USA • 21 May 1998. Egypt privatizes its GSM operator.

Vodacom launches Yebo!Net 10/98 Iridium Live 11/98 •

• MTN launches Carry Over minutes • 125m GSM 900/1800/1900 users worldwide (12/9• 1 Dec 1998. Click GSM commercial launch.

1999

ldwide nd USA and Scandinavia 1/99

• 165m GSM 900/1800/1900 users wor• GPRS trials begin a• WAP trials in France and Italy 1/99 • GSM MoU Joins 3GPP • First GPRS networks go live • Blue tooth specification v1.0 released

2000 ide • By 12/2000 480m GSM 900/1800/1900 users worldw

First GPRS networks roll out • • First GPRS terminals seen

2001 0/1800/1900 users worldwide n April 2001

• By 5/2001 500m GSM 90• 16 billion SMS message sent i

Table 1-3 Development of GSM

Fig 1-1 GSM worldwide (Darker areas)


GSM Overview - 5 -

Because GSM provides a common standard, cellular subscribers can use their telephones over the entire GSM service area, which includes all the countries around the world where the GSM system is used as long as the administrative part is signed, the roaming agreement.

In addition, GSM provides user services such as high-speed data communication, facsimile and a Short Message Service (SMS).

The GSM technical spe n ork with other standards as it

1.4

instead specify the network functions and interfaces in

r operators to buy equipment from different suppliers.

The GSM recommendations consist of twelve series, which are listed, in the table below. a number of expert groups wrote these series. A permanent

01

cificatio s are also designed to wguarantees standard interfaces.

Finally, a key aspect of GSM is that the specifications are open-ended and can be built upon to meet future requirements.

GSM Specifications GSM was designed to be platform-independent. The GSM specifications do not specify the actual hardware requirements, but detail. This allows hardware designers to be creative in how they provide the functionality. At the same time it is possible fo

Different working parties and nucleus was established in order to coordinate the working parties and to manage the editing of the recommendations. All these groups were organized by ETSI.

General 02 Service aspects 03 Network aspects 04 MS - BSS interface and protocol 05 Physical layer on the radio path 06 Speech coding specification 07 Terminal adaptor for MS 08 BSS - MSC interface 09 Network inter-working 10 Service inter-working 11 Equipment and type approval specifications 12 Operation and maintenance

Table 1-4 GSM Recommendations

5loping the GSM standard realized that within the

not complete the specifications for the entire range of GSM feature nned. Because of this, it was decided that GSM would

ed in p onsisting of a limited set of services and features. Each new phase builds on the services offered by existing phases.

Fig 1-2 GSM Phases

itten as a

900 is based on GSM 1800 and has been adapted to meet the

. GSM Phases In the late 1980s, the groups involved in devegiven time frame they could

The GSM 1800 section is wrdelta part within the GSM recommendations, describing only those differences between GSM 900 and GSM 1800. GSM 1

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard.

services and s as originally plabe releas hases with phase 1 c

1989 1999 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

Phase 2+

Phase 1

Phase 2

Idea Standardization Im

plementation/Usage


GSM Overview - 6 -

5.1 Phase 1 Phase 1 contains the most common services including: Voice telephony, International roaming, Basic fax/data services (up to 9.6 Kbits/s), Call forwarding, Call barring and Short Message Service.

Phase 1 also incorporated features such as ciphering and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards. Phase 1 specifications we annot be modified.

5.2 were introduced in GSM phase 2 including: Advice of charge, Calling line

ed by Phase 2+ include: Multiple service profiles, Private numbering plans, Access to Centrex services, Inter-working with GSM 1800, GSM 1900 and the Digital, Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard.

e schedules for new features and functions depend primarily on the interest

re then closed and c

Phase 2 Additional featuresidentification, Call waiting, Call hold, Conference calling, Closed user groups and Additional data communications capabilities

5.3 Phase 2+ The standardization groups have already begun to define the next phase, 2+. The phase 2+ program will cover multiple subscriber numbers and a variety of business oriented features.

Some of the enhancements offer

Priorities and timshown by operating companies and manufacturers and technical developments in related areas.

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