Location Management

for
Mobile Cellular Systems

Cellular System
Architecture
Each

cell is served by a base station (BS)

Each BS is connected to a mobile switching
center (MSC) through fixed links
Each MSC is connected to other MSCs and PSTN

MSC
HLR
VLR

PSTN

MSC

To other
MSCs

HLR
VLR

PSTN

Cellular System Architecture

Each MSC is a local switching exchange that handles

Switching of mobile user from one base station to another
Locating the current cell of a mobile user
Home Location Register (HLR): database recording the
current location of each mobile that belongs to the MSC
Visitor Location Register (VLR): database recording the cell
of visiting mobiles
Interfacing with other MSCs
Interfacing with PSTN (traditional telephone network)

One channel in each cell is set aside for signaling information

between BS and mobiles
Mobile-to-BS: location update, call setup for outgoing calls,
response to incoming calls
BS-to-Mobile: cell identity, call setup for incoming calls,
location updating

Call Setup

Outgoing call setup:

User keys in the number and presses send (no dial tone)
Mobile transmits access request on uplink signaling channel
If network can process the call, BS sends a channel
allocation message
Network proceeds to setup the connection
Network activity:
MSC determines current location of target mobile using HLR,
VLR and by communicating with other MSCs
Source MSC initiates a call setup message to MSC covering
target area
Incoming call setup:
Target MSC (covering current location of mobile) initiates a
paging msg
BSs forward the paging message on downlink channel in
coverage area
If mobile is on (monitoring the signaling channel), it
responds to BS

Location Management in
Cellular Networks has to
address the following issues
When should a MS (or MT) update its
location to the network
How should the exact location of a MS
be determined within a specified time
constraint
How should user location info be
stored and disseminated throughout
the network.

Cellular Systems
Where is 9864180075?
Send broadcast
messages from
every base station?

Two Major Components in Location

Management
Location

Update

The operation of informing the network about the current

location of the mobile terminal is known as location update
or location registration.
May be static (based on topology of the network,
performed at predefined set of cells ) or dynamic (based
on mobility pattern and call arrival pattern of an user)
Paging

The operation of determining the location of the mobile

terminal is called terminal paging or searching.
The system sends messages (from one or more base stations)
to find a particular user.
There

is a Trade-off between the costs of location

update and paging
Thus central problem of location management is to
devise algorithms that minimize overall cost of LU &
Paging

Two Extreme Cases (Never-Update and

Always-Update)
Location never update (no cost).
Need to page every cells (high
cost).

Location updates for every cell

crossing (high cost).
Need to page only one cell (low
cost).

Location update

Location Management Approaches

May be static (predefined cells, does not depend on
mobility) or dynamic, and global (all MTs update
their locations from same set of cells) or local (per-user,
allows to decide when and where to perform LU)

Location Area Approach

Service Coverage area is Partitioned into different

location areas (LAs).
Each LA consists of several contiguous cells
The BS of each cell broadcasts the identification (ID) of
LA to which the cell belongs.
Therefore, a MS knows which LA it is in
A MS will update its location (reports its new LA)
whenever it moves into a cell which belongs to a new LA
When an incoming call arrives for a MS, the cellular
system will page all cells of the LA which was last reported
by the MS
In principle, service area should be partitioned in such a way to minimize
both Location-update cost and Paging Cost

Location Area Approach (contd)

Partition the region
into different
location areas.

Location Area Approach

(Contd)
Trade-off between location update cost and paging cost
2-extreme cases Always-Update and Never-Update
Always-Update: Each cell is a LA, cost of location update
is very high, no paging cost (can just route an incoming call
to the last reported cell without paging)
Never-Update: Whole service area is a LA, no location
update cost, paging cost is very high because the cellular
system need to page every cell in the service area to find
the current cell of the MS
In classical LA approach, the most recently visited LA-ID
is stored in a MS.
whenever the MS receives a new LA-ID, it initiates a location
update.

Location Area Approach

(Contd)

Two Location Algorithm (TLA) allows a MS to store

and register the IDs of two most recently visited LAs.
When a MS moves into a new LA, it checks if the
new location is in the memory. If not found, the oldest
of the two LAs is replaced by the new one and
location update is performed
This results in reduction of ping-pong effect
Among other techniques to reduce ping-pong effect
is defining Overlapped LA

Location Update
LA-1

Location update is
performed when there
is a boundary crossing.

LA-2
No location
update
Location update

How to
determine
the size of
a LA?

Reporting Cells/Centers
A subset of cells have been selected from all cells as reporting
cells.
Other cells are called non-reporting cells.
BSs broadcast a signal to indicate whether the cell is a
reporting one or not. So a MS knows whether it is in a
reporting cell or not
For each reporting cell i, its vicinity is defined as the collection
of all non-reporting cells that are reachable from cell i without
crossing another reporting cell.
The reporting cell belongs to its own vicinity.
A MS will update its location (i.e. Cell ID), whenever it moves
into a new reporting cell.

Reporting Cells/Centers(Contd)
When an incoming call arrives for a MS, the cellular
system will page all cells within the vicinity of the
reporting cells which was last reported by the MS
2-Extremes: Always-update & Never-update
The goal is how to select a subset of reporting cell
to minimize the total location management cost (sum
of location update cost and the paging cost)
A
F

D
Reporting Cells

B
E

G
C

Time Based
Given a time Threshold T, a MS updates its location
every T units of time.

The corresponding paging strategy is also

simple.
Whenever there is an incoming call for a MS, the
system will first search the cell the MS last reported
to, say i. If it is not found there, the system will search
in cells i+j and i-j starting with j=1 and continuing until
the MS is found.
Here a ring cellular topology is assumed

Movement Based
Each MS keeps a counter which is initialized to zero after
each location update.
Whenever a MS crosses the boundary between two cells, it
increases the counter by one.
The boundary crossing can be detected by comparing the Ids
of those 2 cells.
When the counter reaches a predefined threshold, say M,
the MS updates its location (i.e. cell ID)
Guarantees that the MS is located in an area (residing area)
that is within a distance M from the last reported cell .
When an incoming call arrives for a MS, the system will page
all the cells in residing area. (Easy to impl due to simplicity)

Distance Based
Each MS keeps track of the distance between the current cell
and the last reported cell (distance is defined in terms of cells).
When the distance reaches a predefined threshold, say D, the
MS updates its location (cell ID).
Guarantees that the MS is located in an area (residing area)
that is within a distance D from the last reported cell.
When an incoming call arrives for a MS, the system will page
all the cells within a distance D from the last reported cell.
Hard to compute the distance between 2 cells or it requires a
lot of storage to maintain the distance info among all cells.
Although, if cell IDs can be assigned properly, the distance
between 2 cells can be computed very easily.

Profile Based
Cellular System keeps individual subscribers mobility pattern
in his/her profile. This info will be used to save the costs of
location update and paging
The idea behind this strategy is that the mobility pattern of a
majority of subscribers can be foretold.
For each time period [ti,tj), the system maintains a list of LAs,
(A1,p1),(A2,p2), .., (Ak,pk). Here, Af is an LA and pf is the prob
that the subscriber is located in Af. Also p1>p2> pk
If a subscriber moves within the recorded LAs during the
corresponding period [ti,tj), the subscriber does not require to
perform location update, otherwise the subscriber reports its
current location, and the system will trace the subscriber as in
classical LA approach.
So, location update is significantly reduced

Location Databases
These two
databases
communicate with
each other to
authenticate and
update each other
about the location
of an MS.
Home Location
Register (HLR)
Visitor Location
Register (VLR)

Home

Database

Every MS is permanently
associated with a home
database
Keep track of the profile of
the MS
Mobile ID, authentication keys,
location, etc.

Visiting

Database

Keeps track of the MSs in its

service area.

GSM Example:
Location Update

HLR

(5
)
VLR

MSC

(3
)

(6
)

(4
)

MSC

VLR

(2
)

(1
)

Mobile
Switching
Center

Location Update
Procedures

1.
2.
3.
4.

5.
6.

MS transmits a Location Update (LU) to

the new BS
The BS forwards the LU to the MSC
MSC sends LU to the HLR and updates
VLR
HLR does the following:
authenticate the MS
record the ID of the new VLR
send an ACK to the new VLR

HLR sends a registration cancellation

message to the old VLR
The old VLR removes the record of the
MS and returns an ACK to HLR

GSM Example:
Call Delivery

HLR
(5
)

VLR

MSC

(2
)

(6
)

(4
)

(3
)

MSC

VLR

(7
)

Mobile
Switching
Center
(1
)

Calling
MS

Called
MS

Call Delivery Procedure

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Calling MS sends a call initiation signal to

MSC through BS.
MSC sends a location request to HLR of
the called MS
HLR determines serving VLR of called MS
and sends a route request message to it.
MSC allocates a temporary ID to MS and
sends this ID to HLR
HLR forwards the ID to MSC of the calling
MS
Calling MSC requests a call set up to the
called MSC
Paging messages are sent to cells within
the LA.

Other Location
Management Strategies

Ping-Pong Effect
LA-1

A lot of location updates

may be generated if a user
crosses LA boundary
frequently.

Terminal Paging
Terminal

paging or paging is the process of

determining the exact location of a particular
MS by the network
In each polling cycle/search iteration, polling
signals are sent over the downlink control
channel to all cells where the MS is likely to be
present.
All MSs listen to the page mesg, and only the
target MS sends a response mesg back over
the uplink control channel.
Each polling cycle has a timeout period. If the
target MS replies before the timeout, paging
process is terminated successfully.
Otherwise, another group of cells is chosen in

Terminal Paging (Contd)

To

avoid call dropping, the MS must be

located within an allowable time limits.
Maximum Paging delay corresponds to
max number of polling cycles allowed to
locate the MS
Paging cost is proportional to the no. of
polling cycles and the no. of cells being
polled in each cycle
Paging
cost can be reduced by
predicting the current location of the MS.

Terminal Paging Approaches

Blanket/Simultaneous

Paging: All the cells

within the LA in which the MS is located are
polled simultaneously
Single polling cycle, deployed on top of LA
based location update scheme (e.g., GSM)
Drawback:
Polling
cost
is
very
high
(determined by the no. of cells within one LA),
Generate Excessive amount of paging traffic
Sequential Paging: Network pages the MS
sequentially starting from one cell where the
MS last updated its location, moving to next
cell in a particular order.

Blanket Paging
Page every
cells within
the LA.

Sequential Paging
Page the cells
sequentially
until the user
is found.
8
2
1

6
5

9
10

How to determine paging

order?
Method

1: Shortest Distance First

Pages the user starting from the cell

where he last updated his location.
Move outward in a shortest-distancefirst order.
Ties are broken arbitrarily.
Example:
1

Last Location
Update

(in a highway)
4

How to determine paging

order?
Method

2: Based on Location
Probability
Estimate the probability that a user
is located in each cell within the
current LA.
Page the cells in decreasing order of
probability.
Suppose Prob. Distribution

A Example:
B C D E

Last Location
Update

is: highway)
(in a

{0.05, 0.2, 0.4, 0.25, 0.1}

Paging order: C, D, B, E, A

Paging Delay
In

our previous example, the expected delay is

E[D] = 0.4 1 + 0.25 2 + 0.2 3 + 0.1 4
+ 0.05 5
= 2.15 (paging cycles)
Worst-case
The

delay is 5 paging cycles.

expected number of cells to be paged is also

2.15.
Worst-case: 5 cells.

Blanket Paging vs. Sequential

Paging
Blanket

Sequential

Paging cost

Large

Small

Paging delay

Small

Large

Sequential group paging may be used if

there is a constraint on paging delay

Sequential Group Paging

Page groups of
cells sequentially
until the user is
found.

3
2
1

4
3

4
Worst case
delay is 4
cycles.

Database Management
Location

Update

Involves the updating of location

databases
Call

Delivery

Involves the querying of location

databases
The

cost is very high if the MS is

located far away from its HLR.
e.g. if the MS is roaming in Europe
and its HLR is in INDIA.

Database Management
Three Enhancement Methods:
Per User Location Caching
User Profile Replication
Forwarding Pointers

Per-User Location Caching

Every

time user x is called, xs

location is cached at the VLR in the
callers LA.
Any subsequent call to x originated
from that LA can reuse this
information.
No need to contact user xs HLR.
Accordingly, Call Delivery Procedure
discussed earlier should be modified
(Check How?)
If

the user has changed its location

Per-User Location Caching (contd)

Cache Invalidation
Eager

Caching

Whenever a user moves to a new LA, all

cache entries for this users location are
updated.
Location update cost increases if a user
moves frequently.
Lazy

Caching

Cache update is not performed.

Two cases can occur: a hit or a miss
In case of a miss,
contact the HLR
there is an additional cost, since the cached VLR
must be visited first.

User Profile Replication

Observation:

Each user usually communicates

frequently with a small number of
sources.
How

can we make use of this

observation?
User profiles are replicated at
selected databases to reduce the
cost of querying the HLR.

User Profile Replication

When

a call is initiated from a

certain LA, the corresponding
MSC determines if a replication of
the called MSs user profile is
available locally.
If available, no HLR query is needed.

When

the MS moves to another

location, the network updates all
replications.

Pointer Forwarding
Each

time a user moves to a new LA, a

forwarding pointer is set up from its
pervious VLR to point to the new VLR.
Calls to the user will first query the
HLR to determine the first VLR and
then follow the chain of VLRs to reach
the current VLR.
The length of the pointer chain is
limited to a maximum value N.
This method can reduce the cost of
updating the HLR.

References
I.

F. Akyildiz et. al., Mobility

management
in
next-generation
wireless systems, Proceedings of the
IEEE, pp. 1347-1384, vol. 87, no. 8,
Aug. 1999.
V. W.-S. Wong and V. C. M. Leung,
Location management for nextgeneration personal communications
networks, IEEE Network, pp. 18-24,
Sep/Oct 2000.