GSM Underlay Overlay System
GSM Underlay Overlay System
GSM Underlay Overlay System
Khalid Begain , Gergő István Rózsa , András Pfening , Miklós Telek
Dept. of Computing, University of Bradford BD7 1DP, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK, kbegain@bradford.ac.uk
Matáv Hungarian Telecommunications Company Ltd., Budapest, Hungary, Rozsa.Istvan.Gergo@mail.pki.matav.hu
Nokia Telecommunications, Mobile Switching Budapest, Hungary, andras.pfening@ntc.nokia.com
1
The origin of IUO principle was reuse-partitioning. It ally used only near the Base Transceiver Station (BTS). The
was presented in some papers [5, 6, 7]. [5] presented the other band contains frequencies that can be used throughout
DCA (dynamic Channel Assignment) with a greedy algo- the whole cell, the regular frequencies.
rithm, and investigated 1 dimensional cellular radio system. Every IUO cell has regular and super Transmitter Re-
Simulation results were reported on IUO in [8, 9, 6]. In [10], ceivers (TRXs). Regular frequencies completely cover the
the performance of GSM network implementing IUO in cell. These frequencies can be reused by conventional crite-
combination with Frequency hopping was studied by sim- ria, using safe hand-over bounds to provide low probabili-
ulation. Some further improvements on the original IUO ties for interference. Mobile stations are assigned to regular
scheme were suggested. The effect of these improvements frequencies at the boundary where C/I rate is under a spe-
was reported in [11]. In this paper, we introduce an analyti- cific level. Figure 1 shows the principle of the layer struc-
cal model of GSM network implementing IUO and provide ture of IUO.
results on the performance of the network taking into ac-
count many parameters like the coverage factor of the super
layer to the whole cell, the ratio of moving mobile stations, Super layer
and the speed at which they are moving. Our paper gives C/I bad
practically useful view on the above mentioned parameters.
C/I good
Network designers can directly apply the provided results to
dimension their network with improved reuse of the spec- Regular layer
trum in cellular radio systems.
With the applied analysis approach we calculate the net-
work performance parameters by considering a large ho- Figure 1. IUO principle
mogeneous network composed by a lot of identical cells, Super frequencies provide services in heavy traffic areas
whose handover traffic to the neighboring cells is symmet- (downtown) of the cell, where C/I rate is good (interference
ric. This assumption on the homogeneous network with free area). Using different C/I ratios, the coverage of the
symmetric handover traffic allows us to calculate the net- super layer (super frequencies) can be controlled. If IUO is
work performance based on the analysis of a single cell. combined with downlink power control, even better inter-
The analysis of inhomogeneous network with asymmetric ference conditions can be maintained resulting in better call
handover traffic of neighboring cells, that would require a quality.
much more complex analysis approach, is out of the scope
of this paper. 2.2 Operation of IUO
In Section 2, we give a description on the operation of
IUO scheme. Section 3 summarizes the main assumption We assume the call admission operation of GSM net-
on the studied systems and defines the main processes that work without IUO is known [12]. The IUO cell operation
affect the performance of the system. The analytical model is described separately for standing (non-moving) and mov-
will be defined in Section 4 with which the performance ing mobile stations (MS). The IUO algorithm does not dis-
analysis of a cell with IUO is carried out in Section 5. Some tinguish moving or not moving MSs, this separation is done
planning issues of the obtained results is summarized in for a modeling assumption: we assume that a non-moving
Section 6 and the paper is concluded in Section 7. mobile’s interference conditions will not change, and that
the mobile will not try any handovers, unlike the moving
mobile station.
2 Intelligent Underlay-Overlay
For both moving and non-moving mobile stations, the call
2.1 Principle request will first be served by a regular frequency, because
the C/I ratio of the call is not yet known. The C/I ratio is
The IUO is a feature designed to allow a tighter fre-
calculated by comparing the downlink signal of the serv-
quency reuse for some of the available radio frequencies and
ing cell with the downlink signal of all neighboring cells,
therefore achieve a higher network capacity. It implements
that use the same super frequencies.
a two-layer network structure with a different reuse factor
for each layer. The underlay adds capacity, the overlay pro- If the C/I value is better than a predefined ”C/I good”
vides coverage. To maintain optimum capacity, the base threshold, then the connection will be served by a super
station assigns mobile traffic to either layer of the network frequency, otherwise it will remain at the regular layer.
according to actual interference levels. The IUO solution If this handover to the super frequency fails, because all
splits the available frequency spectrum into two bands. One super frequencies are occupied, then the connection will
consisting of frequencies that can only be used when a high stay at the regular layer and try to get into the super layer
C/I ratio is ensured, the super frequencies, which are usu- after a specific time.
2
For the connections of non-moving MS, the call will be
served at the same layer chosen according to the value of REGULAR
C/I until its normal termination. Super to Regular
SUPER
For the connections of the moving MS, the value of C/I ra- Super to Super Intercell hand-over
Incoming intercell
tio may change after the setup of the connection. This im- hand-over
plies a number of hand-over possibilities as follows:
MS:
If the value of C/I ratio falls below the ”C/I good” Figure 2. Possible handovers in the system
threshold, but there is another free super frequency
where the C/I ratio is appropriate, hand-over will be
done, and the call will be kept on the super layer. Only one cell is considered in the analysis. All the inter-
actions from the neighboring cells to the studied cell are
If there is no free super frequency, or none of these has taken into account as an aggregate incoming hand-over
an appropriate C/I ratio, the call gets back to regular request process, which will first be served by regular fre-
layer, or if all the regular frequencies are occupied, the quencies.
call will be lost.
2. For a connection going on a regular frequency, the The studied cell implements IUO scheme with the super
following handovers exist due to the movement of the layer coverage factor of the cell area. Only one super
MS: frequency group is assumed, i.e., the same coverage factor
is assumed for all super frequencies.
If the C/I value improves and reaches the ”C/I good”
and there is a free super frequency, the connection will
The Base Transceiver Station of the cell manages reg-
be moved to the super layer.
ular and super frequencies. Thus, the total number of
An intra-cell hand-over to regular frequency of an- frequencies (channels) in the cell is
.
other TRX in the same cell.
An inter-cell hand-over to regular frequency of an- The cell contains moving and non-moving mobile sta-
other neighboring cell. tions. The ratio of the moving MSs is .
3. The case of direct inter-cell hand-over from a super fre- The moving MSs are assumed to move in a uniformly dis-
quency to a neighboring cell is not considered in the tributed random direction and with a constant speed .
model, because we assume that the C/I ratio is deter-
mined by the distance of the MS from the (closest) BTS. Super and regular frequencies of the same cell are not dis-
Hence, in our model, a super-regular hand-over always tinguished. The hand-over between regular frequencies or
preceeds the inter-cell hand-over if the coverage factor between super frequencies in the same cell are not taken
of super layer is less than 100%. In the applied frame- into account, since it does not modify the number of busy
work it would also be possible to model direct inter-cell frequencies of the layers.
hand-over from super layer based on a probabilistic rule
that describes the probability of direct inter-cell hand- The different processes that control the events in the sys-
over from super layer to a neighboring cell as a function tem are:
of the coverage factor of super layer, but it is not con-
sidered in this paper. 1. the new call arrival process is assumed to be a Poisson
process with rate . We assume that the arrivals are uni-
Figure 2 summarizes all possible handovers in the IUO formly distributed on the area of the cell and, therefore,
cell. of the calls will have C/I value better than the ”C/I
good” threshold.
3 Performance analysis 2. the aggregate incoming hand-over is assumed to be a
Poisson process with rate .
3.1 Modeling assumptions
3. the time needed for the calculation of the C/I parameter
For the sake of building an analytical model of the sys- for a new connection is assumed to have an exponential
tem, we make the following assumptions: distribution with mean of !#" .
3
\[] O@NG^ REGULAR (
C >@?
A ) =IL
4. the call holding time, i.e., the time for normal call
termination, is assumed to be exponentially distributed A VX Y =OHPRQ
= C EGH> FJ?
BKA[>@Z ?
ZW >H?
A ) =IL
with average duration of . S SUPER (
4
Loss probability Utilization Loss probability
0.9 0.1
0.7
1e−3
1e−3 0.4
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 1e−6
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Offered Traffic [Erlang] Offered Traffic [Erlang]
Offered Traffic [Erlang]
Figure 4. Loss probabilities Figure 5. Utilization for differ- Figure 6. Loss probabilities
versus super area coverage ent super area coverage versus moving MS ratio
for the parameters used in the study. The use of different in Figure 7. When the load is low then the movement helps
values will be explicitly mentioned. We present results on in reaching better utilization in the cell, while in higher load
the call loss probability and the average utilization of chan- conditions the increased movement has a negative effect on
nels (i.e., the carried traffic per channels) versus the offered the utilization of the super frequencies which results in a
traffic. Different results are provided by varying different reduced overall utilization of the cell. This is the reason
parameters: the super area coverage factor, the number of for the crossing of the utilization curves between 20 and 60
and (but keep their sum constant,
), the ratio of Erlang offered traffic.
moving MS, and the speed of moving MS. In all cases, the
call loss probability is computed by summing the blocking
probability of new calls and incoming handovers and the
Figures 8 and 9 examine the effect of the speed of the
moving MS given that . Three values were
chosen to reflect the movement in the downtown area of
probability that a connection going on a super frequency city; walking speed (3km/h), vehicle speed in residential
will fail to be served due to the lack regular frequency area (30km/h), and vehicle speed in in-city main streets
when it’s C/I value drops bellow ”C/I good” threshold. In (50km/h). The results show that the increase of the speed
the model quality problems can only be due to interference implies very slight increment on the overall call loss proba-
problems indicated by leaving the super coverage area. This bility. It is because the loss probability is composed by two
interference problem can lead to call drop, referring to soft main factors: the probability of rejecting new or incoming
blocking. handover calls (referred to as blocking) and the soft block-
First, we study the effect of the super area coverage on ing. Figure 8 depicts these factors separately. The over-
the performance of the studied cell. Figure 4 shows the loss all loss probability practically coincides with the blocking
probability versus the offered traffic. The different curves probability. According to the expectations the soft blocking
refer to different super area coverage factor, . It can be probability is significantly affected by the speed of moving
seen that the higher results in lower loss probability. On MSs, but it has negligible effect on the overall loss since the
the other hand, Fig. 5 shows that decreasing the area cov- blocking probability is at least an order of magnitude higher
ered by the super layer has a negative impact on the utiliza- than the soft blocking probability. The decrease of the soft
tion of the cell. This is in consistence with the conclusions blocking probabilities from 80 Erlang offered load is due to
obtained in [10]. This means that a trade-off or optimization the high blocking probability.
should be done in the design phase of the network between The results shows that the usage of IUO has a negative
the reduced utilization and increased loss probability versus effect on the performance of one cell and, therefore, there
the capacity increased by the higher reuse factor. It can be should be an optimization for the gain of tighter reuse in
seen that the soft blocking has minor effect on the overall the multiple cell network and the loss in the performance
blocking rate even in case of high load situations. of each cell. The other conclusion is regarding the effect of
the mobility of the performance of the IUO scheme. The
In the rest of the results, we study the effect of move- results show that the IUO performs worse as mobility of the
ment on the performance of the IUO cell. Figures 6 and mobile stations increase.
7 show curves on the call loss probability and utilization.
The different curves refer to different value of the ratio of
moving MSs, . The results show that the higher ratio
5 Planning issues
of movement results in higher loss probability which can To assist traffic dimensioning considerations additional
be explained with the higher number of handovers resulting computations were performed to evaluate the offered traffic
from the movement. The utilization point of view is shown with associated 2% loss. The input and output parameters
5
Utilization Loss probability Utilization
1.0 1.0 1.0
Blocking
of the described numerical analysis are the offered traffic configuration, does not mean immediate capacity degrada-
and the associated loss, respectively. Hence, to evaluate the tion. For instance, for configuration 3+2, the super cover-
offered traffic with associated 2% loss a numerical approx- age factor can be decreased down to 60% without degrading
imation is applied. We have evaluated the loss at 8, 16, 24, loosing capacity in the cell.
32, and 40 Erlang offered traffic and fit the obtained loss The same system is evaluated with 50% moving MSs.
values by a 4th order polynome (through the Fit function of From Figure 11 it can be seen that the movement of MS
Mathematica [14]). The offered traffic with associated 2% decreases the performance of the cell. The main reason of
loss is calculated as the point where the polynomial equals this performance degradation is the increased need of the
to 0.02. This approximation was found to be the best among moving MSs for regular channels. Due to the high mov-
those we tried (e.g. the fitting of the inverse of the loss func- ing MSs ratio the regular channels become the bottleneck
tion). The approximation was verified against the Erlang of the system and their availability characterize the sys-
formulae. The error falls in the range of 0.5-1.2 Erlang. tem performance. The curve of the 4+1 TRX cell con-
In Figure 10 the capacity of various cell configurations figuration is slightly decreasing above 0.6 coverage fac-
deploying IUO with non-moving MSs is compared. The tor. We think that this feature is not an evident property
figure shows the offered traffic value (in Erlangs) versus the of cellular systems with IUO, but it results from the applied
super coverage factor where the overall blocking probabil- "
! ,
1 !
ity is 2%. The super coverage factor is ranging from 100% functions:
(the C/I conditions are good throughout the coverage area
of the cell) to 0% (only regular frequencies are used, this
3
!
is practically the non-IUO configuration). The cell config-
g
urations differ in the number of regular and super TRXs,
as shown in the legend. All the configurations are shown
[1
!
- ! ,
where 1 to 5 TRXs are used in the cell. For instance, with
configuration 2+3 at super coverage factor 50% maximum These functions were found to be the best (regarding the
15 Erlangs can be accepted with 2% blocking rate. overall model behaviour) to approximate the assumption
Several interesting conclusions can made reading the fig- that the MSs are uniformly distributed over the cell as well
ure. As it is expected, the curve belonging to the configu- as their moving direction.
ration A+B approximates the curve of configuration A+0 The practical use of the depicted results is as follows.
(which is of course a horizontal line) as the super cover- Assumed the network planner has N TRXs in the given cell,
age factor approaches 0. In the other end, A+B’s curve ap- he can easily compare the capacity of the different configu-
proaches the curve of configuration (A+B)+0 as the cover- rations of N+0 (no IUO), (N-1)+1 (1 super frequency), (N-
age factor approaches 100%. The difference between the 2)+2 (2 super frequency), etc. and he can immediately read
various configurations’ result stems from the assumptions the allowable super coverage factor, which is a key factor
that regular frequencies consist of 7 TCHs while super fre- for planning the reuse of the frequencies of the super fre-
quencies consist of 8 TCHs each, this also can be seen very quency plane. Thus the planner can see the possible benefits
well in the figure. For example, at 90% coverage factor the of defining some of the TRXs as super frequencies. On the
3+2 configuration (37 channels) outperforms the 4+1 con- other hand if capacity extension is needed in the cell with
figuration (36 channels). N TRXs, the network planner can compare the solutions
One the most useful outcomes of the paper is that de- (N+1)+0, N+1 or maybe N+2, where the last two cases al-
creasing the super coverage factor assuming a given cell low the planner to keep the original frequencies in the regu-
6
30
25
25
1+2 # 7+16 20
1+3 # 7+24
1+4 # 7+32
1+2 # 7+16
1+1 # 7+8 1+3 # 7+24
20 1 # 7+0 1+4 # 7+32
2+2 # 14+16 1+1 # 7+8
2+3 # 14+32 15
1 # 7+0
2+1 # 14+ 8 2+2 # 14+16
2 # 14+ 0 2+3 # 14+32
15 3+2 # 21+16
Traffic [Erlang]
2+1 # 14+ 8
Traffic [Erlang]
0
0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Super coverage factor (lines at 0.02 loss probabilities)
Super coverage factor (lines at 0.02 loss probabilities)
Figure 10. Performance of different cell config- Figure 11. Performance of different cell config-
urations with non-moving MSs urations with moving MSs
lar TRXs and finding new frequencies for the super TRXs, [5] M. Frodigh, Reuse partioning combined with traffic
which frequencies may suffer interference, handled by IUO. adaptive channel assignment for highway microcellu-
lar systems Globecom ’92