School of Engineering and Design Performance Measurements and Analysis of the Existing Wireless Communication Technology in Iraq. Kassim Mohammed Al-Hassani Student Number: 0939718 Submitted partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 1 Abstract Iraq may be considered as the largest wireless market in the Gulf region. A key driving factor in the market of wireless communication, it has seen enormous growth in the mobile phone market over the last five years leading to almost 24 million subscribers in 2011. Moreover, there are several technologies and services working in Iraq; three GSM Operators, three CDMA national operators and three CDMA provinces operators. The recent growth in the mobile phone market is based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standards creating the next-generation wireless technologies in the Iraqi Wireless Communication market. One of the essential issues of this research is to investigate the performance of the decreased Quality Of Service (QoS) caused by interferences in the services on GSM/CDMA operators in Iraq. Many issues should be studied and taken into consideration, such as; does the Multi- Coalition Forces cause the interferences, jamming, higher rate of calls drop and false ringing; or are they caused by bad design and planning? Do we need to optimise our network due to the large number of users? All these factors are investigated and the measurements of most service providers and government agencies will be gathered. A detailed analysis was included from the providers with measurements of performance and the reasons for the deterioration of wireless services. The novel contributions of this thesis is the extensive radio measurement campaign over the three mobile an CDMA operator networks and the analysis and recommendations that were drawn to suggest the best approach to improve the QoS of Wireless communication technologies. Awareness of actual reasons behind the deterioration of services will be raised to the Iraqi Government, CMC and the wireless service providers. 2 Declaration This is to certify that: (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of table, maps, bibliographies, appendices and footnotes. Kassim Mohammed Al-Hassani 3 Conference Participations During the course of this project, a number of public presentations have been made which are based on the work presented in this thesis. They are listed here for reference. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas, “Assessing physical infrastructure requirements; pioneering partnership models”, 8th Iraq Telecoms Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, October 2013. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Eurasian market overview: identifying new business opportunities in key Eurasian growth markets”, Eurasia Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, September 2013. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “ Cyber Security Policy Changes for Today’s Threat Environment”, 2nd e@iraq conference 2013, Baghdad, Iraq, April 2013. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas , “New Carrier Business Opportunities in Iraq: Examine the existing infrastructure and identifying where development is needed” Capacity Middle East 2013, Dubai, UAE, March 2013. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas ,”Internet for All: Opportunities & Challenges” 7th Iraq Telecoms Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, November 2012. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas, “Revolutionising Iraq with New Technological Applications “, 7th Iraq Telecoms Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, November 2012. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Submarine Cable and Transit Strategy for Successful Enhancing Capacity Demand – Upgrading Existing Infrastructure Vs. New Fiber”, e@iraq conference 2012, Baghdad, Iraq April 2012. 4 Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas “ Regulatory Round Table: Driving competition while increasing innovation Broadband MEA Driving Sustainable Growth of Broadband in the MEA region”, Dubai, UAE, March 2012 Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas “OIL & GAS wireless communications & facilitating requirements and Systemic licensing challenges”,SMi 5th annual conference on Oil and Gas Communications Understanding the importance of satcomm and telecommunication channels, London, UK, March 2012. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas , Safaa Jassim “Measuring The Pace of access Infrastructures Development in key Middle East Growth markets to meet demand for Broadband” , Capacity Middle East 2012, Dubai, UAE, February 2012. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas “Positioning Iraq as a Transit Hub For International Traffic Through Fibre Investment”, Telecoms World Iraq Conference, Dubai, UAE, October 2011. Kassim. M. Al-Hassani, Prof. John Cosmas, Safaa Jassim “New Opportunities & Perspectives: Internet, broadband penetration”, 6th Iraq Telecoms Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, October 2011. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas, “Technology progress: new application for the Iraqi market: end-user real needs and impact on business and public services”, 6th Iraq Telecoms Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, October 2011. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Restructuring business to cope with an increasingly competitive market”, ,KU ,nifWif ,ifnrerfnrC eeoreE dieoW sreirr C .1122 rrbretre 5 Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Evaluating The Role of Eurasia as a Bridge Between Europe, The Middle East and Asia”, Eurasia Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, September 2011. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “FTTx Deployments in Iraq: Creating a Brighter Future”., Iraq FTTx Conference, Beirut, Lebanon, June 2011. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “FTTH Investment in Iraq: Golden Opportunity”. Iraq FTTx Conference, Beirut, Lebanon, June 2011. Mohammed Al-Momin, John Cosmas, Kassim Al-Hassani, and Safaa Jassim, “Policy Based Management of Optical Fibre Networks Carrying Multiple Application Traffic”, Second Communications Conference held by the Ministry of Communications in Baghdad, IRAQ in cooperation with IEEE-IRAQ SECTION. It has been accepted and awarded a trophy. 14-16 March 2011. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Case Study: Why Deploying FTTH in Iraq”, The FTTH Council Middle East, Beirut, Lebanon, November 2010 Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas “Iraq’s Telecoms Potential; Private Public Partnership & Government Policies”, 5th Iraq Telecom Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, October 2010. Kassim M Al-Hassani , Prof. John Cosmas ,“Telecom Developments & Government Policy”, Alkindi Engineering Society, London, UK, July 2010. 6 Acknowledgements I would like to begin by thanking Allah for making all this possible. I am grateful for all the support received whilst researching and writing up this dissertation. There are so many to thank. First and foremost I want to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor Professor John Cosmas. His words of encouragement, quiet urgings and careful reading of all of my writing will never be forgotten. My gratitude and appreciation also goes to my Parents, family and children’s who support me and pray for me all the time also thanks to my friends for their reassurance, support and being there for me during my research. In addition, special thanks to all managers in the Iraq telecommunication sector, who took their time and their contribution that has been invaluable to the success of this research. 7 Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….. …….2 Declaration…………………………………………………………………………………. …….3 Conference Participations…………………………………………………………………………4 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………… …….7 Abbreviation……………………………………………………………………………………..15 Chapter One……………………………………………………………………………………...25 1.0 Background and Reasearch Outline .................................................................................... 25 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 25 1.2 Sector Institutions ............................................................................................................... 27 1.3 Sector Organisation ............................................................................................................. 28 1.4 Fixed Communications ....................................................................................................... 29 1.5 Mobile Communications ..................................................................................................... 29 1.6 Internet and Computing ...................................................................................................... 31 1.7 Telecom Infrastructure ........................................................................................................ 32 1.8 Iraq mobile and ICT sector ……………………………………………………………….33 1.9 Research Aim and Objectives ............................................................................................. 36 1.10 Chapter outline of the thesis ............................................................................................. 36 1.11 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter Two……………………………………………………………………………………...38 2.0 Wireless Communication Technologies Used in Iraq .......................................................