Enhanced Data

GSM Environment
Justin Champion
Room C208 - Tel: 3273
www.staffs.ac.uk/personel/engineering_and_technology/jjc1

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Contents
Why

do we need it?

Increased Data Rate

Video-on-Demand

EDGE
Benefits

over GPRS
Movement towards 3G

Quality of Service
Packet Switched Voice

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Increased Data Use

discussed last lecture the
introduction of increased data rates
technology will take place over time.
Each of these introductions will then
allow development towards 3G.

3G UMTS

As

2.5 G
EDGE
GPRS

Each of these technologies will be built

upon to allow 3G

Last lecture we introduced GPRS

This time we are looking at EDGE
Both are referred to as 2.5G technology

2G
GSM

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Edge

Will allow another step towards the use of 3G

This will allow the infrastructure to grow and improve

Consider what would happen if a network went from 9.6 Kbps data access
to 2Mbps in a short time

It would not be able to cope as the companies would not be available to update
the entire network infrastructure that quickly

The network infrastructure would not cope and upgrades will be required.

This is already a consideration with EDGE level access

20 devices receiving a football stream at 200 (reasonable quality) Kbps in a
town centre
Base station needs 20 * 200 = 4 Mbps
Now consider how many other base stations are also requesting the same
data?

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Edge
Is

now being considered as a replacement for 3G

Vodafone are intending to allow EDGE services this year

Vodafone are pushing Edge now as a 3G technology

It will be available later this year via a data card attached to your
laptops
Intended for business data users only initially
Manchester, Liverpool and London are the cities it will operate
within
(www.computerweekly.com/Article127287.htm, 2004)

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

The amount of value added services is predicted

to increase
To allow

a greater choice of these services a higher

throughput will be required for the devices
Device will always have limited storage in comparison
to what is available for them

A solution to this is to provide those services on-demand and

download them.
After use these can be deleted with no impact on the actual
device

Video on Demand is an example of this

Location based services i.e. show me a web cam of the inside
of the Peking Temple restaurant now!

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Video-on-Demand (VOD)
Two

choices for VOD

Stream the entire film across the network in real-time

Download parts of the film in the background to the device and play it
when the film is in the storage of the device

Sensitive to any delays in the network

A powerful enough server would be needed to supply the demand
Does not need a large amount of storage on the actual device

Device will need sufficient storage

Some method would be needed to know what a person might be interested
in
A pre-registration scheme for example with a football match

A scheme somewhere between the two would be ideal

Part of the video would be downloaded to get the viewer watching whilst
the rest would be downloaded in real-time

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EDGE
Developed by Erricson for the benefit of the loser in the 3G spectrum bidding
Operates at a theoretical 384 Kbps within the current GSM transmission bands

This means that a company who has not paid for out 3G can still provide fast data
services
Companies that have bought 3G spectrum, will benefit from the infrastructure put in
place for EDGE, as this will be used for UMTS

Current infrastructure

The current Base stations will require a new transceiver and a software upgrade to
allow EDGE transmission

This can take place as and when the normal BS are being serviced

This allows for a wider coverage than will be available at least initially with the
UMTS network.
Obviously there are still the same issues as GPRS in respect that a channel that is
used for EDGE takes one away from a voice call

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EDGE continued
The

data transferred is transferred using 8 Phase

shifting Key (8 PSK)

This can change and will be discussed further in a further

slide
This allows the transfer of 3 bits in each modulation
Three times GPRS and one of the reason why EDGE is 3x
faster

EDGE is more sensitive to errors and as such needs to be

close to the transmitter to allow maximum throughput of data

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EDGE continued
Works

the same as GPRS as in a single GSM frame

is divided between the transmission
Channel

Use of the Channel

Voice

AAAABBABBAAAAFA

Voice

AAABAABAAAFAAAA

AAAFAFAFFFAFFFFB

BBBBABABAFFFFFFF

Voice

FFAFFAFFABABBBBB

Data Users
A = User 1
B = User 2
F = User 3
In this instance we
have 3 voice calls and
5 users receiving data

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

EDGE
As

with GSM and GPRS will have separate downlink

and uplink channels
A discussion is currently taking place regarding the use
of 8-PSK
As the internet is a download intensive environment

8-psk may only be used in the downlink

Uplink may well remain as the GSM GMSK

This

will reduce the overhead of the 8-PSK

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Quality

EDGE uses packets which are physically closer together than the
GPRS system

This increases the likelihood of error taking place

Coding Scheme

As with GPRS, EDGE has a number of coding schemes to allow for

these errors

They range from

MSC1 to MCS4 (using GMSK modulation)
MSC5 to MSC9 (using the 8PSK modulation)

As with other wireless technologies

The best transmission rate is used to start and then a lower one will be
selected until successful communications can take place

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Quality

The code rate indicates how much of the packet is data (including
headers) and how much is error checking code

MCS3 indicates that 15% of the packet is error checking code

Modulation

Data Rate

Modulation Technique

Code Rate

MSC1

8.8 Kbps

GMSK

0.53

MSC2

11.2 Kbps

GMSK

0.66

MSC3

14.8 Kbps

GMSK

0.85

MSC4

17.6 Kbps

GMSK

MSC5

22.4 Kbps

8PSK

0.37

MSC6

29.6 Kbps

8PSK

0.49

MSC7

44.8 Kbps

8PSK

0.76

MSC8

54.4 Kbps

8PSK

0.92

MSC9

59.2 Kbps

8PSK

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Packet Handling improvements over GPRS

If

a packet is sent which arrives corrupted

GPRS will send the packet again using the same modulation
technique
EDGE will lower the modulation technique used and send the
packet again.

The lowering of the modulation is a problem

The available data in a new packet is reduced

EDGE allows for resegmentation and the packet being sent again
This allows EDGE to send packets at a rate which would normally
corrupted and then resend them again when a error takes place

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Error checking continued

Receipts for frames

In GPRS a maximum addressing number is 128

The window for receipts is a maximum of 64

This means that after a sequence of packets are sent an acknowledgement
for the last (at most) 64 packets is sent
If one of these packets were in error that packet must be resent based on the
addressing number
This can be an issue with large amounts of data being sent in error as the
addressing window will restart again at 0
Indicating that an incorrect packet maybe resent
In this event the entire frame sequence would need sending again to the
device

EDGE

Has increased the addressing number to 2048 and the window is now 1024
Thereby reducing the chance of lost packets

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Error checking continued

Forward

As discussed previously it is better to send some redundant bits

with each packet, which in the event of error can be used to
mathematically recreate the original packet

Alternative is to send each packet again with an increased rate of

FEC

EDGE

Error Checking (FEC)

Will send the packet again, but the new packet will be combined with
the original packet to recreate the corrupted part of the packet
No increase in the amount of FEC bits are sent the same
number are sent again, but using different bits.

Correctly received packets

The FEC bits are a waste of available bandwidth!

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Working out the correct sending rate

This

is a particular issue for data communications, rather

than voice
To carry this out the radio environment needs measuring

Measuring for Bit error rate, carrier strength, interference, etc.

Once

measurements are made the correct coding

scheme can be selected

Measurements can be taken on every burst of data sent

These measurements are used to generate the Bit Error Probability

(BEP)
Several of these taken can be used to give an accurate reading of
the quality of the signal and to calculate the velocity of the device

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Rollout Stages
Phase

Introduce single and multi-slot packet switched services

Introduce single and Multi-slot circuit switched services

Phase

1
2

Web Use
Email
Real-time services

VOIP
Video Conferencing

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Interleaving of data

The data is sent in bursts

These bursts refer to the amount of information sent

If one of the bursts arrives corrupted the entire burst sequence
needs sending again

A radio block

The sequence of the packets being sent is referred to as a radio

block
GRPS

EDGE

The radio block are interleaved into 4

The radio block are interleaved into 2

Increased throughput

The potential for interference in the EDGE system has now been
reduced by a half

Assuming all other factors remain the same

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Infrastructure
will

not need adding to from the GPRS environment

(www.ericsson.com/products/white_papers_pdf/edge_wp_technical.pdf, 2003)

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Infrastructure
Changes

Base station System GRPS Protocol (BSSGP)

Different quality of services are required require minor changes to

the GPRS standards
The other changes are obviously taking place in the layers 0 and 1
of the device and the base station

A EDGE

GPRS

Based device will be able to communicate with

If a EDGE based service is not available at the time

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

QOS classes
The

classes which are supported by EDGE are the same as UMTS

Conversational

Streaming

WWW usage, telnet etc

Reduced request response time

Background

Each

Video audio files, time dependent

One way communication

Interactive

Real-Time communications highest priority

Two way communications

SMS, email, MMS

Best effort delivery

of the communications will be issued with one of these classes.

This will depend ion the technology being used for EDGE

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Problem with the installation of EDGE

No

Killer App YET !

There is no reason at this stage for user to want a EDGE based
phone

Potential

killer app maybe the downloading of music

Apples i-pod (http://www.apple.com/ipod/, 2003)

Allows the downloading of music onto the device, with 20Gb of
storage

Consider if these songs were downloaded in the background of

your phone and you pay for them.
You specify and pay for the album a few days in advance
Albums available to you the second they are released
Massive potential, with records that shops usually sell out of

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Key Points
Builds

upon GSM and GPRS

EDGE allows a theoretical 384 Kbps

8-PSK

Improved

error handling over GPRS

Will operate at GPRS, GSM data rates in EDGE is not available

Enhanced Data GSM Environment

Summary
Why

do we need it?

Video-on-Demand

EDGE
Benefits

over GPRS