INTRODUCTION TO GSM/WCDMA

CORE NETWORK : lesson - 1

The major parts of a modern mobile network are the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the
Core Network (CN). The GSM and WCDMA access part are designed to provide accesses
to mobile User Equipment (UE) and handle the service classes Background, Interactive,
Streaming and Conversational in WCDMA.

The Core Network contains a range of nodes to support circuit or packet switched services
belonging to the service classes above. Ericssons Core Network is common for GSM,
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced Data Rates for a Global Evolution
(EDGE) and WCDMA network solutions and is called GSM/WCDMA Core Network. The
GSM/WCDMA Core Network contains functionality realizing the features below in
accordance to the released standards:

Call Control. The CN handles the setup, maintenance and release of Voice, Packet,
Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia calls.

Mobility Management

Charging

Subscriber data management

Service Control

Security

Through connections in the backbone network. The payload processing is

performed in the Media Gateway (MGW) but triggered by the CN.

The CN also controls the interfaces towards access networks for GSM- Base Station
System (BSS), WCDMA RAN and external networks.

GSM/WCDMA CORE NETWORK DOMAINS

The GSM/WCDMA Network is logically divided into domains related to the type of the
offered service. These are:

Telephony (Circuit Switched, CS) domain. The telephony domain of the Core
Network includes the major node products: Mobile Switching Centre MSC, Transit
Switching Center (TSC), Signaling Transfer Point (STP), and MGW. These nodes
can be combined to provide complete mobile switching networks, GSM and/or
WCDMA, in traditional non-layered network architecture and/or layered
architecture where control and user plane are separated onto different nodes.

Packet Switched (PS) domain. The nodes in the packet domain provide GPRS packet
functionality for entry level to large-scale packet data networks for both GSM and
WCDMA. The PS nodes are the Serving GPRS Support Node, SGSN and Gateway GPRS
Support Node, GGSN.

Transport domain. It provides transport services to voice and packet data calls. In
the transport domain Internet Access Server (IAS) provides an efficient solution for
connecting GSM circuit data to a packet network. Mobile- Packet Backbone
Network, (M-PBN), provides a cost efficient solution for packet backbone
implementations.

Support Domain. Main function in current release is the Lawful Interception. When an
operator builds a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), the legal authorities in that
country may want to listen to the traffic that is transmitted through the network. This

tapping performed by the authorities is called lawful interception. Lawful interception

enables the authorities to trace any kind of traffic (speech, data, signaling information, short
messages etc.) in case of investigation of expected criminal activity of the target
subscriber(s). In some countries the possibility to perform lawful interception is a legal prerequirement to launch and operate a commercial PLMN.

Multimedia Domain. It contains currently the Video Gateway, ViG and the IP Multimedia,
IPMM. The Video Gateway Service takes your existing video network capabilities to the
next level. With ViG calls can be made between WCDMA UE and IP/Data locations for
both voice, data and video applications

IPMM subsystem provides operators with the ability to leverage their initial investment for
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push-to-talk services and gradually expand their IP network as new multimedia services are
introduced to subscribers. Ericsson Instant Talk is the first in a multitude of services that is
launched on the Ericsson IPMM subsystem. Other services are instant messaging, audio
conferencing, interactive session forwarding and video telephony.
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The GSM/WCDMA Core network nodes either belong to certain domain or offer services
to several domains. In the second category the nodes Home Location Register (HLR),
Authentication Centre (AUC) and Flexible Number Register (FR) support all domains
described earlier.

All service classes supported by the GSM/WCDMA put requirements to the Radio Access
and Core Networks. The involved nodes are able to handle control signaling, payload or
both. The MSC and Gateway MSC (GMSC) have been used in GSM networks several
years and provide control logic, payload processing and transmission. These nodes can be
seen as logically divided into Server and MGW parts.
Evolving from the GSM network the WCDMA MSC contains a control (Server) and a
payload (Media Gateway) part. The tendency is to separate these functions to different
nodes forming a layered network so a modern common Core Network is split as shown
below.

The MSC, TSC and GMSC are nodes with similar functionality and same type of hardware.
In the split architecture the MSC functionality related to control part is separated to the
MSC Server node and the payload part to the MGW. The MGW is based on the
Connectivity Packet Platform, (CPP), and is therefore called C-MGW. The packet domain
nodes are not currently split. The role and functionality of each node is described in the
next chapter.

GSM/WCDMA LAYERED ARCHITECTURE

The architecture split is compliant to the standards for 3rd generation networks where three
layers are defined:

Service Layer

Control Layer

Connectivity Layer

Ericssons solution for the 3rd generation mobile communication system adopts the layering
principles outlined above. The implementation of the standardized layers is presented here.
Connectivity layer
The connectivity layer is a backbone data network offering Switching, Routing and User
data handling (codecs). The connectivity layer performs the payload through connection by
managing the distributed resources. The control network requests connection with certain
properties and the connectivity layer establishes these connections. Ericssons current
release supports Internet Protocol (IP) or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) based
Backbone Data Network with the following products:

Connectivity Packet Platform (CPP) Media Gateway denoted as MGW. The MGW
Supports GSM & WCDMA interfaces, allows direct connectivity to Public
Switched Telephony Network (PSTN)/ Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
Local switches and can carry legacy Time Division Multiple Access traffic. It is
built on CPP as the other WCDMA RAN nodes (Radio Network Controller (RNC),
Radio Base Station (RBS) and RXI) and is highly scalable. The MGW offers IP,
ATM and TDM connection.
MGW belongs to Ericssons GSM/WCDMA Core Network offerings.

IP Routers. Carrier-class Edge and Core IP Routers with Multiple Protocol Label
Switching (MPLS) functionality. (AXI 520 Core Router)

ATM Switches. A powerful, scalable Edge and Core ATM switch with carrier-class
capabilities and IP support. (AXD 301 switch).
The routers and switches belong to the Transport Network offerings.

Control layer
Within the control layer relies the functionality of Call Control, Session Management,
Mobility Management and Security. The Control Layer houses a number of network servers
and databases of different types in order to support the functionality above. The main server
types are:
MSC servers (MSC, GMSC, TSC etc) and
HSS servers (HLR, FNR, AUC)
The session management and all packet services in general involve the GSN nodes i.e. the
SGSN and GGSN. Although these nodes are depicted in the connectivity layer in the figure
1 they implement the server function as well.
The control layer nodes belong to Ericssons GSM/WCDMA Core Network offerings.

Service Layer
The new service concept for GSM/WCDMA networks is to have no new standardized
services but instead to have a standardized set of Service Capabilities, which may
ultimately, be used by all networks. These are contained in the Application Layer together
with Application Servers.
The application layer forms the Service Network. Within this Service Network, the Service
Capability Servers (SCS) interface with resources in the Core Network and with the
Application Servers to negotiate the service capabilities needed for a specific application
and enable the service. The SCS are located on the interface between the two networks.
Locating SCS and Applications outside the Core Network will result in:

Service differentiation between operators

Personalization of services between end users

Convergence of services between different networks

From the WCDMA point of view, this approach means that the subscribers can have access
to the same set of services, with the same look and feel, wherever they are (Virtual Home
Environment (VHE) concept), whilst giving the operator greater opportunities for service
differentiation. This concept is realized by the set of Service Capability Servers (SCS):

Customized Application for Mobile Enhanced Logic (CAMEL). CAMEL supports

the IN features while roaming outside the home PLMN, which allows the subscriber
to have the operator specific services everywhere.

SIM Application Toolkit (SAT). SAT may also be used for application download but
it is more commonly used for security related features such as authentication.

Mobile Execution Environment (MexE). MExE uses two Application Content

Servers Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) and Java for features such as the
Web-browsing and Application download.

The dynamism in Mobile Positioning services enables the need of a GSM Mobile position
Center, which contain the gateway for the service.
Other service enablers are the Mobile Multimedia controller, (MMC), and Service
Development Environment

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE FUNCTIONS IN CORE

NETWORK
GSM Operator Support System, OSS, has been used for several years in the GSM Core
Network. Current release is the OSS-RC. OSS-RC is Ericssons sub-network manager,
supporting centralized operation and maintenance of the radio access as well as the core
networks of both GSM and WCDMA. The nodes adapted to OSS-RC are shown in the
figure below.

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The OSS-RC provides the following network-wide management capabilities:

Supervision

Configuration

Deployment

Optimization
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Fin lesson 1
Falta practise 1
(esta en la web)

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