Control Channel Jamming: Resilience and Identification of Traitors

Signaling and control channels are essential to the operation of wireless communication networks. Such networks are constrained by the limited radio-frequency bandwidth and energy available to the mobile devices. Therefore, wireless networks implement various control mechanisms to conserve the limited resources. Many networks employ shared control channels for sending system control information. For example, the GSM cellular communication system has multiple control channels for different functionalities. The Broadcast CHannels (BCH), such as BCCH, SCH, and FCH, carry the network/cell identity, the structure of the current control channels and synchronization information.