Abstract
OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; OTE S.A., General Directorate for Technology, Greece; General Prefectorial Hospital “G. Gennimatas”, Greece
TopBasic Architecture Of Cellular Networks
Telecommunication systems were not always an easy way for communication. In previous years the systems were analog and in order to make a simple phone call a time consuming procedure had to be followed. Originally the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) organization defined “GSM” as a “European digital cellular model of telephony.” The GSM network offers high voice quality, call privacy, and network security. Consequently, ETSI’s GSM committee added a feature called “Cell Broadcast” to the GSM standard 100 years after the original invention of radio. This is contained in standards GSM 03.49 and others (ETSI, 1993). The fundamental feature has been presented in Paris (1997) and has been described as quite successful. By now, all GSM phones and base stations have this feature latent within them, though sometimes it is not “enabled” in the network. Before cell broadcasting, other methods of fast informing existed in real case scenarios (Redl, Weber, & Oliphant, 1995).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cell Broadcasting (CB): A mobile technology feature defined by the ETSI’s GSM committee and part of the GSM standard. Allows a text or binary message to be defined and distributed to all mobile terminals connected to a set of cells in a certain geographical area.
Cell Broadcast Forum (CBF): A nonprofit industry association that supports the world standard for cell broadcast wireless information and telephony services on digital mobile phones and other wireless terminals. Its primary goal is to bring together companies from all segments of the wireless industry value chain to ensure product interoperability and growth of wireless market (http://www.cellbroadcastforum.org).
Cell Broadcast Channel (CBCH): This channel is a feature of the GSM system. It is a downlink only channel and is intended to be used for broadcast information. It is mapped into the second subslot of the standalone dedicated control channel.
Short Message Service (SMS): A well known service, available on all mobile phones and on most other mobile devices, and allows users to exchange text messages.
Cell Broadcast Message (SMS-CB): Text or binary message that is used for delivering information to all mobile phone users that are located in a certain geographical area.
Cell Broadcast Center (CBC): The “heart” of the cell broadcast system and acts as a server for all CBE clients. It takes care of the administration of all SMS-CB messages it receives from the CBEs, and does the communication towards the GSM network. The GSM network itself takes care of delivering the SMS-CB messages to the mobile terminals.
Cell Broadcast Entity (CBE): A multiuser front-end that allows the definition and control of SMS-CB messages. A CBE can be located at the site of a content provider.