TONY@mcgill1.bitnet (Tony Harminc) (05/17/91)
Can someone recommend a good book or document on cellular mobile ? I am not looking for a Mickey Mouse (tm?) overview, but for something that describes in some detail the process of setting up a call, hand-off, paging, roaming, etc. I have the reference document from the DOC which consists of state descriptions for a finite state machine, and doesn't make a good introduction. Because this document is intended for makers of mobile *sets*, it doesn't cover how the base stations and the overall network work. I am most interested in the North American standard, but also in descriptions of other systems worldwide. I understand the UK system is a minor modification to the NA one. From what I have read, some aspects of the system design seem quite bizarre. I was expecting a neat separation of the hardware and software design, but it looks as though they are sort of munged together. Does someone here know something of the background - i.e. how did this system come to be the way it is ? Tony Harminc
news@ucsd.edu> (05/18/91)
In article <telecom11.365.9@eecs.nwu.edu> TONY@mcgill1.bitnet (Tony Harminc) writes: > Can someone recommend a good book or document on cellular mobile ? I > am not looking for a Mickey Mouse (tm?) overview, but for something > that describes in some detail the process of setting up a call, > hand-off, paging, roaming, etc. I have the reference document from > the DOC which consists of state descriptions for a finite state > machine, and doesn't make a good introduction. Because this document The best one I've seen is a textbook by Bill Lee, a Pac*Tel VP, I believe. It's simply called "Mobile Cellular Telecommunications Systems." It's a bit heavy in the RF theory, but if you're not into that you can just bleep over those parts. Standard disclaimer applies, you legalistic hacks. | Ron Dippold
brian@uunet.uu.net> (05/18/91)
In article <telecom11.365.9@eecs.nwu.edu> TONY@mcgill1.bitnet (Tony Harminc) writes: > Can someone recommend a good book or document on cellular mobile ? I > am not looking for a Mickey Mouse (tm?) overview, but for something "Mobile Cellular Telecommunications Systems", by William C. Y. Lee. Copyright 1989, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0-07-037030-3 brian
Tony Harminc <TONY@mcgill1.bitnet> (05/23/91)
I have received a number of private notes asking what I was referring
to when I said "the DOC reference document" in my recent posting on
cellular mobile information.
The DOC is the Department of Communications. It issues a large number
of publications on various topics, most of which are free of charge.
All documents mentioned below are free.
Since the Canadian and US cellular standards are essentially identical
and compatible, the following documents may be of interest to US as
well as Canadian readers. I imagine US readers would be able to
obtain similar information from their local agency (the FCC ?)
All the following are covered in the "Index of Spectrum Management
Documents Available to the Public" (which can itself be ordered).
There are also innumerable documents covering everything from burglar
alarms to stereo TV to "Suppression of Radio Interference from
Elevators"!
SRSP-503 Technical Requirements for Cellular Radiotelephone Systems
Operating in the Bands 825-845 and 870-890 MHz
This is just a few pages but it does discuss the channel allocation
and System ID (SID) formats, and briefly discusses Canada/USA cross-
border coordination of cellular systems. It seems to predate the
extended channels.
RSS-118 Land & Subscriber Stations: Voice, Data and Tone Modulated,
Angle Modulation Radiotelephone Transmitters & Receivers
Operating in the Cellular Mobile Bands 824-849 & 869-894 MHz.
This is what I think of as the "analogue" or "hardware" document. It
is chock full of RF engineering stuff, test methods, test requirements
for test instruments(!) and so on.
IS-01 Interconnection Standard for the Interfaces Between Cellular
Radio Systems and Other Common Carrier Systems
This is an oldish (1985) document discussing how the cellular carriers
are to connect to the rest of the world, via two-wire, four-wire, and
T1 interfaces. Whether they actually did it this way I don't know.
Annex A Cellular System Mobile Station - Land Station Compatibility
to RSS-118 Standard
This is the good one - what I think of as the "digital" or "software"
document. It essentially tells you what you need to know to write the
code to run a cellular mobile set. It is *not* a tutorial (hence my
earlier query). It provides a very detailed description of the states
the set can be in, and processing instructions for each state. It has
a much more limited discussion of how the land station works, e.g.
descriptions of what should be sent, but not why. There is certainly
not enough information to design an entire cellular system :-)
The address for the DOC is:
Department of Communications
DOS/PP
300 Slater Street, 6th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0C8
There is no mention of whether they will send documents to foreign
addresses free of charge, but it wouldn't hurt to try.
Tony Harminc