15 GSM interview questions and answers

This page covers GSM questionnaire set prepared by experienced specialists in

GSM/GPRS domain. GSM jobs are available at various levels such as
testing,maintenance,installation,development and so on. These top 15 GSM
interview questions and answers help engineers seeking GSM technology
related job to crack the interview with ease.These questions are very useful as
viva questions also.
Question -1.Explain the call flow of mobile originated call and mobile terminated
call flow in GSM.
Answer -1.Call originated from mobile to the other subscriber through base
station is referred as mobile originated call or MO Call. Call originated from base
station and getting terminated on mobile subscriber is referred as mobile
terminated call or MT Call. Suppose mobile subscriber-A is calling mobile
subscriber-B via base station then call from A to base station is referred as MO
call and from base station to B is referred as MT call. There are two main
categories of calls in GSM i.e. CS call (Circuit Switched Call) and PS Call
(Packet Switched Call). Following are the links which describes all the call flow
messages between base station and mobile subscriber for both the MO/MT CS
call and MO/MT PS call.
CS MO Call
CS MT Call
PS downlink MT call
PS uplink MO call
Question -2.Explain the GSM frame structure..
Answer -2. There are two frame structures in GSM viz. 51 frame multiframe and
26 frame multiframe. Interviewer expects both of them to be answered with frame
duration including divisions(slot,frame,multiframe,superframe and hyperframe).
As we know GSM frame will have 8 time slots having duration of 4.615ms and
each slot of 0.577 ms duration. 26 frame multiframe is used for traffic channel
and SACCH channel and is of duration of about 120ms. 51 frame multiframe is
used for control or signalling purpose and is of duration of about 235ms.
Refer GSM frame structure to know more in depth of these frames.

Question -3. Explain the GSM channel types.

Answer -3. There are two main types in GSM logical channels and physical
channels. Physical channel means allocated one frequency and one time slot on
which logical channel data is carried into the air. Logical channel is divided into
two main types based on the information is carried on it viz. traffic channel and
signalling channel. Traffic channels are TCH Half rate and TCH full rate. COntrol
or signalling channels are divided into three main categories based on their
function i.e. broadcast control channel(BCH),common control channel(CCCH)
and dedicated control channel(DCH). Broadcast channels are FCCH,SCH and
BCCH. Common control channels are PCH,AGCH,RACH and AGCH. Dedicate
control channels are SDCCH,SACCH and FACCH. Refer GSM Channel types for
more.
Question -4. What are the difference frequency bands supported in GSM?
Answer -4. There are four categories of frequency bands supported by GSM
standard. It includes GSM850,GSM900,DCS1800 and PCS1900 bands.
Refer GSM frequency bands page to know all the supported bands in GSM
technology.
Question -5. What is the difference between GSM and GPRS?
Answer -5. GSM is mainly developed for carrying voice traffic while GPRS is
developed for data traffic. In GSM 51 frame and 26 frame multiframe structure is
used. In GPRS 52 frame multiframe is used. GPRS supports CS1,CS2,CS3 and
CS4 modulation and coding schemes.EGPRS supports MCS1 to MCS9.
Refer GSM versus GPRS for more.
Question -6. Explain GMSK modulation scheme?
Answer -6. GMSK stands for Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying. GMSK modulation
Question -7. Explain the difference between TDMA, FDMA and CDMA?
Answer -7. TDMA,FDMA and CDMA are access techniques to utilize
time,frequency and code respectively. TDMA means Time Division Multiple
Access,FDMA means Frequency Division Multiple Access and CDMA means
Code Division Multiple Access. GSM uses both TDMA and FDMA. FDMA comes
by dividing the frequency band say 890 to 915 and 935 to 960 MHz bands into
sub-carriers of 200 KHz bandwidth each. Hence by FDMA we get 124
subcarriers. TDMA comes by allocating eight time slots TS0 to TS7 to each
subcarrier. Refer TDMA,FDMA and CDMA for more information.
Question -8. What is RXQUAL? What is the relation between RXQUAL and BER
in GSM?
Answer -8. GPRS RXQUAL vs BER
Question -9. What is the function of FCCH and SCH in GSM?
Answer -9. FCCH channel SCH channel
Question -10. What is BSIC? Why it is needed in GSM system?
Answer -10. BSIC means Base Station Identity Code. It is 6 bits in size and
carried in GSM SCH channel. This BSIC will have 3 bits of BCC and 3 bits of
NCC. BCC stands for Base Station color code and NCC stands for Network
Color Code. BSIC helps in differentiating and identifying the correct cell when two
similar cells with same broadcast frequencies are transmitting. This is unique to
all the GSM BTS.
Question -11. Explain types of handover.
Answer -11. Handover or Handoff refers to connection of mobile subscriber with
base station when mobile moves at higher speed. There are various ways
handover happens in GSM viz. within the same BTS region, between BTS and
another BTS, between BSC and another BSC. The main types are hard
handover and soft handover. Hard handover means connection is broken with
Active BTS cell before new connection with neighbour cell is made. Soft
handover means connection with new BTS is first made before the connection
with the active BTS cell is broken. Refer GSM handoff to know more. Now-a-
days handover between two different RATs have become common due to
demand and availability of multi RAT features in single mobile terminals. Inter-
RAT handover refers to handover betwen GSM to UMTS,UMTS to GSM,GSM to
LTE,LTE to GSM, CDMA to LTE , LTE to CDMA and so on. Refer Inter RAT
handover to know more.
Question -12. Explain different elements of GSM network architecture.
Answer -12. In the interview from this equation interviewer trying to judge the
understanding of GSM system as a whole. So draw various elements of GSM
architecture such as BTS,BSC,MS,MSC,HLR,VLR,AUC,EIR etc. and explain the
functions of each. If you remember various interfaces between these elements it
will be good. Refer GSM Tutorial for GSM architecture block diagram with
interfaces.
Question -13. Explain FDM, TDM and OFDM.
Answer -13. FDM stands for Frequency Division Multiplexing. TDM stands for
Time Division Multiplexing and OFDM means Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing. This all are resource multiplexing techniques for utilizing the scared
resource(time and frequency) efficiently. FDM makes use of frequency,TDM time
and OFDM also frequency resource. The limitations of FDM is taken care in
OFDM by allocated subcarriers very close without introducing ICI(Inter Carrier
Interference). ISI is also avoided in OFDM by inserting guard interval. Refer to of
our popular pages to know the difference between FDM and OFDM as well as
FDM and TDM.
Refer FDM vs OFDM and FDM vs TDM for more information.
Question -14. Explain Min. BEP with respect to GPRS.
Answer -14. BEP stands for Bit Error Probability in GSM. It helps in finding the
radio condition and choose the best coding scheme for the mobile subscriber.
There are two main types of BEP in GSM i.e. Mean BEP and Actual BEP. Refer
following pages to know more.
What is BEP
Mapping between Reported and Actual CV BEP Mean BEP and Actual BEP
Question -15. Explain AMR.
Answer -15. This topic along with VAMOS,SAIC are usually asked by interviewer
in the interview as part of judging the interviewee's knowledge on advanced GSM
topics. AMR stands for Adaptive Multi rate and it is the method by which mobile
subscriber changes the modulation-coding scheme based on varying C/I
conditions at any moment of time.
Refer GSM AMR basics and GSM AMR conformance testing to know more about
AMR basics and conformance requirements of GSM Mobile Subscriber.
Question -16. Explain concept of GPRS multi-slot class.
Answer -16. In the Multislot mode, one mobile subscriber will be allocated more
than one slot in the downlink and uplink to increase the data rate requirements of
the user/customer. There are various classes which mention limit for maximum
time slots supported in the uplink and downlink. Refer GPRS multislot classes for
more information.