Melbourne Institute of Technology

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING

BE301 – TELECOMMUNICATION MODELLING AND

SIMULATION

Project specifications for Assignment-2

Term 1, 2018

Design of GSM Cellular Mobile Radio Base Station

Network
 Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines

School SITE
Course Name Bachelor of Engineering (Telecommunication)
Unit Code BE301
Unit Title Telecommunication Modelling and Simulation
Assessment Dr. Nahina Islam
Author
Assessment Type Written, Group Work
Assessment Title Assignment-2
Unit Learning a-d
Outcomes
covered in this
assessment
Weight 15%
Total Marks 100
Word limit Maximum 2000 words
Release Date Week 7
Due Date Week 12 (8 June 2018, 11.55 pm)
Submission  All work must be submitted on Moodle by the due date along with a completed
Guidelines Assignment Cover Page.
 The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Calibri (Body) font
and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings.
 Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately
at the end in a reference list using APA or IEEE referencing style for School of
Business and School of Information Technology and Engineering respectively.
Extension  If an extension of time to submit work is required, a Special Consideration
Application must be submitted directly to the School's Administration Officer, in
Melbourne on Level 6 or in Sydney on Level 7. You must submit this application
three working days prior to the due date of the assignment. Further information is
available at:
http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-publications/policies-procedures-and-
guidelines/specialconsiderationdeferment
Academic  Academic Misconduct is a serious offence. Depending on the seriousness of the case,
Misconduct penalties can vary from a written warning or zero marks to exclusion from the course
or rescinding the degree. Students should make themselves familiar with the full
policy and procedure available at: http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-
publications/policies-procedures-and-guidelines/Plagiarism-Academic-
Misconduct-Policy-Procedure. For further information, please refer to the
Academic Integrity Section in your Unit Description.

Table of Contents
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 1.9 SOFTWARE PLANNING TOOL ..................................................................................................... 1

2SCOPE OF WORK ............................................................................................................... ......... 2

2.1 CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ...............................................................................................................2
2.2 ALLOCATION OF FUNCTIONS .....................................................................................................2
2.3 MODELLING AND S IMULATION ..................................................................................................2
2.4 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 2
2.5 DESIGN DOCUMENTATION ............................................................................... .......................... 2
3TECHNICAL REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION .................................................................. 4
3.1 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS .........................................................................................................4
3.2 SYSTEM PARAMETERS ............................................................................................................... 4
3.3 MOBILE TERMINAL ................................................................................................................... 4
3.3.1 GSM-900 Mobile Terminal ............................................................................................... 4
3.4 MOBILE ENVIRONMENT .............................................................................................................5
3.4.1 Pedestrian .................................................................................................................. ....... 5
3.4.2 In vehicle - Handheld ........................................................................................................ 5
3.4.3 In building - Handheld ...................................................................................................... 5
3.5 BASE STATION ANTENNAS ........................................................................................................ 5
3.5.1 Antenna Type ................................................................................................................ .... 5
3.5.2 Antenna Mounting Structure ............................................................................................. 5
3.5.3 Antenna Orientation ......................................................................................................... 5
3.6 BACKHAUL NETWORK ............................................................................................................... 6
4 PATH LOSS MODEL .................................................................................................................... 6
5 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA ............................................................................................ ................. 7
5.1 TOPOGRAPHICAL DATA ............................................................................................................. 9
5.2 MORPHOLOGICAL DATA ............................................................................................................ 9
5.2.1Resolution: 1 second ........................................................................................................ . 9
5.3 MAP IMAGE DATA ..................................................................................................................... 9
5.4 TOTAL SERVICE AREA ............................................................................................................. 10
5.5 LOCAL SERVICE AREAS ...........................................................................................................10
6FREQUENCY PLANNING ......................................................................................................... 13
6.1 CLUSTER SIZE ......................................................................................................................... 13
6.2 RF CHANNELS NUMBERING ....................................................................................................14
6.3 GSM 900 CHANNEL P LAN ....................................................................................................... 14
7TELETRAFFIC CAPACITY PLANNING ................................................................................ 15
7.1ERLANG FORMULA ..................................................................................................................15

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 7.2 GRADE OF SERVICE ................................................................................................................. 15
7.3 TELETRAFFIC MATRIX ............................................................................................................. 15
7.4 TELETRAFFIC DISTRIBUTION ................................................................................................... 16
8 PROJECT EVALUATION ......................................................................................................... 17
8.1 REPORT CONTENTS AND STRUCTURE ...................................................................................... 17
8.2 SUBMISSION ............................................................................................................................ 17
9 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. ........... 18

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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Purpose
This document outlines the requirement for the project specification of Assignment 2 for BE301
Telecommunication Modelling and Simulation, for the Degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Telecommunication).
This assignment is worth 15% of the marks allocated to BE301.

1.2 Scope
This document contains technical specification, data, and references required for planning design, and
simulation of a cellular mobile radio network. Numerical figures are given for the only purpose of
educational exercise and may be exaggerated.

1.3 Objectives
The objective of this design project is to familiarize the student with the entire process of planning and
design of cellular mobile telecommunication networks. The cellular technology under consideration is
the GSM, which is a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) technology. Considerations will be given to
both the technical and economic aspects of the project. The student will use the CelPlanner software
tool to plan and design cellular network for coverage of a defined geographic area. The design will be
aimed to satisfy certain quality of service and economical requirements.

1.4 Desired Outcomes

The expected outcome of the project is a fully documented design specification for the coverage area
defined in the requirement section of this document.

1.5 Prerequisites
The student undertaken this subject must have successfully completed BE203
Telecommunication Systems Engineering.

The students undertaking this project must have successfully completed a set of eight exercises
aimed at gaining in-depth knowledge and practice of CelPlanner.

1.6 Project Duration

It is expected that the project will be completed within four (4) weeks.

1.7 Class Requirement

The approximate workload is equivalent to four (4) hours of workshop/laboratory work per week of
which two (2) hours will be time-tabled and supervised. Every Week two hour lecture is also
scheduled to explain the technical requirements and address the student’s questions related to project.

1.8 Team Work

Students will be working in group of two or three to design the network on allocated area for planning
and shall submit a report outlining the design and operational requirements of the project.

1.9 Software Planning Tool

The software-planning tool to be used is the CelPlanner Suite provided by CelPlan Technologies, Inc.

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 2 SCOPE OF WORK
The scope of work (SOW) of the project shall include, but not limited to the activities described in the
following subsections. Each student must show that he or she has read and understood the network
requirements of Section 3 of this document. The analysis will highlight the relationship between user
need, technical requirements and facilities of the network.

The requirement analysis process will convert network requirements into a set of functions and
their corresponding performance that the network to be designed will perform.

2.1 Conceptual Design

Having read and understood and analysed the requirements given in Section 3 of this document, the
student shall formulate a conceptual network design and philosophy. This should include logical network
diagram (location of BS), location of MSC, and average cell radius, etc.

2.2 Allocation of Functions

This stage of the system design, the student will allocate (or map) each network function to a particular
network hardware of service. (e.g. transmitter, receivers, antenna, etc.).

2.3 Modelling and Simulation

The network will be modelled on the CelPlanner software tool available in
the labs.

2.4 Performance Analysis

Performance of the simulated network will be obtained using CelPlanner and shall include, but not
limited to:

1. Composite forward
2. Composite Reverse
3. Co-channel interference
4. Adjacent channel interference
5. Composite interference
6. Cell splitting
7. Cell sectoring
8. Best server
9. Bit error rate
10. Frequency allocation
11. Number of servers
12. Service classes
13. Handover

The information obtained in this step will form a major part of the final report. Network optimization
will include any necessary changes as a result of the performance analysis process. This may include
removing or adding a new site, decreasing or increasing the number of transceivers in each site, etc.

2.5 Design Documentation

This is the end of the planning and design process. It must be noted that the main purpose of the design
report is conveying technical information to the project engineer who will be implementing (building
and constructing) the network. The output of this process will be a set of network specification for the
following.

1. Base station sites locations

2. Antenna specification
3. Antenna orientation
4. Antenna height above ground level
5. Frequency assignments

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 CelPlanner provides documentation output which should be attached to the report as an appendix but
some comments must be included in this section.

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 3 TECHNICAL REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION

3.1 General Requirements

The objective of the project is to design and simulate a cellular mobile telecommunication network
for a given area to satisfy the operational requirements economically.

The total service area is divided into 36 local service areas. One or more local service areas will be
assigned to each team. Each team will be responsible for the design of a network in its own area and
liaising with other teams in the adjacent areas if required.

Each team will have one Mobile Switching Centre (MSC). Each cell site will have a connection to the
MSC in a logical star topology. The physical topology will depend of other factors like terrain and
line-of-sight if microwave radio links are used.

Like every other practical projects, specification may not be necessarily complete. In this situation it
is up to the team to make assumptions and justification for choosing a particular solution. There is no
right or wrong solution but there is an economic and cost-effective solution.

3.2 System Parameters

Adjacent channel selectivity 18 dB

Acceptable C/I 12 dB
Bit Error Ratio 3%
Band Centre Frequency 925 MHz
GSM 900 MHz
Environment standard attenuation 40 dB
Attenuation standard deviation 6 dB
Minimum Tx output power 5 Watts
Maximum Tx output power 60 Watts

Table 3.1

3.3 Mobile Terminal

3.3.1 GSM-900 Mobile Terminal

Maximum RF power 0.8 Watts

Receiver noise figure 8 dB
Antenna height (outdoor) 1.5 m
Antenna nominal gain 0 dBd

Table 3.2

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 3.4 Mobile Environment

3.4.1 Pedestrian

Human body attenuation 2 dB

Penetration attenuation 0 dB
Average speed 5 km/hr

Table 3.4

3.4.2 In-vehicle - Handheld

Human body attenuation 2 dB

Penetration attenuation 3 dB
Average speed 80 km/hr

Table 3.5

3.4.3 In building - Handheld

Human body attenuation 2 dB

Penetration attenuation 12 dB
Average speed 2.5 km/hr

Table 3.6

3.5 Base Station Antennas

3.5.1 Antenna Type

The selection of a base station antenna is a very important task in cellular mobile network planning, in
particular the radiation pattern (azimuth and elevation) and gain should be considered very carefully.
CelPlanner antenna database includes many types of antennas.

3.5.2 Antenna Mounting Structure

Base station antenna height must be selected in accordance to the following guidelines.
  
20 – 60 m in urban areas
  
20 – 30 m in suburban areas 
  
20 – 40 m on urban roads/freeway
  
30 – 80 m in country side area .
 
40 – 80 m in country side roads . 

3.5.3 Antenna Orientation

Antenna orientation is a very important aspect in the design of mobile base station networks. All base
station antennas must be oriented as shown in Figure 3.1 below. Should there be a need for deviation,
or the use of omnidirectional antennas, the impact of interference on all sites must be assessed very
carefully.

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 0o

Sector A

Sector C Sector B

240 o 120o

Figure 3.1

3.6 Backhaul Network

Each radio cell site in a network requires connectivity between the BSS and a mobile switching centre
(MSC), which can be implemented by metallic cable, fibre cables, or microwave radio links. The
technology, capacity and topology of the network connecting cell sites to MSC will depend on many
factors, including technical and economical requirements. The task for this part of the project is to choose
a location for the MSC and establish a fixed network based on technical feasibility and traffic
requirements.

4 PATH LOSS MODEL

The path loss model to be used is model number I, Lee Model with the parameters shown in Figure 4.1
and Table 4.1 below.

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 Figure 4.1 – Model I to be used for this project

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 Table 4.1 – Model I parameters

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 5 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA

The total available geographical data is shown in Figure 5.1 below.

Figure 5.1 – GIS data available

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 Figure 5.2: Morphology of the selected area

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 5.1 Topographical Data

Resolution:1second
o
North: 33 45’ 00.0” N East: 093o 30’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 15’ 00.0” N West: 094o 00’ 00.0” W
Resolution:3second
o
North: 33 00’ 00.0” N East: 093o 00’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 00’ 00.0” N West: 095o 00’ 00.0” W

5.2 Morphological Data

5.2.1 Resolution: 1 second

o
North: 33 00’ 00.0” N East: 093o 15’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 00’ 00.0” N West: 094o 15’ 00.0” W

Morphology Type

5.3 Map Image Data

Scale:1:250,000(250k)
o
North: 33 00’ 00.0” N East: 092o 00’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 00’ 00.0” N West: 094o 00’ 00.0” W
Scale:1:100,000(100k)
o
North: 33 00’ 00.0” N East: 093o 00’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 00’ 00.0” N West: 094o 00’ 00.0” W
Scale:1:24,000(24k)
o
North: 32 45’ 00.0” N East: 093o 30’ 00.0” W
o
South: 32 15’ 00.0” N West: 094o 00’ 00.0” W

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 5.4 Total Service Area

The geographical data provided with CelPlanner consists of topographical, morphological, and
map image data that cover the city of Shreveport, Louisiana, LA, USA

The geographical area to be used for the purpose of this project is bounded by:

North: 33o 00’ 00.0” N East: 093o 00’ 00.0” W

South: 32o 00’ 00.0” N West: 094o 00’ 00.0” W

The area where the topographical, morphological, and map image layers coincide will be referred to
as the “Total Service Area” or TSA in the context of this project. The measurements of this area are
93 km east-west and 111 km south-north (10,323 km2).

5.5 Local Service Areas

The total service area is, in turn, divided into 36 rectangular-shaped areas of 18.5 km x 15.5 km as
shown in Figures 5.2. 5.3 and 5.4 below. These areas will be referred to as “Sub-service Areas” or
SSA. Each group of students will be allocated 1147 square kilometer area for the purpose of their
project, as shown in in Figure 5.3

Figures 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, and 5.8 show the map of Shreveport, zoom in map, topography, and
morphology, respectively.

18.5 km

15.5 km

Figure 5.2 – Service area allocated to each student.

Figure 5.3 –service area allocated to each group

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 o
33 00' 00'’ N

1 2 3 4

32o 50' 00'’ N

5 6 7 8

o
32 40' 00'’ N

9 10 11 12

32o 30' 00'’ N

13 14 15 16

32o 20' 00'’ N

17 18 19 20

32o 10' 00'’ N

21 22 23 24

o
32 00' 00'’ N

W
0'
0
0
'’

’
Figure 5.4 – service areas numbering

Figure 5.5 – Shreveport map 1

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 Figure 5.6 - Shreveport map 1

Figure 5.7 – Topography

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 Figure 5.8 – Morphology

6 FREQUENCY PLANNING

6.1 Cluster Size

The cluster size to be used in this project is 3 base station sites. The preferred arrangement is shown in
Figures 6.1. You are expected to confirm this configuration. Try other arrangements.

A 1

1 1
C B 7 4

A A 2 3

2 3 2 3
C B C B 8 5 9 6

Figure 6.1 – A cluster of three base station sites

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 6.2 RF Channels Numbering

Table 6.1 shows the RF channels numbering for cellular cluster size of N = 3. The student may have
to create this table and have it saved in own drive (e.g. H Drive)

Table 6.1 - Channel numbering plan for N = 3 cluster size

6.3 GSM 900 Channel Plan

Lower Band (25 MHz) Upper Band (25 MHz)

890 – 915 MHz 935 – 960 MHz

f1 f2 f3 f124 f0 f1’ f2’ f3’ f124’

200 Centre
kHz Gap

45 MHz

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7 TELETRAFFIC CAPACITY PLANNING

7.1 Erlang Formula

The applicable Erlang formula for this project is Erlang B. Students are expected to compile a table of
Erlang B formula using knowledge from BE203 or this unit, or download it from the Internet Note also
that Erlang B table is already available on Moodle.

7.2 Grade of Service

The grade of service will be 2% for this project.

7.3 Teletraffic Matrix

The teletraffic load expected is specified in terms of 36 local service areas (LSA). The traffic loads for
the total area are shown in Table 7.1 below.

33o 00' 00'’ N

220 195 210 270

(1) (2) (3) (4)
32o 50' 00'’ N
280 290 185 240
(5) (6) (7) (8)
32o 40' 00'’ N

195 170 260 265

(9) (10) (11) (12)
32o 30' 00'’ N
275 310 230 235
(13) (14) (15) (16)
32o 20' 00'’ N
280 230 270 280
(17) (18) (19) (20)
o
32 10' 00'’ N

300 310 320 330

(21) (22) (23) (24)
W
W
0
0
0
0

'’
'’

o
32 00' 00'’ N

Figure 7.1 – Teletraffic load allocations for service areas. The number in brackets is the service area

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 7.4 Teletraffic Distribution

Traffic can be distributed uniformly or on the basis of morphology throughout the service area. The
morphology of a service area is the collection of all natural and man-made structures such as water pools,
forests, grassland, roads and buildings. Figure 7.2 gives the distribution factors for the morphology based
distribution.

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 8 PROJECT EVALUATION AND MARKING CRITERIA

8.1 Report Contents and Structure

A template for the report can be found on Moodle. However, report should not be more than 20 to 25
pages excluding the CelPlanner figures.

Each project will be evaluated on the following basis:


 Understanding of requirements

 Mastering of the software tool

 Meeting the QoS requirements

 Return on investment (ROI)

 Quality of technical solution

Organisation and quality of report and

Marking Criteria:

Components Marks

Introduction 5
Literature review 15
Cellular planning 20
process
Cellular network 30
design and solution

Discussion and 20
critique
References 10
Total 100
Weightage 15%

8.3 Submission
The report will be due for submission on Friday 8th of June, 2018.
Extensions: Requests for an extension, accompanied by supporting documentation, must be
received by the student in writing before 3 working days from the due date else penalties may
apply for late submission without an approved extension. Special consideration form is
available on level 6 reception.

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Penalties: Academic misconduct such as cheating and plagiarism may incur penalties ranging
from a reduced result to program exclusion.

9 REFERENCES

The following books are recommended as references for this subject

[1] Dharma P. Agrawal, and Qing-An Zeng, “Introduction to Wireless and Mobile Systems”3rd Ed.,
2011
[2] Agbinya, J.I and Masihpour M., “Planning of WiMAX and LTE Networks”, in Planning and
Optimisation of 3G and 4G Wireless Networks (ed. Agbinya, JI.); ISBN:978-87-92329-24-0; River
Publishers, Denmark, 2009.
[3] Agbinya,JI “Design Consideration of Mohots and Wireless Chain Networks”, Wireless
Personal Communication”, © Springer 2006, Vol. 40.
[4] Parsons, J. D., “The Mobile Radio Channel”, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2000
[5] T.S. Rappport, Wireless Communication, 2nd Ed, 2009, Prentic Hall.
[6] Lee, William C. Y., "Mobile Cellular Telecommunications: Analog and Digital Systems", second
Edition, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
[7] CelPlanner User Guide, CelPlanner Manuals
[8] CelPlan Technologies, Inc. website www.celplan.com
[9] ETSI ETR 364, Digital cellular telecommunications system; Radio network planning aspects
(GSM 03.30 version 5.0.0)
[10] Mohsin Murtaza and Assoc. Prof Johnson I Agbinya lecture, laboratory and PBL notes.

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