Comparison & overview of MLC - Andrew Corporation & WLS – Trueposition platforms I supported for the past 12 years which both have been discontinued as of 2015 (including companies) and the responsibilities have been transferred to Intrado and TCS (E911 service providers) for network base 911 services.

Mobile Location Center and Wireless Location System – both products provide the same service; however, with a few internal naming differences in reference to overall platform including hardware & software they both perform the same service. A note: Andrew Corp a subsidiary of CommScope actually manufactured the LMU (location measurement unit) hardware which Andrew Corp has. Andrew Corp named their measurement unit WLS (wireless location system). Also, they both run on Unix, use MySQL, and another RDBMS. MLC is more command-line. Whereas, WLS is more command line for engineering and provisioning, but it has a GUI for network operations, analytics, performance analysis, auto-provisioning and system admin (user/group administration). Basically more user friendly.

We will start with Andrew CorporationThe Mobile Location Center is a high-availability, scalable central office platform for determining the physical location of a handset in a cellular telephone network.

Note: The generic terminology used for “handset” varies with the context: in a GSM network, the term “mobile station (MS)” is used; in a UMTS network, “user equipment (UE)” is used.

The Mobile Location Center provides the following network nodes:• Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC)• Serving Mobile Location Center (SMLC)• Standalone Assisted-GPS SMLC (SAS)

The Mobile Location Center provides the following configurations:• *GMLC-only• SMLC-only on the GEN3 platform• SAS-only on the GEN3 platform• *GMLC-SMLC combination• *GMLC-SAS combination

The Mobile Location Center is open-standards-compliant; it complies with the following open standards: location (ETSI/3GPP), emergency services (for North America), wireless (ETSI/3GPP), SS7 (ITU and ANSI), CORBA, SNMP, internet (HTTP, HTTPS and XML). The Mobile Location Center uses either the Ulticom Signalware SS7 interface (on GEN3 MLC platforms) or the Nortel Universal Signaling Point (on pre-GEN3 platforms) to communicate with the SS7 network.

The Mobile Location Center supports:• GSM networking protocols• UMTS networking protocols• location services (LCS) messaging• MTP3 (standard SS7) and M3UA (SIGTRAN) signaling• North American emergency services• Mobile Location Protocol (MLP)• GMLC geographic redundancy

• TA/NMR location technology, which uses Timing Advance (TA) and• Network Measurement Report (NMR) information to determine the• location of a handset• Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) location technology, which uses GPS assistance• data downloaded from a third-party Wide Area Reference Network• (WARN) to help determine the location of GPS-capable handsets• The Mobile Location Center supports:

1. both network-assisted and autonomous handset-based A-GPS, where the position computation occurs in the handset

2. handset-assisted A-GPS, where the handset provides satellite measurements and the position computation occurs in the network (inthe MLC)

3. conventional GPS, where the position computation occurs in the handset without assistance data

• Uplink Time Difference of Arrival (U-TDOA) location technology, which allows the use of external U-TDOA Location Servers to determine the location of handsets.

The Mobile Location Center provides:A Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC) network node, which incorporates standards-based as well as pre-standards–based support for location requests using cell-based location technologyA Serving Mobile Location Center (SMLC) network node, which incorporates the following position determining entities (PDE):• TA/NMR• A-GPS• U-TDOA• cell-basedNote: The SMLC can optionally be set up to forward selected location requests to remote SMLCs for position determination.

A Stand-alone A-GPS SMLC (SAS) UMTS network node, which provides a GPS assistance data server that supports both implicit and explicit data requestsThe SAS-to-RNC (Iupc) interface can support one or both of:• standards-based SIGTRAN over SCTP associations• TCP Adaption Layer (TAL) over direct TCP/IP connections• an optional location-based application: the Mobile Locator• an application interface for Mobile Location Protocol (MLP) compliant LCS

clients (location-based applications)• support for the Lc interface which enables a Service Control Function (SCF) to

request handset location information from the GMLC• an emergency services application interface (ESAI) for Emergency Services

support• secure, open interfaces for operations, administration, maintenance (OAM)

and provisioning

• an optional operations support system (OSS) server which can be used for:

1. off-board storage of key MLC operations and performance data required by an operator—including storage of logs, event records, configurations and key performance indicator (KPI) data.

2. running OSS tools such as the MLC KPI reporting tool which is available for analysis of MLC data in standard reports.

Note: The KPI reporting tool can also be run on compliant operator provided equipment.

• a standards-based application interface for Mobile Location Protocol applications• Lc interface support

• TA/NMR location technology• A-GPS location technology

1. MS-based and MS-assisted for SMLC2. UE-based and UE-assisted for SAS3. SET-based and SET-assisted for SLP

• U-TDOA location technology• Lb tandem support, where the SMLC forwards selected location requests

(received on the Lb interface from BSCs) to remote SMLCs for position determination• North American Emergency Services support the Mobile Locator application• GMLC geographic redundancy• enhanced network topography security through the cell hiding feature

which allows the random variation of the location returned from cell-based positioning methods

Network architecture• GSM logical architecture: The GSM logical architecture for delivering

position information to location services.

UMTS logical architecture: The UMTS logical architecture is an evolution of the GSM architecture for LCS.

1. The interface to the GMLC remains the same.2. The SMLC is incorporated into the Radio Network Controller (RNC)

functionality.

The functional components of the Mobile Location Center GMLC, SMLC and SAS

Now for TruepositionOverview of the TruePosition Finder Wireless Location System (WLS). It includes descriptions of the main elements of the system: • Anyphone™ Location Measurement Unit (LMU)• iFind™ Serving Mobile Location Center (SMLC)• ServiceGate™ Wireless Location Gateway (WLG)• Abis Monitoring System (AMS)• Element Management System (EMS)• SCOUT™ application• Angle of Arrival (AOA)The Overview is a summary of the principles of operation explaining how the WLS functions as a whole.

EMSThe EMS is the primary operator interface for the TruePosition WLS. The EMS enables the TruePosition WLS operators to perform network management, limited system configuration management, alarm management, and fault isolation. It consists of one server and multiple clients, and connects to each WLS using the OSS Gateway. EMS clients, which serve as EMS operator consoles, provide varied levels of access to all elements within the network.

SCOUT applicationTruePosition’s SCOUT application suite refers to an integrated set of capabilities used to manage, design, configure, predict the accuracy of, and perform analysis and testing of a WLS. As a component of the WLS, The SCOUT application interfaces with the LG, the OSS Gateway, the iFind SMLC, and Drive Test client, providing options for importing cell site data, synchronizing configuration data with operating systems, and generating reports detailing configurations

LMUThe Anyphone LMU is the primary TruePosition equipment deployed at a carrier's cell site. It tunes to directed frequencies, gathers data, and forwards the data to the SMLC.

SMLCThe iFind SMLC digital signal- processing unit is typically located at the carrier's switching location, but it can be remotely distributed to any location. The primary functions are:• Receiving reports on signal detection from the LMUs• Performing location processing• Calculating the location estimate for each signal• Communicating with the WLG regarding location records

WLGThe ServiceGate WLG manages the TruePosition network and provides carrier access to location records; it is responsible for the collection and distribution of location records. It also maintains configuration information and supports network management. A ServiceGate WLG may be located in any centralized facility, such as a network operations center, switching facility, or other secure facility.

MGThe Master Gateway manages the software elements of the WLG. The state of the WLG is coordinated and presented by the master gateway.

LGThe Location Gateway application is responsible for distributing locations to requesting applications. It also generates billing metrics for locations distributed to each application. The LG application runs on the ServiceGate WLG server.

SGThe Signaling Gateway connects to a base station controller and receives location requests. It sends the location requests to the LG, which in turn begins location processing.

OSS GatewayThe OSS Gateway application provides Operation Support Subsystem functions for the TruePosition WLS. The ServiceGate WLG server hosts the OSS Gateway and the LG applications. The OSS Gateway aids in WLS provisioning from the SCOUT component and performs alarm correlation for faults generated within the WLS. The OSS Gateway enables the interface with the TruePosition EMS using a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) for fault, performance, and limited configuration management. It generates billing metrics for locations distributed to each application and provides an external interface to support external management tools such as NetExpert. The SG application runs on the ServiceGate WLG server.

Routers and SwitchesRouters and switches work together to manage information traffic within the WLS. They allow the different components of the WLS to communicate. The router uses a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection between WLS equipment components and sites. The switches provide Ethernet switching.

SMLC MUXThe SMLC multiplexor (MUX) multiplexes T1/E1 connections from LMUs to T3/E3 connections to the SMLC cluster, and supports SMLC failover for redundancy. This provides carrierclass availability for this system.

AMS, AMS MUX, AMS Router and SwitchThe Abis Monitoring System continuously monitors all Abis signaling links in a GSM network to which the AMS is connected. The AMS captures messages in the GSM call setup procedure for mobiles and forwards the data contained in those messages to the LG for subsequent processing. The AMS MUX combines multiple inputs into an aggregate signal to be transported via a single transmission channel. It is used to transport the messages from the network to the AMS.The AMS router and switch manages information traffic within the AMS network and supports communication between the AMS servers, the WLS, and remote AMSs.