© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 1 COMP9336/4336 Mobile Data Networking www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs933 6 or ~cs4336 Basic Concepts
© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 1
COMP9336/4336 Mobile Data Networking www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9336 or ~cs4336
Basic Concepts
© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 2
Lecture overview
Mobile networking is different from conventional wired (fixed) networking in many ways. This lecture will cover some of the basic concepts and terminologies of mobile data networking.
© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 3
Topics to be covered (1)
Wireless communication medium – Spectrum, regulation, frequencies – Power, battery, range – Interference – Line-of-sight, propagation, received signal strength – Free-space propagation model – Impact of obstacles – Antenna – omni vs directional
© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 4
Topics to be covered (2)
Wireless interfaces in mobile devices – Bluetooth – WiFi – NFC – GSM, GPRS, 3G, LTE – GPS
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Topics to be covered (3)
Cellular concept – Cells, towers and cellular coverage – Frequency reuse – Cell size and capacity – Handoff
© 2013 Mahbub Hassan, UNSW 6
Topics to be covered (4)
Connectivity models – Device-infrastructure – Device-to-device (single-hop, multihop)
Service provider models – Cellular provider – Third-party provider
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Wireless Communication Medium
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Spectrum
Wireless transmissions use the airwaves – Airwaves are radio frequencies
Useful frequencies constitute the Spectrum Spectrum is ‘virtual’
– We cannot touch and feel A gift from nature (the force field)
– Has been there ever since earth was created A (limited) natural resource
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Spectrum regulation and licensing
Many users use the same airspace – Recipe for collision – No one would get anything useful done
Spectrum use is highly regulated – By govt. authorities (eg FCC in the USA)
Spectrum is often licensed – By big companies, eg Telstra – Gives exclusive rights to certain freq. bands – Interference avoidance by regulation
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Spectrum allocation
Bulk of it reserved for government use – Scientific exploration – Public safety – Military
Some for commercial services – TV broadcast – Mobile phone
Some for free-to-use – High-speed wireless local area network (WiFi) – Cordless phone handsets at home – Can you name a few more?
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Key principles of spectrum allocation
Maximise spectrum utilisation Spectrum made available to new
technologies and services – Adapt to new market needs
Fair licensing Promote competition Ensure spectrum availability for public
safety, health, defence, scientific experiments…
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Spectrum use by TV and cellular services
Broadcast TV (54 –806 MHz)
Cellular 1G (806-902MHz)
Cellular 2G (1.8-1.9 GHz)
Cellular 3G (746-764MHz, 776-794 MHz, 1.7-1.8 GHz, 2.5-2.6 GHz)
50MHz
3GHz
1GHz
2GHz
Cellular 4G (700MHz, 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz, 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz)
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Free (unregulated) spectrum
Not subject to license Has rules for products (eg power limitation) More frequencies released as license-free Some current license-free frequencies
– 900 MHz – 2.4 GHz ISM band (WiFi, Microwave etc.) – 5.2/5.3/5.8 GHz (WiFi, Cordless phone etc.)
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Power, battery, range
Higher the transmit power – Longer the range of communication – Greater energy consumption (quicker battery
depletionlarger battery needed) – Higher interference (less system capacity)
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Range as a function of transmit power
T R1
R2 R3
P1
P2
P3
Transmitter T has 3 power levels to choose from: P3 > P2 > P1
R1 is closed to transmitter T
R3 is farthest from transmitter T
There are 3 receivers in the vicinity of transmitter T
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Example
Consider the scenario of previous slide Q1 how many receivers can the transmitter
reach if it transmits at power P3 ? Q2 what would be the minimum power the
transmitter could use if it intended to reach the majority of the receivers?
Q3 at what power level the battery of the transmitter will run out the soonest
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Solution
A1 – three A2 – P2
– R3 will not hear the transmitter! – But 2 out of 3 (majority) receivers will
A3 – P3
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Interference
Signals transmitted by different sources may interfere with each other at the receiver – If frequencies are close to each other
Interference may corrupt data – Reduces achievable data rates
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Interference is experienced at the receiver
R T1 T2
Signals from T1 and T2 interferes at R
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Line-of-sight, propagation, signal strength
Transmitter and receiver have line-of-sight (LOS) when they have clear view of each other – Best reception when there is LOS
Received signal power is likely to be less than transmitted power
A propagation (path loss) model is used to estimate received signal power
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Free-space propagation model
Rx power = Tx power x path loss factor Rx power (Pr) falls off as the square of the tx-rx distance d The higher the frequency, the more path loss (e.g. FM radio has
a shorter coverage than AM)
= Pr (d) Pt λ2
(4π)2 d2
Pt : transmit power, λ : wavelength of transmitted frequency
π = 3.14……..
for unit antenna gain and system loss
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Frequency-wavelength conversion
λ = c/f
c: speed of light 3x108 m/s
f: operating frequency
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Example wavelengths
Higher the frequency, smaller the wavelength 900 MHz has a wavelength of 33.33 cm 2.4 GHz has a wavelength of 12.5 cm 60 Ghz has a wavelength of only 5 mm (this
technology is called millimeter wave)
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Power in decibel Power for practical mobile systems vary by many
orders of magnitude – 100kW or kilowatt (FM radio station) – 500mW or milliwatt (cellular phone tx power) – 2.5mW (Bluetooth with ~10m range) – 100pW or picowatt (typical WiFi rx threshold) – Femto watt? (nanosensor communication) – 1 W = 103 mW = 106 µW = 109 nW = 1012 pW
Decibel is a more convenient (logarithmic scale) unit to compare these powers with each other
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Conversion to dBm
dBm is in reference to 1 milliwatt First, express power in milliwatt Then apply following formula to obtain dBm
Power in dBm = 10 log (power in milliwatt)
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Conversion to dBW
dBW is in reference to 1 watt First express power in watt Then apply following formula to obtain dBW
Power in dBW = 10 log (power in watt)
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Relationship between dBm & dBW
Note that 1 W = 1000 mW This gives us following relationship
– Note log(axb) = log(a)+log(b)
dBm = dBW + 30
If you’ve calculated a power in dBW, you can simply derive the equivalent dBm by adding 30 to dBW, or vice versa.
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Example (1)
Express 1 mW power in units of dBm
10 log (1) = 10x0 = 0 dBm
So, zero dBm does not mean there is no power !
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Example (2)
Express 50 W in – (a) dBW and (b) dBm
P(dBW) = 10 log (50) = 17 dBW
P(dBm) = 10 log (50x1000) dBm
= 10 log (50) + 10 log (1000) dBm
= 17 + 30 = 47 dBm
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Example (3)
If 50W tx power is applied to a 900 MHz frequency, find the rx power in dBm at a distance of 100 meter from tx. Assume free space with unit gains.
Pr (100) = Pt λ2
(4π)2 1002 = 3.5 x 10-3 mW
Pr(dBm) = 10 log (3.5 x 10-3) = -24.5 dBm
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Example (4)
Consider the same setting of the previous question, i.e., 100 meter between Tx and Rx. If you use 60 GHz instead, but still want to receive the same power at the Rx, i.e., -24.5 dBm, what power you need at the transmitter?
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Impact of obstacles
Many different types of obstacles – Trees, building, hills, metallic body of vehicles
Different obstacles affect signal differently Free-space path loss model explained in the previous slides will
not provide accurate results when obstacles exist Different path-loss models exist to estimate signal strength at
a given location based on the geographic profile of the location (not covered in this course) – e.g, log-distance, Longley-Rice, Okumura
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Antenna
Transmits or receives radio waves Some antennas are visible, some are hidden
within the device or not obtrusive
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Relationship between Antenna size and frequency
Antennas are designed to transmit or receive a specific frequency band – Cannot use a TV antenna for wireless router, or vice-versa
(why?)
End-to-end antenna length = ½ wavelength – So that electrons can travel back and forth the
antenna in one cycle If dipole (two rods), each rod is ¼ wavelength
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Antenna – omni vs directional
Antenna shape and orientation affect the way wireless signals propagate
Omni-directional antenna – Signal travels all directions from transmitter – Signal received from all directions at receiver – Small in size, low-cost – Communication range is limited (power is divided in all
directions) Directional antenna
– Signal travels in a particular direction of choice – Bulky, expensive – Range can be extended with a directional antenna (total
power is focused in one direction)
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Wireless Interfaces
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Bluetooth
Short-range communication (few meters) Device-to-device communication
– Exchange data between mobile phones – Connect two handheld game consoles – Connect microphone to wireless headset (a.k.a. bluetooth
headset) Reasonable data rates (up to 1Mbps) Operates at 2.4GHz ISM band
– ISM – industrial scientific medical – Can hop among 79 channels each 1MHz channel
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WiFi IEEE 802.11a/g standard Range: 20-200 meters
– Power, antenna, and other factors influence range Bit rate: 2-54 Mbps
– b: 11 Mbps (2Mbps at poor signal strength) – g: 54 Mbps
Mainly for device-to-infrastructure Usually for data communication
– But voice is possible (VOIP) Operates at 2.4GHz or 5GHz (Dual Band)
– 2.4GHz would interfere with microwave, bluetooth, and others ISM band devices
2.4GHz allows up to 12 (overlapping) channels, each 22 MHz, but 5GHz offers significantly more channels
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WiFi-Direct
A device-to-device technology, which does not require any AP/router
A different standard from WiFi, which needs an AP
2.4GHz frequency band (same as WiFi)
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Near Field Communication (NFC)
Builds on RFID (tag) technology (unlicensed 13.56 MHz)
Device-to-device with a range of 2-3 cm (S-beam in Galaxy S3)
Maximum data rate of 424 kbps Previously used in credit cards for
contactless payments (e.g pay pass) Now available in mobile devices enabling
mobile payment, ticketing, etc. using mobile phone
Also used to bootstrap WiFi/Bluetooth for ‘heavy’ communication (eliminates WiFi/Bluetooth configuration delay)
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GSM
Global system for mobile communication Long range: upto 10Km Mainly for circuit-switched digital voice Data possible at low rate – about 9Kbps Short message service (SMS) over GSM
– Uses control/signaling channels – Can be used for some sort of data communication
Operates at 1.8 GHz Device-to-device not possible
– Device must connect to tower/infrastructure
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GPRS
General packet radio service Extension of GSM
– GSM chipset has GPRS as well – Same interface has both GSM and GPRS capabilities
Designed for data communication Operates at 1.8 GHz Bit rates: 9-21 Kbps
– Depending on coding schemes used – Range reduces with higher data rates
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3G Designed for data communication Data rates from a few hundred Kbps to a few Mbps
depending on distance to tower and obstacles Draws more power than 2G This interface cannot be turned off manually (by the users)
in the mobile devices But cellular networks employ power management protocols to
dynamically switch this interface in different power modes
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4G Designed for data communication Data rates from a few Mbps to tens of Mbps depending on
distance to tower and obstacles Draws more power than 3G This interface cannot be turned off manually (by the users)
in the mobile devices But cellular networks employ power management protocols to
dynamically switch this interface in different power modes Some older smartphones have 3G, but they do not have 4G Newer phones all come with this interface
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GPS
Global positioning systems Interface to communicate with GPS satellites Operates at 1.5 GHz Used for detecting
– Position – Speed – Direction of movement – Universal clock
High power consumption (why?) Turned on only when needed
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The Cellular Concept
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Cells
Divide a large geographical region (service area) into many ‘small’ wireless coverage cells
No matter where you are within the service area, you are always in a cell
A radio tower is erected for each cell to provide wireless coverage to users in the cell
All radio towers are connected to cellular service providers ‘main system’
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Frequency reuse
Adjacent towers cannot use same frequencies because of interference
But ‘distant’ towers can! – Towers separated by one or more cells
Allows reuse of same set of frequencies – Over many towers throughout the service area – Can serve more customers per frequency
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Example of frequency reuse Assume 3 frequencies to be reused
– Red, green, and blue Adjacent cells cannot use same frequencies
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Handoff
Change of cell, change of tower If user moves from one cell to another during an
ongoing service, a transparent tower reassignment is required
User is handed off from one tower to another (frequency) Handoff may be necessary if user
needs to be switched to a new frequency – User may stay in the same cell
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Connectivity Models
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Device-to-infrastructure
Device always connect to a ‘tower’ – Tower: access point, base station, satellite, …
Device requires high power if tower is far – Satellite phones require lots of power!
Single wireless hop to connect to network 1G,2G,3G and 4G must operate in this mode
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Device-to-Device
Also known as adhoc, mobile-to-mobile, or peer-to-peer
Two devices can talk to each other without needing access to infrastructure – example: Nintendo DS multiplayer games (using
bluetooth) Multihop is possible
– A mobile may get to tower via another mobile! 1-3G do not support this mode (4G/LTE does)
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Service Provider Model
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Cellular provider
Owns cellular infrastructure Mobile telephony --- the primary service But can provide a host of new services
– SMS – Internet – Navigation
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Third-party provider
No need to own cellular infrastructure No need to offer mobile telephony Builds on top of cellular service provided by
someone else Can deliver a host of value added services
– Tracking (dogs, cats, childs, vehicles, …) – Advanced navigation based on current traffic
conditions – Location-based services