CS 898T Mobile and Wireless Networks Mid-term Exam - Name:

Spring 2004
Part 1: (34 points - 2 points for each problem)
( D ) 1. Which frequency allocation is not used for mobile phone systems?
(A) 890 MHz - 960 MHz (B) 1800 MHz - 2200 MHz
(C) 1420 MHz - 1520 MHz(D) 2400 MHz - 2500 MHz
( C ) 2. The frequency of 15 cm wavelength is
(A) 20 MHz (B) 200 MHz (C) 2 GHz (D) 20 GHz
( B ) 3. TETRA is a standard for
(A) cordless phone (B) trunked radio (C) mobile phone (D) LAN
( B) 4. The antenna size for a W-CDMA device which uses the 2 GHz frequency band is
(A) 2 cm (B) 4 cm (C) 6 cm (D) 10 cm
( A ) 5. Which wave does the short wave broadcast use?
(A) sky wave (B) ground wave (C) line-of-sight (D) none of the above
( C ) 6. Radio waves will be deflected randomly when it collides an obstacle of the order of the
wavelength or less. This effect is
(A) refraction (B) reflection (C) scattering (D) diffraction
( A ) 7. Which is a not a phase shift keying scheme?
(A) MSK (B) QPSK (C) QAM (D) none of the above
( B ) 8. A medium can carry 5 Mbaud. Which scheme can achieve the 20 Mbps transfer rate?
(A) QPSK (B) QAM-16 (C) QAM-64 (D) QAM-128
( D ) 9. Which does not use MCM?
(A) IEEE 802.11g (B) digital television (C) ADSL (D) none of the above
( B ) 10. Which is not the disadvantage of cellular systems?
(A) infrastructure needed (B) local interference (C) frequency planning (D) none of the above
( D ) 11. Which statement about cellular systems using CDM is true?
(A) It needs elaborate channel allocation schemes. (B) It needs complex frequency planning.
(C) The cell size is fixed. (D) none of the above
( D ) 12. Which needs most complicated power control for senders?
(A) SDMA (B) TDMA (C) FDMA (D) CDMA
( C ) 13. Which scheme is a combination of CDMA and TDMA?
(A) DAMA (B) PRMA (C) SAMA (D) none of the above
( A ) 14. Which is not a reservation mechanism?
(A) RDMA (B) PRMA (C) DAMA (D) none of the above
( D ) 15. Which is not security components used in GSM?
(A) SIM (B) EIR (C) AuC (D) none of the above
( B ) 16. UMTS uses a constant chipping rate of 3.84 Mchps/s. A channel use the spreading factor
16. What is the transfer rate?
(A) 120 kbps (B) 240 kbps (C) 480 kbps (D) 960 kbps
( A ) 17. Which technology used in UMTS does W-CDMA belong to?
(A) IMT-DS (B) IMT-TC (C) IMT-MC (D) none of the above

Part 2: (68 points)

1. Briefly explain these terminologies. If they are acronyms, also write what they stand for. (12 points)
(a) DECT Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications is an ETSI standard for digital cordless
phones and can also be used for wireless data transfers.
(b) GTP GPRS Tunneling Protocol carries traffic within a GPRS network by tunnelling IP over
UDP or X.25 over TCP.
(c) UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System is the third generation telecommunications
system.
(d) OVSF Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor is a technique to general orthogonal chipping codes
using in UMTS.
2. (a) What is FHSS? Name a telecommunication systems which use FHSS?
(b) What is DSSS? Name a telecommunication systems which use DSSS?
(6 points)
(a) Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is a transmission technology used in wireless transmissions where the data signal is modulated with a narrowband carrier signal that hops in a
random but predictable sequence from frequency to frequency as a function of time over a wide
band of frequencies. The signal energy is spread in time domain rather than chopping each bit
into small pieces in the frequency domain. This technique reduces interference because a signal
from a narrowband system will only affect the spread spectrum signal if both are transmitting
at the same frequency at the same time. If synchronized properly, a single logical channel is
maintained. Example for FHSS: Bluetooth, GSM, Wireless LAN
(b) Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) is a transmission technology used in wireless transmissions where a data signal at the sending station is combined with a higher data rate bit sequence,
or chipping sequence (code), that divides the user data according to a spreading factor (ratio).
The chipping code is a redundant bit pattern for each bit that is transmitted, which increases the
signals resistance to interference. If one or more bits in the pattern are damaged during transmission, the original data can be recovered due to the redundancy of the transmission. Example
for DSSS: Wireless LAN
3. Complete the following table listing the seven layers in the OSI 7-Layer Reference Model. Then, identify three of the four layers used in the TCP/IP protocol suite. Finally, identify where the following
protocols belong: MAC, GTP, RLC, PDCP, HTTP. (8 points)
Layer
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Layer Name
Application Layer
Presentation Layer
Session Layer
Transport Layer
Network Layer
Data Link Layer
Physical Layer

TCP/IP suite
TCP/IP

Protocol
HTTP

TCP/IP
TCP/IP
TCP/IP

GTP
MAC, RLC, PDCP

4. (a) What is digital modulation? Why is digital modulation required?

(b) What is analog modulation?
(c) Why a baseband signal cannot be directly transmitted in a wireless system?
(9 points)
(a) Digital Modulation is that the digital data (0 and 1) is translated into an analog signal (baseband
signal). Digital modulation is required if digital data has to be transmitted over a medium that
only allows for analog transmission.
(b) Analog modulation shifts the center frequency of the baseband signal generated by the digital
signal up to the radio carrier.
(c) There are 3 main reasons why a baseband signal cannot be directly transmitted in a wireless
system.
i. Antennas: An antenna must be the order of magnitude of the wavelength signal in size to be
effective.
ii. Frequency division multiplexing: Using only baseband transmission, FDM could not be applied.
iii. Medium characteristics: Path loss, penetration of obstacles, reflection, scattering and diffraction. All the effects depend on the wavelength of a signal.
5. What is CDMA? What is a good code for CDMA? List three advantages of CDMA. (7 points)
(a) Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a digital cellular technology that uses spread-spectrum
techniques in which every channel uses the full available spectrum and individual conversations
are encoded with a pseudo-random digital sequence.
(b) A good code for CDMA should have a good autocorrelation and should be orthogonal to other
codes.
(c) Advantages of CDMA:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

All terminals can use the same frequency and no frequency planning is needed.
This is huge code space compared to frequency space.
Interferences such as noises are not coded.
Forward error correction and encryption can be easily integrated.

6. Consider a sender A wants to send the data bit 0 with key = 010011. Consider a sender B wants to
send the data bit 1 with key = 110101. Assume we code a binary 0 as -1, a binary 1 as +1. Both
signals are transmitted at the same time. The noise to the transmitted signal is (-1, 0, +1, 0, -1, +1).
What signal is received by a receiver? What can the receiver detect for sender A and B respectively?
(7 points)
(a) As = +1 (-1, +1, -1, -1, +1, +1) = (-1, +1, -1, -1, +1, +1)
Bs = -1 (+1, +1, -1, +1, -1, +1) = (-1, -1, +1, -1, +1, -1)
S = As + Bs + N = (-2, 0, 0, -2, +2, 0) + (-1, 0, +1, 0, -1, +1) = (-3, 0, +1, -2, +1, +1)
(-3, 0, +1, -2, +1, +1) is received by a receiver.
(b) Ar = (-3, 0, +1, -2, +1, +1) (-1, +1, -1, -1, +1, +1) = 3 + 0 - 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 6 1
Br = (-3, 0, +1, -2, +1, +1) (+1, +1, -1, +1, -1, +1) = -3 - 1 - 2 - 1 + 1 = -6 0
The data sent by A can be recognized as 1. The data sent by B can be recognized as 0.

7. (a) Describe the problems when CSMA/CD is applied to wireless networks.

(b) What method could solve the problems? Describe how it works.
(a) Two problems occur:
i. Hidden and exposed terminals - Carrier sensing may fail to detect another terminal or dectect
a terminal outside the interference range.
ii. Near and far terminals - The local signal might drown out the remote transmission.
(b) When a station is ready for transmission, it sends a request to send (RTS) frame to the receiver
and waits to receive a clear to send (CTS) frame from the receiver. As a result, all stations within
the range will refrain from transmitting a data frame. Once CTS is received, the sender can send
packets. In this way, the CTS frame can be heard by the hidden terminals and the medium for
future use by other sending terminal is reserved. The exposed terminal wont react to RTS and
doesnt receive CTS because the exposed terminal is not the receiver. The near and far terminals
could be solved in the similar way.
8. Describe authentication and encryption of GSM. (8 points)
1.

Authentication uses a challenge-response method: the access control (AC) generates a random
number (RAND) as challenge, and the SIM within the MS answers with SRES (signed response)
as response.
For authentication, the VLR sends the random value RAND to the SIM. Both sides, network and
subscriber module, perform the same operation with RAND and the Ki, called A3. The MS sends
back the SRES generated by the SIM; the VLR can now compare both values. If they are same,
the VLR accepts the subscriber, otherwise the subscriber is rejected.

2.

After authentication, MS and BSS can start using encryption by applying the cipher key Kc. Kc
is generated using the individual key Ki and a random value by applying the algorithm A8. Note
that the SIM in the MS and the network both calculate the same Kc based on the random value
RAND. The key Kc itself is not transmitted over the air itnerface.
MS and BTS can now encrypt and decrypt data using the algorithm A5 and the cipher key Kc.