Radio Resource Management Power Control Definition Power Control enables the mobile station and/or the BTS

to incre ase or decrease the transmission power on a per-radio link basis. Power Control is separately performed for the uplink and downlink. In bo th cases the BSC is responsible for initiating Power Control; the mobile station and the BTS adopt transmit power according to the BSC Power Control commands. Measurement While a mobile station is active on a call, it has the responsibil ity of providing measurement data about the performance of the air-interface to its serving BTS so that the serving BSC can decide if a power control should be performed. Also the serving BTS measures the performance of the air-interface. W hereas the mobile station measures the performance of the downlink, the BTS meas ures the performance of the uplink. Downlink The mobile station measures and report the following measurement to the BSC regarding the performance of the downlink: Strength of the signal being received from its serving BTS (in dBm) Quality of the signal being received from its serving BTS (in bit er ror rate) Uplink The BTS measures and report the following measurements to the BS C measurements regarding the performance of the uplink: Strength of the signal being received from the mobile station Quality of the signal being received from the mobile station Periodically The mobile station measure periodically the performance of the d ownlink, measuring and sends the measurements in the SACCH (Slow Associat ed Control Channel) via the serving BTS to the BSC every SACCH multi-frame. This corresponds to the transmission of data every 104 TDMA frames or 480 ms. The base station measures the quality of the up link. Also, it transfers the measurements in the SACCH to the BSC eve ry 480 ms. (Continued on next page)

MS Transmitted Power :

Power Increase Step MS_TXPWR (in dBm)

Max. Transmit Power

Received Power by BTS:

Signal Strength Measured at BTS

Refer RADIO RESOURSE MANAGEMENT Figure 7.1 Power control for the uplink related to signal strength PAGE 7-8 SIGNAL STRENGTH: The uplink power control process is illustrated in the figure o n the opposite page. When the BSC notices that the signal strength of a particul ar radio link measured on the uplink become blow the lower pre-defined threshold because the mobile station moves away from the BTS, it sends a power control co

mmand to the mobile station to increase its transmit power (MS_TXPWR) by a pre-d efined step (typically 2 db). The transmit power of the mobile station can be in creased until a maximum defined level is reached. The BSC can also send a Power control command to the mobile station to reduce it s transmit power when it notices that the signal strength measured becomes above the upper pre-defined threshold. The down link power control process is similar to the uplink power control proce ss. Power control for the uplink figure 7.2 page number-(7-10). SIGNAL STRENGTH AND SIGNAL QUALITY In the description of power control given up to this point, the reason for power control is that the Uplink/Downlink signal strength measured is higher or lower than threshold specified. Another reason for activating power control is an Upl ink/Downlink signal quality measured which is higher or lower than thresholds sp ecified. The complete uplink power control process is illustrated in the fig. On the oppo site page. In the optimum area, the area delimited by the different predefined thr esholds. No power control action is taken. If signal quality and strength are be neath the specified thresholds, power control will increase power (indicated by +) .if signal quality and or strength are above specified thresholds, power control will reduce transmit power (indicated by-). GSM FEATURE Power control is a GSM feature, which can be enabled or disabled on a per cell b asis. If power control is disabled for the mobile station will always transmit a t maximum power level. The same is applicable for the BTS if the power control i s disabled for the BTS it will always transmit at maximum level. REASON FOR POWER CONTROL One reason to enable power control is to save mobile station battery power. The main reason for the power control is improving the carrier to interference ratio with in the cellular n/w. Reducing the power on the BTS or the mobile station, while keeping similar signal quality received, decreases interference caused on the other calls in surrounding area. BASE STATION IDENTITY CODE Problem definition: A problem could arise when the mobile station in given posit ion is performing a handover, but receiving two cells using same BCCH frequency. This can happen when the mobile station is moving along the national border, wh ere on each side of the border the different PLMN operates have some frequencies in common. In order to discriminate between cells transmitting the BCCH channels at the sam e frequency, the mobile station identify code (BSIC). The BSIC is broadcast on the SCH (synchronization channel) of each cell. DEFINITION OF BSIC: the BSIC is a local color code that allows a mobile station to distinguish between different neighboring base station, it is not an unambigu ous identification of a base station. Many cells bear the same BSIC. The scheme of BSIC values to be used are normally laid down in a bilateral agree ment between the concern PLMN operators to prevent that same BSIC is used in adj acent PLMNs. DISCONTINUOUS TRANSMISSION: DEFININATION: Discontinuous transmission (DTX) is a mechanism which allows the radio transmitter to be switched off most of the time during speech pauses . DTX may be applied independently to each direction so that the control

of DTX must take into account two components: The uplink mode The down link mode DTX can be enabled or disabled for the uplink and /or downlink on a per cell bas is. DISCONTINUOUS TRANSMISSION PROCESS: DTX inhabits the transmission of the radio s ignal when not required from an information point of view. In the DTX mode, spee ch is in coded at 13kbps,when a user is effectively speaking but in speech pause information is transmitting at a bit rate around 500bps.This low rate flow is s ufficient to encode the background noise, which is regenerated to insure that th e listener dose not think that the connection is broken (comfort noise). At the transmission side the voice activity detection function detect whether th e speech will be transmitted on a particular radio link or not. When it detect t hat low speech has to be transmitted, transmission will cease after a define per iod of time after speech activity has stoped.that transmitted periodically send a signal called a silence indicator block of every certain period of time, silen ce indicator block provide the comfort noise level information to the mobile sta tion or BTS. REASONS FOR DTX: When DTX applied actual transmission on the radio part is reduce. This will caus e a decrease of the interference level in co-channel cells (using the same frequ ency). Another advantage will appear when using DTX in the uplink mode. it saves battery power for the mobile station .how ever a disadvantage of the DTX mode i s that it slightly deteriorates the quality of transmission . Note: that transmitting the DTX mode dose not save time slot on the air interfer ence. figure 7.12 page number-(7-36 ) refer radio resource management Definition: Call re-establishment enable the mobile station to resume the contact with t he cellular network when the connection to a particular BTS a sudderenly broken this may happen because of a brutal propagation loss, due to obstacle such as br idges and tunnels. Call re-establishment is a GSM feature, which can be enabled or disabled on a pre-cell basis. Call re-establishment process: After communication has been loosed, the mobile station selects the c ell with the highest signal strength from the neighbor cell list. The neighbor c ell list contains the cell identifier to which a handover is allowed. It is kept in the BSS of the particular cell. The list is transferred to the mobil e station the BCCH during the registration phase of wireless call the mobile sta tion uses the neighbor cell list by only measuring the signal from the BTS locat ed in the cells that are on the list. The selected cell identifier is used to re-establish the connection to that particular cell by following the normal access procedure. Actually it sends an access request on the RACH (random access channel) of a pa rticular frequency channel At the moment of time the communication is lost, a timer is initiated in the serving MSC. When the timer expires it is not possible any mor e for the mobile station to re-establish the call. Atypical value for the timer is 4 second