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The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets. It was first deployed in Finland in December 1991. By the mid-2010s, it became a global standard for mobile communications achieving over 90% market share, and operating in over 193 countries and territories.
Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitatively measure quality of service, several related aspects of the network service are often considered, such as packet loss, bit rate, throughput, transmission delay, availability, jitter, etc.
In telecommunication engineering, and in particular teletraffic engineering, the quality of voice service is specified by two measures: the grade of service (GoS) and the quality of service (QoS).
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service specifically refer to the provisioning of communications services over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), also known as plain old telephone service (POTS).
Roaming is a wireless telecommunication term typically used with mobile devices, such as mobile phones. It refers to the mobile phone being used outside the range of its home network and connects to another available cell network.
WiMAX is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide multiple physical layer (PHY) and Media Access Control (MAC) options.
A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the last link is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver, but more normally, three cell sites or base transceiver stations. These base stations provide the cell with the network coverage which can be used for transmission of voice, data, and other types of content. A cell typically uses a different set of frequencies from neighbouring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed service quality within each cell.
This article discusses the mobile cellular network aspect of teletraffic measurements. Mobile radio networks have traffic issues that do not arise in connection with the fixed line PSTN. Important aspects of cellular traffic include: quality of service targets, traffic capacity and cell size, spectral efficiency and sectorization, traffic capacity versus coverage, and channel holding time analysis.
Generic Access Network (GAN) is a protocol that extends mobile voice, data and multimedia applications over IP networks. Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) is the commercial name used by mobile carriers for external IP access into their core networks. The latest generation system is named Wi-Fi Calling or VoWiFi by a number of handset manufacturers, including Apple and Samsung, a move that is being mirrored by carriers like T-Mobile US and Vodafone. The service is dependent on IMS, IPsec, IWLAN and ePDG.
In radio resource management for wireless and cellular networks, channel allocation schemes allocate bandwidth and communication channels to base stations, access points and terminal equipment. The objective is to achieve maximum system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site by means of frequency reuse, but still assure a certain grade of service by avoiding co-channel interference and adjacent channel interference among nearby cells or networks that share the bandwidth.
In telecommunications, a femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business. A broader term which is more widespread in the industry is small cell, with femtocell as a subset. It is also called femto AccessPoint (AP). It connects to the service provider's network via broadband ; current designs typically support four to eight simultaneously active mobile phones in a residential setting depending on version number and femtocell hardware, and eight to sixteen mobile phones in enterprise settings. A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors or at the cell edge, especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable. Although much attention is focused on WCDMA, the concept is applicable to all standards, including GSM, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and LTE solutions.
Radio resource management (RRM) is the system level management of co-channel interference, radio resources, and other radio transmission characteristics in wireless communication systems, for example cellular networks, wireless local area networks, wireless sensor systems, and radio broadcasting networks. RRM involves strategies and algorithms for controlling parameters such as transmit power, user allocation, beamforming, data rates, handover criteria, modulation scheme, error coding scheme, etc. The objective is to utilize the limited radio-frequency spectrum resources and radio network infrastructure as efficiently as possible.
Drive testing is a method of measuring and assessing the coverage, capacity and Quality of Service (QoS) of a mobile radio network.
A mobile phone signal is the signal strength received by a mobile phone from a cellular network. Depending on various factors, such as proximity to a tower, any obstructions such as buildings or trees, etc. this signal strength will vary. Most mobile devices use a set of bars of increasing height to display the approximate strength of this received signal to the mobile phone user. Traditionally five bars are used.
CDMA spectral efficiency refers to the system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site or Erlang/MHz/site that can be achieved in a certain CDMA based wireless communication system. CDMA techniques are characterized by a very low link spectral efficiency in (bit/s)/Hz as compared to non-spread spectrum systems, but a comparable system spectral efficiency.
In telecommunications, the dropped-call rate (DCR) is the fraction of the telephone calls which, due to technical reasons, were cut off before the speaking parties had finished their conversational tone and before one of them had hung up. This fraction is usually measured as a percentage of all calls. A call attempt invokes a call setup procedure, which, if successful, results in a connected call. A connected call may be terminated (disconnected) due to a technical reason before the parties making the call would wish to do so. Such calls are classified as dropped calls. In many practical cases this definition needs to be further expanded with a number of detailed specifications describing which calls exactly are counted as dropped, at what stage of the call setup procedure a call is counted as connected, etc. In modern telecommunication systems, such as cellular networks, the call setup procedure may be very complex and the point at which a call is considered successfully connected may be defined in a number of ways, thus influencing the way the dropped-call rate is calculated. The dropped-call rate in conventional (land-line) networks is extremely low and is significantly less than 0.01%. In mobile communication systems using radio channels the dropped-call rate is higher and may range for commercial networks between 0.1% and a few percent. The main reasons for dropped calls in mobile networks are lack of radio coverage, radio interference between different subscribers, imperfections in the functioning of the network, overload of the different elements of the network, etc. The dropped-call rate is one of the key performance indicators (KPI) used by the network operators to assess the performance of their networks. It is assumed to have direct influence on the customer satisfaction with the service provided by the network and its operator. The dropped-call rate is usually included, together with other technical parameters of the network, in a key performance indicator known as call retainability. The operators of telecommunication networks aim at reducing the call dropped rate as much as practical and affordable. In mobile networks this is achieved by improving radio coverage, expanding the capacity of the network and optimising the performance of its elements, all of which may require considerable effort and significant investments on the part of the network operator.
In cellular telecommunications, the terms handover or handoff refer to the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transferring satellite control responsibility from one earth station to another without loss or interruption of service.
GSM radio frequency optimization is the optimization of GSM radio frequencies. GSM network consist of different cells and each cell transmit signals to and receive signals from the mobile station, for proper working of base station many parameters are defined before functioning the base station such as the coverage area of a cell depends on different factors including the transmitting power of the base station, obstructing buildings in cells, height of the base station and location of base station. Radio Frequency Optimization is a process through which different soft and hard parameters of the Base transceiver stations are changed in order to improve the coverage area and improve quality of signal. Besides that there are various key performance indicators which have to be constantly monitored and necessary changes proposed in order to keep KPIs in agreed limits with the mobile operator.
In mathematics and telecommunications, stochastic geometry models of wireless networks refer to mathematical models based on stochastic geometry that are designed to represent aspects of wireless networks. The related research consists of analyzing these models with the aim of better understanding wireless communication networks in order to predict and control various network performance metrics. The models require using techniques from stochastic geometry and related fields including point processes, spatial statistics, geometric probability, percolation theory, as well as methods from more general mathematical disciplines such as geometry, probability theory, stochastic processes, queueing theory, information theory, and Fourier analysis.
Mosaik Solutions was a company that specializes in wireless coverage data and wireless coverage maps, based in Memphis, Tennessee before being acquired by Ookla.
References
- 1 2 3 Guowang Miao; Jens Zander; Ki Won Sung; Ben Slimane (2016). Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1107143217.
- 1 2 "Quality of Service Indicators". GSM Mobile Networks - Quality of Service Survey (July 2002). Portugal: Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações. October 2002. Archived from the original on 2005-11-20. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
- ↑ Chitamu. P.J., Telecommunications Access Networks. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2005.