Part 1: Cellular Systems Design and Components
- Introduction
- The cellular concept and objectives
- 1G, 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G overview
- Performance criteria
- Voice quality
- Data quality
- Service quality and call load
- Radio signal propagation
- Basic channel modeling
- Signal strength vs distance
- Impediments to propagation
- Interference
- Co-channel interference
- Carrier-to-interference ratio
- Adjacent channel interference
- Frequency reuse and planning
- Cellular hexagonal grid concept
- Distance to reuse
- Handoff
- System components
- Mobile telephone
- Base station
- Interconnection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN)
Part 2: Foundations of cellular telephony (GSM, IS-95)
- Pre-2G cellular: AMPS
- Modulation and channel use
- In-band control signals
- Digital modulation characteristics
- Bandwidth efficiency
- Clarity
- Effect of bit error rate on speech quality
- Speech coding
- Tradeoff in rate vs quality
- GSM
- Time division multiple access (TDMA)
- Architecture
- Channels and channel modes
- Call processing and management
- IS-95 CDMA
- Code division multiple access (CDMA)
- Call processing and management
- 2G data systems
- SMS, HSCSD, GPRS, EDGE, iDEN
Part 3: 3G Cellular (WCDMA/UMTS, cdma2000)
- Operation and comparison of 3G systems
- Architecture
- Channels and multiple access
- Speech coding
- Call processing and management
Part 4: 4G Broadband Wireless Access (WiMAX and LTE)
- Concept of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
- Extension to orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)
- BWA basics
- Requirements and user expectations
- WiMAX and LTE
- Features and standards summary
- Mobile operation
- OFDMA uplink and downlink
- Wi-Fi: The first BWA
- Range and data rates
- Comparison to WiMAX and LTE
Part 5: Base Station Antennas
- Basic antenna characteristics
- Effective isotropic radiated power
- Polarization
- Directivity and gain
- Antenna types and selection
- Transmit and receive antennas
- Downtilt
- Sectoring antennas
- Advanced antennas for base stations
- Receive diversity
- Transmit diversity
- Beamtilt
- Modular high-gain antennas
- Higher order sectorization
- Fixed and steerable array antennas
- Antenna technologies for enhancing system capacity
Part 6: Base Station Towers
- Tower types
- Monopole
- Free standing
- Guyed
- Methods of disguising towers
- Tower lighting and marking
- Tower co-siting and collocation
- Maintenance
Part 7: Cellular System Regulation
- Market regulatory structure in the US
- MSA and RSA
- Tier A and Tier B carriers
- Role of the FCC
- Overview of regulation in other markets
- Europe (ETSI)
- Overview of other regulatory agencies
- Discussion and Course Wrap-up
- Discussion: Issues of interest to the participants
- Course recap
- Questions/Answers
- Course evaluation