Mangalore: GSM Technology Seminar at SJEC by Thomas Saldanha
Report by:
Rohan Pinto (Lecturer, E&C)
Joylan Andrade (VIII Sem, E&C)
Suryatapa Chakravarty (VIII Sem, E&C)
Ronette Sequeira (VIII Sem, E&C)
Pictures by:
Shafeeq Rehman M.K. (VIII Sem, E&C)
Mangalore, Feb 20: A seminar on GSM (GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS) Technology was held on 13th-14th Feb 2007 by the IEEE student chapter of St. Joseph Engineering College, Mangalore. The seminar was given by Thomas Saldanha who is one of the most important personalities in the field of Telecom industry.
Thomas Saldanha has a Degree in E&C Engineering. He has over 16 years of Telecom experience mainly with Service Providers, Govt sectors viz., Civil Aviation, Airports and Banking sectors implementing complete telecommunication solutions. From 1994 till 2002, he was associated with Ericsson AB of Sweden. His current schedule of courses includes Mobile Radio, Access Technologies & Switching Systems. He has trained over 3000 Telecom Engineers from GCC & the Middle Eastern countries.
The program started with a short inaugural function on 13th Feb at 9 a.m. in the seminar hall. The MC’s were Suryatapa Chakravarty & Joylan Andrade of VIII sem E&C. The guest was welcomed by the H.O.D of E&C and the Branch Counsellor of the IEEE student chapter, Prajwal D’Souza.
The seminar was divided into 7 chapters, which are GSM Background, Features, Architecture, Identities, Air Interface, Call Handling, and Mobility & Handover Management.
GSM Background included basic idea of a GSM, its development and the statistics. The development standard included the architecture, radio interface, service and interface standards. GSM Features included the spectral aspects, security, roaming and other features which told us about the spectrum used, efficiency, roaming & phases. GSM Architecture was about the GSM sub-systems, its components & the functionality. It gave a brief idea about mobile station, mobile equipments, SIM, base station, home location register (HLR), visitor location register (VLR), base station controller and mobile switching centre. GSM identities were about the identities, authentication & ciphering. It taught about the IMEI number, TMSI (Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity), MSISDN (Mobile Station International ISDN) & IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity).
GSM Air Interface included radio interface processes, voice and channel coding, interleaving, ciphering, burst formatting & modulation. It even included different logical channels like traffic channels, broadcast channels, common control channels & dedication control channels. Call Handling had network databases (HLR, VLR, AUC, EIR), registration, cell broadcast, paging, mobile originated calls, mobile terminated calls. A small animation based on call handling was also shown. Mobility & Handover Management included Location Area Updating (MM), handover considerations, handover types and roaming (MM).
A very good content was present in all the chapters in the form of power-point slides, which helped the students to gain a lot of knowledge on GSM. The students were very thankful to the guest for spending his precious time and knowledge with them for 2 days.
The concluding session included a small self evaluative test on the seminar by the guest himself. At the end the Principal, Dr. R.K.Yaji presented the guest with a memento and expressed his gratitude. Co-ordinator of the function Rohan Pinto lecturer of E&C Dept., delivered the vote of thanks and the program concluded thereafter.