base station subsystem (mobile communications) (BSS)
A base station subsystem(BSS) provides the connection between the mobile stations and the switching subsystem in a GSM network.
One or more base station subsystems supply a radio-technical area and establish the connection from the mobile terminals, the cell phones or smartphones, to the switching systems.
The BSS system manages the mobile radio frequencies and consists of the Base Station Controller( BSC) components for central control, the Base Transceiver Station( BTS) as the transmitting/receiving station, and the TCE station for transcoding. The latter can be part of the base station subsystem and is used to adapt different voice codes between GSM and fixed networks.