Chapter 2: The Cellular System

Undergraduate Program
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 1

Goals of the Chapter

• In cellular system, the available radio spectrum is limited

• E.g., because of regulatory issues
• Hence, the number of simultaneous call supported is limited

• How to achieve high capacity (or support simultaneous

calls) at the same time covering very large areas?
• Frequency reuse by using cells?

• Overview system design fundamentals on cellular

communication
• Cell formation and the associated frequency reuse, handoff, and power
control

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 2

Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System

3/8/2020 3
Cellular System - Architecture

Radio tower

PSTN
Telephone
Network
Mobile Switching
Center

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 4

Cellular System ….
• High capacity is achieved by limiting the coverage of each
base station to a small geographic region called a cell
• Single, high power transmitter (large cell) are replaced with many
low power transmitters (small cells)

• A portion of the total number of channels is allocated to

each cell or base station
• Available group of channels are assigned to a small number of
neighboring base stations called cluster
• Nearby base stations are assigned different groups of channels to
minimize interference

• Same channels (frequencies/timeslots/codes) are reused by

spatially separated base stations
▪ Reuse distance and frequency reuse planning?

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Cellular System ….
▪ A switching technique called handoff enables a call to
proceed from one cell to another
• As demand (or # of users) increases, the number of base
stations may be increased to provide additional capacity
▪ Smaller cells, e.g., Microcells, Picocell, Femtocell
▪ Also cell sites in trucks to replace downed cell towers after natural
disasters, or to create additional capacity for large gatherings
(football games, rock concerts)
▪ Transmission power reduction => interference decreases
• Typical power transmitted by the radios in a cell system
• Base station: Maximum Effective Radiated Power (ERP) is
100W, or up to 500 W in rural areas
• Mobile station: Typically 0.5 W. For CDMA, transmit power is
lowered when close to a BS
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 6
Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 7

Cell Shape – Why hexagon?
• The hexagonal shape is a simplistic assumption

• (a) is theoretical coverage area and (b) measured coverage area

where red, blue, green, and yellow indicate signal strength, in
decreasing order
• Footprint: Actual radio coverage and obtained experimentally
• Actual shape is random and depends on the environment
• Circular (theoretical): If path loss was a decreasing function
of distance, say, 1/dn, where d is the distance b/n BS & MS

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 8

 Cell Shape – Required
• Geometric shape that
approximates the
theoretical shape?
• Shape whose non-
overlapping and
repetitive placement
covers an entire
region?
• Possible shapes
• Triangles, squares,
hexagons Has dead zones
• Which one to choose?
• Hexagon!

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular 9

Cell Shape . . .

R
R
R

aR = 2R2 aT = 33/2 R2/4 aH= 33/2 R2/2

= 1.3 R2 = 2.6 R2

• Hexagonal cell is conceptual, however, it is universally

adopted for most theoretical treatment because
• Hexagons are a geometric shape that approximates a circle (for
Omni-directional radiation)
• Using a hexagon geometry, fewest number of cells can cover the
entire geographic region

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 Cell Shape . . .
• When using hexagon to model coverage areas
• Center-excited cell: Base station (BS) depicted as being in the
center of the cell
• Omni-directional antenna is used

• Edge-excited cell: on three of the six cell vertices

• Sectored direction antenna is used

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Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular 12

Frequency Reuse – Example
• Assume a city of 10 Million mobile users
• Let every user is allocated a radio spectrum for analog speech of 4
kHz bandwidth
• Thus the required bandwidth is 4 kHz * 10 Million users = 40 GHz!
• Clearly impractical!
• No other services possible using a radio transmission
• Most of the spectrum will be unused most of the time

• Cellular radio systems rely on intelligent allocation and

reuse of channels through out the coverage area
• Available group of channels are assigned to a cluster
• Same group of frequencies are reused to cover another cell
separated by a large enough distance, i.e., there is a tradeoff

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Frequency Reuse – Example

• Example: Consider a
cluster of 7 cells
• Same color labeled
cells use the same
frequency
• Frequency reuse factor
is 1/7 since each cell
contains one-seventh
of the total available
channels

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 V
Geometry of Hexagons y
U

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Geometry of Hexagons …
• Axes U and V intersect at 60o
• Unit distance is the distance between cell centers
• If cell radius to point of hexagon is R, then
• 2Rcos 30o = 1 or R = 1/√3 (Normalized radius of a cell)
• To find the distance of a point P(u,v) from the origin, use X-
Y to U-V coordinate transformation

r2 = x + y
2 2

x = u cos 30 0
y = v + u sin 3 0 0
1
r = (v 2 + uv + u 2
) 2

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Geometry of Hexagons …
• To locate the co-channel cells using these equations start
from a reference cell and move
• i-hexagons along the U-axis and
• j-hexagons along the V-axis
• The distance D between co-channel cells in adjacent
clusters is given by
2 + ij +
2
D i j
= cells in a cluster, N, is given by
• The number of
N = i 2 + ij + j 2
where i and j are non-negative integers
• There are only certain cluster sizes and layouts possible
• Typical values of N are 1, 3, 4, 7, 12, ……
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Example

Re-use Coordinates Number of Cells Normalized

in the cluster repeat distance
i j N D
1 0 1 1

1 1 3 1.732

2 1 7 2.646

2 2 12 3.464

1 3 13 3.606

3 2 19 4.359

1 4 21 4.583

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 Locating Co-Channel Cells: Example N=7, i=2 & j=1
• To find out the
nearest co-channel V S

neighbors of a
particular cell, do the
following BS1
• Move i cells in the U
direction
• Then turn 60 degree
U
counter clockwise and
move j cells in the V
B 1
direction
BS1

1/3

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Locating Co-Channel Cells: Example N=19, i=3, j=2

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Re-use Factor

• For Hexagonal cells,

D the re-use distance is
given by:
D=R 3N
R • Where R = cell size and
N = cluster size

• Re-use factor is
BS1
defined as:
BS1
D
q= = 3N
R

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Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

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Cell Capacity and Reuse
• Consider a cellular system
• Which has S duplex channels available for re-use
• Each cell allocated a group of k channels
• Let the S channels be divided among N cells (unique and disjoint)
then,
S = kN
• Cluster: N cells, which collectively use the complete set of
available frequencies
• If a cluster is replicated M times in the system, the total
number of duplex channels, C, as a measure of capacity is

C=M k N=M S

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Cell Capacity and Reuse . . .
• If cluster size N is reduced while cell size is kept constant
• More clusters are required to cover area of interest, i.e., M C 
• So capacity is directly prop. to replication factor for fixed area

• However, small cluster size means co-channel cells are

located much closer together
• Results in larger co-channel interference
• May result in lower Quality of Service (QoS)

• Conversely, large cluster size indicates that co-channel

cells are far from each other
• Less co-channel interference and frequency utilization

• The value of N is a function of how much interference a

mobile or BS can tolerate

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Cell Capacity and Reuse: Example 1
• Assume that:
• 50 MHz is available for
forward channels
• GSM is deployed
• Each channel is 200 kHz
• In GSM, TDMA is used so
that 8 simultaneous calls can
be made on each channel

• How large is k?
• How many forward calls
can be made
simultaneously for the
deployment containing 28
cells as in the figure?
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Cell Capacity and Reuse: Solution
• Solution:
• There are 50 MHz / 0.2 MHz = 250 channels per cluster
• With N = 4, then k = 250/4 = 62.5

• With 62.5 channels, 8(62.5) = 500 simultaneous calls can be made

in each cell
• There are 28 cells on the cell map in Figure, so the total forward
calls is 28(500) = 14×103 calls can be made simultaneously

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Cell Capacity and Reuse: Example 2
• Suppose 33 MHz BW allocated to particular FDD cellular
system, where two 25 KHz simplex channel to provide full-
duplex for voice/data
• Compute the number of channels per cell if a system uses
• Four-cell reuse
• Seven-cell reuse
• Twelve-cell reuse

• Solution: Given that

• Total BW = 33 MHz, channel BW = 25 KHz x 2 = 50 KHz/duplex
channel
• S = 33,000/50 = 660 channels
• For N = 4, k = 660 / 4 ≈ 165 channels
• For N = 7, k = 660 / 7 ≈ 95 channels
• For N = 12, k = 660 / 12 ≈ 55 channels

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 27

Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 28

Handoff

• The process of transferring a call, which is in progress from

one channel or BS to another is called handoff or handover
• Handoff is required when a MS moves into a different cell
• MSC facilitates the transfer

• In general, handoff involves

• Identifying the new BS
• Allocation of voice and control channels in the new BS

• Prioritize handoff requests over call initiation requests

when allocating unused channels in a cell site

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Handoff Region – Power Strength

BS-1 P1(x) P2(x) BS-2

• By looking at the variation of signal strength from either base

station, it is possible to decide on the optimum area where
handoff can take place

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Handoff

• Handoffs must be performed

• Successfully
• As infrequently as possible, and
• Must be imperceptible to the user

• To meet these requirements, a minimum usable signal

level must be specified for acceptable voice quality at the
base station
• If the received power drops too low prior to handoff, the call will be
dropped so that users complain about dropped calls

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Handoff Region . . .

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Handoff Margin
• Consider the following two power levels
• Pr,min. usable be the minimum received power in dB, below which a
call cannot be received
• A handoff has to be initiated much prior to this point

• Pr,handoff be a higher threshold in dB at which the MSC initiates the

handoff procedure
• Handoff is made when the received signal at the BS falls below the
threshold

• Define handoff margin in dB as

• ∆ = Pr,handoff − Pr,min. usable

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Handoff Margin …
• How much margin is needed to handle a mobile at driving
speeds?
• The margin ∆ should not be too large or too small
• If ∆ is too large, it may lead to unnecessary handoffs which
may burden the MSC
• The call may be handed over to the neighboring BS when the MS
is well inside the home cell

• If ∆ is too small, there may be insufficient time to complete

a handoff before a call is lost due to weak signal conditions

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 34

Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Co-channel interference
• Adjacent channel interference
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 35

Interference
• Interference is a major performance limiting factor in
cellular radio
• It limits capacity thereby increasing the number of dropped calls

• Interference are difficult to control in practice largely due to

random propagation effects
• Sources of interference include
• Another mobile in the same cell or in a neighboring cell
• Other BSs operating in the same frequency band
• Any cellular (e.g., from competing cellular carriers) or non-cellular
system which inadvertently leaks energy into the cellular frequency
band
• …

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 36

Interference – Effects
• Interference in the voice channels causes crosstalk
• A subscriber hears interference in the background due to an
undesired transmission

• Interference in the control channels causes error in digital

signaling which causes
• Missed calls
• Blocked calls
• Dropped calls

• Interference is more severe in urban areas, due to the

greater RF noise floor and the large number of base
stations and mobiles

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Interference – Types
• There are two major types of Interferences:
• Co-channel Interference (CCI)
• Adjacent channel Interference (ACI)

▪ CCI is caused due to the cells that reuse the same

frequency set
▪ These cells using the same frequency set are referred to as co-
channel cells

▪ ACI is caused due to signals that are adjacent in frequency

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Co-Channel Interference – First-tier Interference

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 Co-Channel Interference – First-tier Interference

First-tier co-channel BSs

D1
D6

D5 D2

D4
D3

Serving Base Station

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Co-Channel Interference …
• Unlike thermal noise, CCI cannot be overcome by increasing
the carrier power of a transmitter
• This is because, any increase in the transmitter power also increases
the interference to other co-channel cells

• Instead, co-channel cells must be physically separated by a

minimum distance to provide sufficient isolation due to
propagation
• To reduce CCI the co-channel cells must be sufficiently separated

• Co-channel interference is a function of

• The radius of the cell, R, and
• The distance to the center of the nearest co-channel cell, Di

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Co-Channel Interference …
• For a hexagonal geometry, the co-channel reuse ratio, Q is
related to the cluster size
D
Q= = 3N
R
• It determines the spatial separation relative to the coverage
distance of the cell
• N small gives Q small
• Provides a larger capacity (i.e., can re-use more), but higher CCI
• N large means Q large
• Better transmission quality due to a small level of co-channel
interference but small capacity

• Hence there is capacity vs. interference tradeoff

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Co-Channel Interference …

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Signal-to-Interference Ratio
• Signal-to-interference ratio (S/I) for a mobile which
monitors a forward channel is
S S
= m
I
I j
j=1

• Where S: desired signal power, Ij: interference caused by the jth co-
channel cell, and m: first-tier co-channels cells
• The average received power at a distance d from the
transmitting antenna is approx. by
−n
d Pr ( d B ) = P0 ( d B ) − 1 0 n log( d )
Pr =Po   or
 do  d0
• Where Po is the received power at a close-in reference distance in
the far-field and n is the path-loss exponent
• The path loss exponent, n, ranges between 2 and 6
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 44
Signal-to-Interference Ratio …
• If Di is the distance of the ith interferer, the received power
is proportional to (Di )−n
• If transmit power of each BS is equal & n is the same
throughout the coverage area, S/I for a mobile is approx. as
S =
m
R −n
I
 (Di )−n
i =1

• To simplify, assume all first-tier interferers are equidistance

S
(D ) ( 3 N ) n
n

= R =
I m m
• This relates S/I to the cluster size, and in turn determines the
overall capacity of the system
• Puts a limits on how low we may set N
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 45
Signal-to-Interference Ratio …
• For a hexagonal cluster of
cells with the MS situated at
the edge of the cell R

( )
D
=   = 1
S 1 D n
3N
I 6  R  6 D
D

• As long as all cells are of the D

same size, S/I is D
D
independent of the cell
radius, R

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 46

Signal-to-Interference Ratio - Example 1
• Design parameters:
• Desired S/I = 15dB
• Path-loss exponent n = 4
• Assume that there are six co-channel cells in the first tier and all of
them are at the same distance from the mobile

• What is the required re-use factor and cluster size that

should be used for maximum capacity?

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Signal-to-Interference Ratio – Example 1 …
• Six co-channel
cells in the first
tier

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Signal-to-Interference Ratio - Example 1 …

• Let’s try for N= 4. The co- • Let’s try: N= 7

channel re-use ratio is D
D = 4.58
= 3.46 R
R
 = (4.58)4
S 1
• And the signal-to-interference I 6
ratio is = 73.5 =18.66 dB

= (3.46 )4 = 24 =13.8 dB
S 1
I 6
• Which is greater than
the desired
• Smaller than the desired • Hence, N=7 can be
used
15 dB
• We must move to the next reuse
• The frequency reuse
factor = 1/7
distance

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Example 2 - Repeat Example 1 for n = 3
• Solution
• Let’s try for a seven-cell reuse pattern, i.e. N= 7. Like the previous
example
= (4.58 )3 = 16.04 = 12.05 d B
D S 1
= 4.58 and
R I 6

• Which is smaller than the desired 15 dB, hence we need to

use larger N
• Let us try N=12
= (6.00 )3 = 36 = 15.56 d B
D S 1
= 6.00 and 
R I 6

• Since this is greater than 15 dB, N=12 can be used

• Note: n=3 is typical value for sub-urban area

• Exercise: Try for n=2, which represents rural area!

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Worst Case Calculation of S/I
• The MS is at the cell
boundary
• The approximate S/I is
given by:

S −n
= R
I 2 (D − R )− n + 2 (D )− n + 2 (D + R )− n

S 1
 =
I 2(Q −1)−n + 2(Q )−n + 2(Q +1)−n

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Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Co-channel interference
• Adjacent channel interference
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity

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Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI)
• Results from signals that are adjacent in frequency to the
desired signal
• Due to imperfect receiver filters, that allow nearby frequencies to
leak

• Near-far effect: The adjacent channel interference is

particularly serious. This occurs when:
• When an interferer close to the BS radiates in the adjacent
channel, while the subscriber is far away from the BS
• The BS may not discriminate the desired mobile user from the “bleed
over” caused by the close adjacent channel mobile

• Or, an interferer which is in close range to the subscriber’s

receiver, is transmitting while the receiver receives from the BS

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Near-Far Effect - Interferer Close to BS
• One solution is power control, i.e., reducing the power
level transmitted by mobiles close to the BS

Interferer Subscriber

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Near-Far Effect - Interferer Close to MS

Interferer Subscriber

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Adjacent Channel Interference …
• ACI can be reduced by
• Careful filtering
• Careful channel assignment

• The frequency separation between each channel in a cell

should be made as large as possible
• Assign non-adjacent channels within each cell’s channel group

• Example: Assign S = 50 channels into groups for N = 7.

• Solution
• There are about k = 50/7 ≈ 7 channels per cell
• For group 1, use forward channels {1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, 50}
• For group i, i = 2, . . . 7, let the channels for group i consist of {i, i
+7, i + 14, i + 21, i + 28, i + 35, i + 42}

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Adjacent Channel Interference …
• Example: The frequency separation between each
channel in a cell should be made as large as possible while
assigning them

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Adjacent Channel Interference …
• If a subscriber is at a distance d1 and the interferer is d2
from the base station, then SIR (prior to filtering) is:
−n
S  d1 
=  
I  d2 

• Example
• Suppose a subscriber is at d1 = 1000m from the BS and an
adjacent channel interferer is at d2 = 100m from the BS
• Assume: Path-loss exponent is n = 3
• The signal-to-Interference ratio prior to filtering is then
−n −3
S =  d1   1000  = 10 −3 = − 30 d B
= 
I  d2   100 

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Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Basic definitions
• Blocked calls cleared
• Blocked calls delayed
• Improving capacity

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Trunking
• Trunking: How to accommodate a large number of users in
a limited radio spectrum?
• Trunking refers to sharing a fixed and small number of
channels among a large and random user community
• Each user demands access from a pool of channel
infrequently & at random times
• A channel is allocated on a per call basis and a channel is returned
to the pool up on termination of a call
• So a dedicated channel for each user is not required
• If U be number of users and C be number of channels, for any C <
U, possibility of more requests than channels

• Trunking exploits statistical behavior of users so that a fixed

number of channels accommodate a large, random user

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Trunking …
• Trunking accommodates large & random users:
• By providing access to each user on demand from a pool of
available channels
• When a user requests service and if all channels are in use
1. The user is blocked or denied access to the system
2. In some systems, a queue may be used to hold the requesting
users until a channel becomes available

• Upon termination of the call, the previously occupied channel is

immediately returned to the pool

• Designing a trunked system, that can handle a given

capacity at a specific “grade of service”, requires trunking
and queuing theories

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Trunking – Definition of Terms . . .
• Setup time: The time required to allocate a radio channel to
a requesting user
• Users request may be blocked or have to wait
• Blocked Call: A call that cannot be completed at the time of
request due to congestion
• Also called lost call => lost revenue, e.g., pick hours, holidays, …

• Holding time: Average call duration in seconds, denoted H

• Depends on users and operator's tariff
• Request (or call) rate: Average number of calls per unit time,
denoted λ seconds-1
• Typically taken to be at the busiest time of day
• Depends on type of users community: Office, residential, call center

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Trunking – Definition of Terms . . .
• Traffic Intensity: A measure of channel time utilization
• Is the average channel occupancy measured in Erlang, denoted by A
• Load: Traffic intensity across the entire trunked radio system
• Measured in Erlang

• Erlang: A “unit” of measure of usage or traffic intensity

• A channel kept busy for one hour is defined as having a load of one
Erlang

• Grade of Service (GoS): Measure of congestion (or ability of

a user to access a trunked system) during the busiest hour
• Typically given as likelihood that a call is blocked, called Erlang B or
• The likelihood of a call experiencing a delay greater than a certain
amount of time, called Erlang C

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Trunking …

• Average arrival rate, λ:

• Average number of MSs requesting service (call request/time)
• Average hold-time, H
• Average duration of a call (or time for which MS requires service)

• An average traffic intensity offered (generated) by each user

Au = H (Erlangs)

• Example 1: If a user makes on average two calls per hour,

and that a call lasts an average of 3 minutes
2
Au = 3min = 0.1Erlang
60 min

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Trunking …
• Example 2: In a cell with 100 MSs average of 30 requests
are generated in an hour with average holding time of
6 minutes
• The arrival rate:  = 30 3600 requests / sec

• Offered load is: Au =

30Calls
*
360 Seconds
= 3 Erlangs
3600 Seconds Call

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 65

Trunking …
• The total offered traffic intensity for U users A = UAu
• Note: A is not necessarily the traffic carried by the trunked system

• In a C channel trunked system, if traffic is distributed equally

among channels, then traffic intensity per channel
UAu = A
AC =
C C

• In Example 1, assume that there are 100 users and 20

channels
• Then A = 100(0.1)= 10 and Ac = 10/20 = 0.5

• Note: Ac is a measure of the efficiency of channels utilization

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 66

Trunking and GoS

• Offered traffic is not necessarily the traffic carried by the

trunked system, only that is offered to the system
• Maximum possible carried traffic is the total number of channels, C,
in Erlangs

• AMPS system is designed for a GOS of 2% blocking

• Channel allocations for cells are designed so that 2 out of 100 calls
will be blocked due to channel occupancy during the busiest hour

• What do we do when a call is offered (requested) but all

channels are full?
• Blocked calls cleared? Offers no queuing for call requests, Erlang B
• Blocked calls delayed? Erlang C

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 67

Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Basic definitions
• Blocked calls cleared
• Blocked calls delayed
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 68

Trunking – Blocked Calls Cleared

1. Calls arrival request follows a Poisson distribution

2. Memoryless arrivals of requests
• I.e., all users, including blocked users, may request a channel at
any time
3. The probability of a call durations (or a user occupying a
channel) is exponentially distributed
• I.e., longer calls are less likely to occur
4. There are “infinite number of users” and “finite channels”
• Rather than a finite number U of users each requesting Au traffic,
set the total offered traffic as a constant A, and then let U →  and
Au → 0 in a way that preserves A = UAu

• These assumptions leads to the Erlang B formula

• Also known as the “blocked calls cleared formula”

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 69

Trunking – Erlang B Formula
• The probability of an arriving call being blocked is:
Ac
Pr [blocking] = C C! k = GOS
 A
k =0 k!

• Where C: number of trunked channels and A: total offered traffic

• Erlang B is a measure of the GOS for a trunked system
which provides no queuing for blocked calls
• Setting the desired GOS, one can derive
• Number of channels needed
• The maximum number of users we can support as A = UAU or
• The maximum AU we can support (and set the number of minutes
on our calling plans accordingly)
• Since C is very high, it is easier to use table or graph
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 70
Erlang B Formula - Table Form

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 71

Erlang B Formula - Graphical Form

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 72

Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Basic definitions
• Blocked calls cleared
• Blocked calls delayed
• Improving capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 73

Trunking – Blocked Calls Delayed
• Instead of clearing a call, put it in a queue and have it wait
until a channel is available
• First-in, first-out line: Calls will be processed in the order received

• There are two things to determine here

1. The probability a call will be delayed (enter the queue), and
2. The probability that the delay will be longer than t seconds

• The first is no longer the same as Erlang B

• It goes up, because blocked calls aren’t cleared, they “stick
around” and wait for the first open channel

• Meaning of GOS
• The probability that a call will be forced into the queue AND it will
wait longer than t seconds before being served (for some given t)

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 74

Trunking - Blocked Calls Delayed …
• Additional assumptions:
1. The queue is infinitely long: Translates to infinite memory
2. No one who is queued gives up/hangs up (rather than wait)

• The probability of an arriving call not having an immediate

access to a channel (or being delayed) is given by Erlang
C Formula

Pr [delay  0] = Ac
A C −1 Ak
Ac + C!(1− C ) k!
k =0

• It is typically easiest to find a result from a chart

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 75

Trunking - Calls Delayed …
• Once it enters the queue, the probability that the delay is
greater than t (for t > 0) is given as
 C − At
Pr [delay  t delay  0] = exp − 
 H 

• GOS: The marginal (overall) probability that a call will be

delayed AND experience a delay greater than t is then
Pr [delay  t] = Pr [delay  0]Pr [delay  t | delay  0]

= Pr [delay  0]exp − C − A t 
 H 
• The average delay for all calls in a queued system
H
D = Pr [delay  0]
C−A

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 76

Erlang C Formula - Graphical Form

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 77

Trunking - Example 1
• Consider a system with
• 100 cells
• Each cell has C = 20 channels
• Generates on average λ = 2 calls/hour
• The average duration of each call (H) = 3 Minutes
• How many number of users can be supported if the
allowed probability of blocking is 2%?
• Solution:
• From Erlang B Chart, total carried traffic = 13 Erlangs
• Traffic intensity per user AU = λH = 0.1 Erlangs
• The total number of users that can be supported by a cell = 13/0.1
= 130 Users/cell
• Therefore, the total number of users in the system is 13,000

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 78

Trunking - Example 2
• Consider a system with
• 100 cells, each cell has C = 20 channels
• Generates on average λ = 2 calls/hour
• The average duration of each call (H) = 3 Minutes

• How many number of users can be supported if the

allowed probability of blocking is 0.2%?
• Solution
• Again from Erlang B Chart, total carried traffic = 10 Erlangs
• Traffic intensity per user AU = λH = 0.1 Erlangs
• The total number of users that can be supported by a cell = 10/0.1
= 100 Users/cell
• Therefore, the total number of users in the system is 10,000
• We support less number of users

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 79

Trunking - Example 3
• Consider a system with
• Total number of channels = 20
• Probability of blocking = 1%
• How shall we use this set of channels?
• Approach 1: Divide 20 channels into 4 trunks of 5 channels each
• Traffic capacity of one trunk (5 channels) = 1.36 Erlangs
• Traffic capacity of four trunks (20 channels) = 5.44 Erlangs
• Approach 2: Divide 20 channels into 2 trunks of 10 channels each
• Traffic capacity of one trunk (10 channels) = 4.46 Erlangs
• Traffic capacity of two trunks (20 channels) = 8.92 Erlangs
• Approach 3: Use the 20 channels as they are
• Traffic capacity of one trunk (20 channels) =12.0 Erlangs
• Better to make a large pool instead of dividing
• Allocation of channels in a trunked radio system has a major impact
on overall system capacity
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 80
Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity
• Cell splitting
• Sectoring

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 81

Improving Capacity
• A network may need to expand because of
• Increase in traffic or demand for service
• Or because of a change in the environment (e.g., a new building)

• As traffic increases, the channels originally assigned to

each cell will be congested
• System designers have to provide more channels per unit
coverage area
• Common techniques
• Cell splitting, sectoring, microcell zoning, and use of repeaters

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Cell Splitting
• Cell splitting: Process of subdividing a congested cell into
smaller cells (called microcells), where each cell has
• Its own BS (increase in BSs deployed) and
• Reduction in the transmitter power and antenna height

• Splitting the cells reduces the cell size and thus more
number of cells have to be used
• More number of cells = > more number of clusters => more
channels => higher capacity

• Cell splitting allows a system to grow by replacing large

cells by small cells without new spectrum usage
• Additional channels per unit area are created

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 83

 Cell Splitting . . .
• Depending on traffic Large cell
(low density)
patterns, the smaller
cells may be
Small cell
activated/deactivated (high density)
in order to efficiently
use cell resources

• The co-channel re-

use factor D/R is
unchanged
• Only increases the Smaller
number of channels cell (higher
per unit area density)

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 84

Cell Splitting - Example 1
• Suppose the radius of cell is reduced by half
• To cover the entire area, four times microcells are required
• What is the required transmit power for these new cells?

• We have: −n
• Power at the boundary of un-split cell: Pu = Ptu R
• Power at the boundary of a new microcell: Pmc = Ptmc (R / 2) −n

• Where Ptu : transmitted power for un-split cell, Pmc : transmitted

power from for microcell

• For same CCI performance Pu = Pmc implies Ptmc = Ptu / 2 n

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 85

Cell Splitting - Example 1 . . .
• For n = 4; (a typical suburban area)

Ptm c = Pt u
16
• Thus, the transmit power must be reduced by 12dB in
order to fill in the original coverage area with microcells,
while maintaining the S/I requirement

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 86

 Cell Splitting - Example 2

4 Cell 7 Cell
Cluster Cluster
Smaller
Cells

7 Cell
Cluster 12 Cell
Cluster

• Typical city cellular radio cell plan – different cell sizes and
clusters
• Combination of cell size and cluster size to increase capacity

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 87

Cell Splitting - Example 3
• Suppose a congested service area is
originally covered by
• 5 Cells
• Each with 80 Channels
• Capacity = 5*80 = 400
• After Splitting:
• Let Rnew = R / 2
• We now have 20 cells to cover the region
• New Capacity = 20*80 = 1600

• In general, the relationship in capacity between cell

splitting and subscriber addition can be expressed as
Cn = 4 n C
• Where Cn : network capacity after “n” times cell splitting and C:
Network capacity before cell splitting
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 88
Overview
• Cellular system
• Cell shape
• Frequency reuse
• Cell capacity and reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Trunking and grade of service
• Improving capacity and coverage
• Cell splitting
• Sectoring

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 89

Cell Sectoring
• Sectoring uses directional antennas to further control
interference and frequency reuse

• As opposed to cell splitting, where D/R is kept constant while

decreasing R, sectoring keeps R untouched and reduces the
D/R ratio
• Capacity improvement is achieved by reducing the number
of cells per cluster, thus increasing frequency reuse
3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 90
Cell Sectoring . . .
• In order to do this, it is necessary to reduce the relative
interference without decreasing the transmitter power
• CCI is reduced by replacing single omni-directional
antenna by several directional antennas, each radiating
within a specified sector
• A directional antenna transmits to and receives from only a
fraction of the total number of co-channel cells
• Thus CCI is reduced

• CCI reduction factor depends on the amount of sectoring

• A cell is normally partitioned into three 120⁰ sectors or six 60⁰
sectors

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 91

Cell Sectoring . . .

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 92

Cell Sectoring . . .
• Assume 7 cell reuse
and 1200 sector
• Number of interference
in the first tier reduces
from 6 to 2
• Significant compared to
omni-directional case
• Sectored groups

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 93

Cell Sectoring . . .

For a 7-cell cluster, the MS will

receive signals from only 2
other clusters (instead of 6 in
an omni-directional antenna)

For worst case, when mobile is

at the edge of the cell

−n
SIR = − n R
D + (D + 0.7R) −n

Desired channel Interfering co-channel cells @ D distance

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 94

Cell Sectoring – Problems
• Increased number of antennas at each BS
• Decrease in trunking efficiency due to sectoring
• Dividing the bigger pool of channels into smaller groups

• Increased number of handoffs (sector-to-sector)

• Good news: Many modern BSs support sectoring and
related handoffs without the help of the MSC

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 95

 Cell Sectoring – Modern BSs

1
1-1 2 120o
1-2 3
1-3
Sector in use CCI

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 96

Summary
• Concepts such as handoff, frequency reuse and frequency
planning are covered
• Capacity of cellular system is a function of many things,
• E.g., S/I that limits frequency reuse, which intern limits the number
of channels within the coverage area
• Capacity can be improved by cell splitting and sectoring
techniques

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 97

Atoll simulations

3/8/2020 Wireless and Mobile Communications - Ch. 2 – Cellular System 98