Mobile Communications Today

From GSM over LTE to 5G

Fundamental upheavals are taking place in mobile communications. For 30 years, GSM mobile communications and its extensions for Internet access GPRS & EDGE dominated worldwide. 3G UMTS & HSPA+ were also quite popular.

For a few years now, the much more powerful LTE has started to replace its predecessors. And 5G, as an ultra-flexible and high-performance radio standard for all applications and users, is on its way to the mass market.

This course will give you an overview of all mobile radio systems relevant today: from 2G (GSM) to 2.5G (GPRS/EDGE), 3G (UMTS), 3.5G (HSPA/HSPA+), 4G (LTE) and 4.5G (LTE-Advanced Pro) to 5G. You will gain solid mobile radio knowledge and will be introduced to network architecture, radio transmission, service concept, security aspects, data rates, performance and limitations of these mobile radio systems.

Course Contents

Basics of Mobile Communications
Cellular Systems, Hand-over, Roaming
Evolution of Mobile Communications: from 1G to 5G Mobile radio basics
Cellular systems, handover, roaming
Mobile radio evolution from 1G to 5G
GSM network architecture
Packet Switched Domain: GPRS/EDGE
UMTS/HSPA Network
IP Multimedia Subsystem IMS
LTE Network: Evolved Packet System EPS
5G Network: 5G System 5GS
Tele-/Bearer & Supplementary Services
Service Evolution
Security in GSM, UMTS, LTE & 5G
Mobile Communications & Health (optional)
Impotant procedures (registration, security, MTC)
Whereabouts information and updates
GSM, GPRS & EDGE radio interface
UMTS radio interface: WCDMA
HSDPA, HSUPA & HSPA+
LTE & 5G radio interface: OFDMA
Duplex & Multiplex
Adaptive Modulation & Coding
Cellular Internet of Things CIoT: NB-IoT & LTE-M
Carrier Aggregation & Dual-Connectivity
5G Timing, Standardization & Key Aspects
LTE & 5G Spectrum & Spectrum Auctions

You will receive the comprehensive documentation package of the ExperTeach Networking series – printed documentation, e-book, and personalized PDF! As online participant, you will receive the e-book and the personalized PDF.

Target Group

The course addresses all those who need a solid overview of current mobile communications technologies.

Knowledge Prerequisites

A basic knowledge of telecommunications is required to understand the course contents.

1 Basics of mobile radio

1.1 History of mobile radio

1.2 Cellular mobile radio networks

1.2.1 Cell, cell size & capacity

1.2.2 Handover & roaming

1.2.3 Where is the subscriber?

1.3 Coordination of the radio interface

1.3.1 Duplex transmission

1.3.2 Multiplexing

1.4 Cellular mobile radio: from 1G to 5G

1.5 3GPP standardization & evolution

2 GSM - 2nd generation mobile communications (2G)

2.1 GSM - A success story

2.2 GSM services

2.3 GSM network architecture

2.3.1 Mobile Station

2.3.2 Base Station Subsystem

2.3.3 GSM Core Network

2.3.4 The Operation Subsystem

2.4 The GSM Radio Interface

2.4.1 Duplex transmission & frequency bands

2.4.2 Multiplexing of subscribers

2.4.3 The GSM Burst

2.4.4 GSM cell size & timing advance

2.5 GSM identities

2.6 GSM Security Functions

2.6.1 Triples

2.6.2 Authentication & Encryption

2.6.3 TMSI: Subscriber identity confidentiality

2.6.4 IMEI Check

2.7 Important GSM procedures

2.7.1 Location Update

2.7.2 Call setup

3 GPRS & EDGE (2.5G)

3.1 Mobile radio & data transmission

3.2 The Packet-Switched Domain

3.2.1 Network elements / functional units

3.2.2 GPRS interfaces

3.3 Security in GSM/GPRS

3.4 The GPRS & EDGE radio interface

3.4.1 Link Adaptation in GPRS: Adaptive Coding

3.4.2 EDGE: Adaptive Modulation & Coding

4 UMTS (3G)

4.1 What is new with UMTS?

4.2 The UMTS network architecture

4.2.1 User Equipment

4.2.2 UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

4.2.3 Rel. 99 Core Network

4.2.4 Rel. 4 Core Network

4.3 Security functions in UMTS

4.4 The UMTS radio interface

4.4.1 UMTS duplex transmission

4.4.2 CDMA principle, spreading codes & spreading factor

4.4.3 UMTS codes & data rates

4.4.4 UMTS frequencies

4.4.5 Power control

4.4.6 Rake receiver & handover

5 HSDPA, HSUPA & HSPA+ (3.5G)

5.1 The UMTS Evolution

5.2 HSDPA

5.3 HSUPA

5.4 HSPA+

5.4.1 Direct tunnel RNC - GGSN

5.4.2 Higher order modulation schemes

5.4.3 MIMO: Multi-antenna transmission

5.4.4 Dual & multi-carrier transmission

6 LTE (4G)

6.1 LTE goals & principles

6.2 The Evolved Packet System

6.2.1 Evolution of the network

6.2.2 The LTE User Equipment UE

6.2.3 The Evolved UTRAN

6.2.4 The Evolved Packet Core EPC

6.2.5 The IP Multimedia Subsystem IMS

6.3 LTE Identities

6.4 Security functions in LTE

6.4.1 IMEI Check

6.4.2 Confidentiality of subscriber identity

6.4.3 The Authentication Vector

6.4.4 Mutual authentication

6.4.5 Start encryption & integrity check

6.4.6 Integrity checking

6.4.7 Encryption

6.4.8 LTE security algorithms

6.5 The E-UTRA radio interface

6.5.1 E-UTRA Transmission: OFDMA

6.5.2 E-UTRA UL Transmission: SC-FDMA

6.5.3 Bandwidth & resource allocation

6.5.4 Adaptive modulation & coding

6.5.5 MIMO: Multi-antenna transmission

6.5.6 LTE data rates

6.5.7 FDD & TDD

6.6 LTE frequencies

6.7 Summary

7 LTE-Advanced (Pro)

7.1 LTE-Advanced - "The real 4G".

7.2 LTE radio transmission: Evolution to 5G

7.2.1 Carrier aggregation

7.2.2 New frequency ranges

7.2.3 Enhanced MIMO

7.2.4 256QAM & 1024QAM

7.3 New UE categories

7.4 Cellular Internet of Things CIoT

7.5 Optimization of radio network architecture

7.5.1 Heterogeneous radio network architecture

7.5.2 CoMP

8 5G

8.1 The 5th generation of mobile communications 5G

8.1.1 5G usage

8.1.2 5G operators

8.1.3 The 5G schedule

8.1.4 Central 5G components

8.2 5G network architecture

8.2.1 5G user equipment

8.2.2 5G Radio Access Network

8.2.3 5G Core Network 5GC

8.2.4 Network slicing

8.2.5 Mobile Edge Computing

8.3 5G Identities & Security

8.3.1 Subscriber & Equipment Identities

8.3.2 AKA, Encryption & Integrity Checking

8.4 5G Spectrum

8.5 5G Radio Interface: New Radio

8.5.1 OFDMA: Scalable Subcarriers

8.5.2 NR Bandwidths

8.5.3 5G peak rates

8.5.4 Shorter latencies

8.5.5 NR Duplex Transmission: TDD & FDD

8.5.6 Massive MIMO

8.5.7 Carrier aggregation in NR

8.6 Migration from LTE to 5G

8.7 Summary & Outlook

9 Optional: Mobile Communications & Health

9.1 Electromagnetic waves

9.2 Thermal & non-thermal effects

9.3 Radio spectrum & usage

9.4 Limits for mobile radio

9.5 Studies on mobile radio & health

9.6 Fakes & facts

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