LTE Tutorial

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and it was started as a project in 2004 by
telecommunication body known as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
LTE evolved from an earlier 3GPP system known as the Universal Mobile
Telecommunication System (UMTS), which in turn evolved from the Global System
for Mobile Communications (GSM).

Audience
This tutorial has been designed for audiences with a need to understand the LTE
technology basics in very simple terms. This tutorial will give you enough
understanding on LTE technology from where you can take yourself at higher level of
expertise.

Prerequisites
Though I assumed you have a very little or zero understanding on 2G and 3G
technologies like GSM, GPRS and UMTS but if you have basic understanding of any
of the technologies like GSM, GPRS, Core Network, Radio Interfaces etc then it will
help you a lot in understanding the concepts explained in this tutorial.

LTE Overview

Advertisements

Previous Page

Next Page

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and it was started as a project in 2004 by
telecommunication body known as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
SAE (System Architecture Evolution) is the corresponding evolution of the GPRS/3G
packet core network evolution. The term LTE is typically used to represent both LTE
and SAE.

LTE evolved from an earlier 3GPP system known as the Universal Mobile
Telecommunication System (UMTS), which in turn evolved from the Global System
for Mobile Communications (GSM). Even related specifications were formally known
as the evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA) and evolved UMTS
terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN). First version of LTE was documented in
Release 8 of the 3GPP specifications.

A rapid increase of mobile data usage and emergence of new applications such as
MMOG (Multimedia Online Gaming), mobile TV, Web 2.0, streaming contents have
motivated the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to work on the Long-Term
Evolution (LTE) on the way towards fourth-generation mobile.

The main goal of LTE is to provide a high data rate, low latency and packet optimized
radioaccess technology supporting flexible bandwidth deployments. Same time its
network architecture has been designed with the goal to support packet-switched
traffic with seamless mobility and great quality of service.

LTE Evolution
Year Event

Mar 2000 Release 99 - UMTS/WCDMA

Mar 2002 Rel 5 - HSDPA

Mar 2005 Rel 6 - HSUPA

Year 2007 Rel 7 - DL MIMO, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem)

November 2004 Work started on LTE specification

January 2008 Spec finalized and approved with Release 8

2010 Targeted first deployment

Facts about LTE

 LTE is the successor technology not only of UMTS but also of CDMA 2000.
 LTE is important because it will bring up to 50 times performance
improvement and much better spectral efficiency to cellular networks.
 LTE introduced to get higher data rates, 300Mbps peak downlink and 75
Mbps peak uplink. In a 20MHz carrier, data rates beyond 300Mbps can be
achieved under very good signal conditions.
 LTE is an ideal technology to support high date rates for the services such as
voice over IP (VOIP), streaming multimedia, videoconferencing or even a
high-speed cellular modem.
 LTE uses both Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex
(FDD) mode. In FDD uplink and downlink transmission used different
frequency, while in TDD both uplink and downlink use the same carrier and
are separated in Time.
 LTE supports flexible carrier bandwidths, from 1.4 MHz up to 20 MHz as
well as both FDD and TDD. LTE designed with a scalable carrier bandwidth
from 1.4 MHz up to 20 MHz which bandwidth is used depends on the
frequency band and the amount of spectrum available with a network operator.
  All LTE devices have to support (MIMO) Multiple Input Multiple Output
transmissions, which allow the base station to transmit several data streams
over the same carrier simultaneously.
 All interfaces between network nodes in LTE are now IP based, including the
backhaul connection to the radio base stations. This is great simplification
compared to earlier technologies that were initially based on E1/T1, ATM and
frame relay links, with most of them being narrowband and expensive.
 Quality of Service (QoS) mechanism have been standardized on all interfaces
to ensure that the requirement of voice calls for a constant delay and
bandwidth, can still be met when capacity limits are reached.
 Works with GSM/EDGE/UMTS systems utilizing existing 2G and 3G
spectrum and new spectrum. Supports hand-over and roaming to existing
mobile networks.

Advantages of LTE

 High throughput: High data rates can be achieved in both downlink as well
as uplink. This causes high throughput.
 Low latency: Time required to connect to the network is in range of a few
hundred milliseconds and power saving states can now be entered and exited
very quickly.
 FDD and TDD in the same platform: Frequency Division Duplex (FDD)
and Time Division Duplex (FDD), both schemes can be used on same
platform.
 Superior end-user experience: Optimized signaling for connection
establishment and other air interface and mobility management procedures
have further improved the user experience. Reduced latency (to 10 ms) for
better user experience.
 Seamless Connection: LTE will also support seamless connection to existing
networks such as GSM, CDMA and WCDMA.
 Plug and play: The user does not have to manually install drivers for the
device. Instead system automatically recognizes the device, loads new drivers
for the hardware if needed, and begins to work with the newly connected
device.
 Simple architecture: Because of Simple architecture low operating
expenditure (OPEX).

LTE - QoS

LTE architecture supports hard QoS, with end-to-end quality of service and
guaranteed bit rate (GBR) for radio bearers. Just as Ethernet and the internet have
different types of QoS, for example, various levels of QoS can be applied to LTE
traffic for different applications. Because the LTE MAC is fully scheduled, QoS is a
natural fit.

Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearers provide one-to-one correspondence with RLC
radio bearers and provide support for Traffic Flow Templates (TFT). There are four
types of EPS bearers:
  GBR Bearer resources permanently allocated by admission control
 Non-GBR Bearer no admission control
 Dedicated Bearer associated with specific TFT (GBR or non-GBR)
 Default Bearer Non GBR, catch-all for unassigned traffic

LTE Basic Parameters

Advertisements

Previous Page

Next Page

This section will summarize the Basic parameters of the LTE:

Parameters Description

UMTS FDD bands and TDD bands defined in 36.101(v860)

Frequency range
Table 5.5.1, given below

Duplexing FDD, TDD, half-duplex FDD

Channel coding Turbo code

Mobility 350 km/h

 1.4
 3
 5
Channel Bandwidth (MHz)
 10
 15
 20

 6
 15
Transmission Bandwidth
 25
Configuration NRB : (1 resource
 50
block = 180kHz in 1ms TTI )  75
 100

Modulation Schemes UL: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM(optional)

 DL: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM
UL: SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division
Multiple Access) supports 50Mbps+ (20MHz spectrum)
Multiple Access Schemes

DL: OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple

Access) supports 100Mbps+ (20MHz spectrum)
UL: Multi-user collaborative MIMO
Multi-Antenna Technology

DL: TxAA, spatial multiplexing, CDD ,max 4x4 array

UL: 75Mbps(20MHz bandwidth)

DL: 150Mbps(UE Category 4, 2x2 MIMO, 20MHz

Peak data rate in LTE
bandwidth)

DL: 300Mbps(UE category 5, 4x4 MIMO, 20MHz

bandwidth)
UL: 1 x 2, 1 x 4
MIMO

(Multiple Input Multiple

Output)
DL: 2 x 2, 4 x 2, 4 x 4
Coverage 5 - 100km with slight degradation after 30km

QoS E2E QOS allowing prioritization of different class of service

Latency End-user latency < 10mS

E-UTRA Operating Bands

Following is the table for E-UTRA operating bands taken from LTE Sepecification
36.101(v860) Table 5.5.1:

LTE Network Architecture

Advertisements
Previous Page

Next Page

The high-level network architecture of LTE is comprised of following three main

components:

 The User Equipment (UE).

 The Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN).
 The Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

The evolved packet core communicates with packet data networks in the outside
world such as the internet, private corporate networks or the IP multimedia
subsystem. The interfaces between the different parts of the system are denoted Uu,
S1 and SGi as shown below:

The User Equipment (UE)

The internal architecture of the user equipment for LTE is identical to the one used by
UMTS and GSM which is actually a Mobile Equipment (ME). The mobile equipment
comprised of the following important modules:

 Mobile Termination (MT) : This handles all the communication functions.

 Terminal Equipment (TE) : This terminates the data streams.
 Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) : This is also known as the SIM
card for LTE equipments. It runs an application known as the Universal
Subscriber Identity Module (USIM).

A USIM stores user-specific data very similar to 3G SIM card. This keeps
information about the user's phone number, home network identity and security keys
etc.

The E-UTRAN (The access network)

The architecture of evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN)

has been illustrated below.

The E-UTRAN handles the radio communications between the mobile and the
evolved packet core and just has one component, the evolved base stations, called
eNodeB or eNB. Each eNB is a base station that controls the mobiles in one or more
cells. The base station that is communicating with a mobile is known as its serving
eNB.

LTE Mobile communicates with just one base station and one cell at a time and there
are following two main functions supported by eNB:

 The eBN sends and receives radio transmissions to all the mobiles using the
analogue and digital signal processing functions of the LTE air interface.
 The eNB controls the low-level operation of all its mobiles, by sending them
signalling messages such as handover commands.

Each eBN connects with the EPC by means of the S1 interface and it can also be
connected to nearby base stations by the X2 interface, which is mainly used for
signalling and packet forwarding during handover.

A home eNB (HeNB) is a base station that has been purchased by a user to provide
femtocell coverage within the home. A home eNB belongs to a closed subscriber
group (CSG) and can only be accessed by mobiles with a USIM that also belongs to
the closed subscriber group.

The Evolved Packet Core (EPC) (The core network)

The architecture of Evolved Packet Core (EPC) has been illustrated below. There are
few more components which have not been shown in the diagram to keep it simple.
These components are like the Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System (ETWS),
the Equipment Identity Register (EIR) and Policy Control and Charging Rules
Function (PCRF).

Below is a brief description of each of the components shown in the above

architecture:

 The Home Subscriber Server (HSS) component has been carried forward from
UMTS and GSM and is a central database that contains information about all
the network operator's subscribers.
 The Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) communicates with the
outside world ie. packet data networks PDN, using SGi interface. Each packet
data network is identified by an access point name (APN). The PDN gateway
has the same role as the GPRS support node (GGSN) and the serving GPRS
support node (SGSN) with UMTS and GSM.
 The serving gateway (S-GW) acts as a router, and forwards data between the
base station and the PDN gateway.
 The mobility management entity (MME) controls the high-level operation of
the mobile by means of signalling messages and Home Subscriber Server
(HSS).
 The Policy Control and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) is a component
which is not shown in the above diagram but it is responsible for policy
control decision-making, as well as for controlling the flow-based charging
 functionalities in the Policy Control Enforcement Function (PCEF), which
resides in the P-GW.

The interface between the serving and PDN gateways is known as S5/S8. This has
two slightly different implementations, namely S5 if the two devices are in the same
network, and S8 if they are in different networks.

Functional split between the E-UTRAN and the EPC

Following diagram shows the functional split between the E-UTRAN and the EPC for
an LTE network:

2G/3G Versus LTE

Following table compares various important Network Elements & Signaling protocols
used in 2G/3G abd LTE.

2G/3G LTE

GERAN and UTRAN E-UTRAN

SGSN/PDSN-FA S-GW

GGSN/PDSN-HA PDN-GW

HLR/AAA HSS

VLR MME

SS7-MAP/ANSI-41/
Diameter
RADIUS

DiameterGTPc-v0 and v1 GTPc-v2

MIP PMIP

LTE Roaming Architecture

Advertisements

Previous Page
Next Page

A network run by one operator in one country is known as a Public Land Mobile
Network (PLMN) and when a subscribed user uses his operator's PLMN then it is said
Home-PLMN but roaming allows users to move outside their home network and
using the resources from other operator's network. This other network is called
Visited-PLMN.

A roaming user is connected to the E-UTRAN, MME and S-GW of the visited LTE
network. However, LTE/SAE allows the P-GW of either the visited or the home
network to be used, as shown in below:

The home network's P-GW allows the user to access the home operator's services
even while in a visited network. A P-GW in the visited network allows a "local
breakout" to the Internet in the visited network.

The interface between the serving and PDN gateways is known as S5/S8. This has
two slightly different implementations, namely S5 if the two devices are in the same
network, and S8 if they are in different networks. For mobiles that are not roaming,
the serving and PDN gateways can be integrated into a single device, so that the
S5/S8 interface vanishes altogether.

LTE Roaming Charging

The complexities of the new charging mechanisms required to support 4G roaming

are much more abundant than in a 3G environment. Few words about both pre-paid
and post-paid charging for LTE roaming is given below:

 Prepaid Charging - The CAMEL standard, which enables prepaid services in

3G, is not supported in LTE; therefore, prepaid customer information must be
routed back to the home network as opposed to being handled by the local
visited network. As a result, operators must rely on new accounting flows to
access prepaid customer data, such as through their P-Gateways in both IMS
and non-IMS environments or via their CSCF in an IMS environment.
 Postpaid Charging - Postpaid data-usage charging works the same in LTE as
it does in 3G, using versions TAP 3.11 or 3.12. With local breakout of IMS
services, TAP 3.12 is required.

Operators do not have the same amount of visibility into subscriber activities as they
do in home-routing scenarios in case of local breakout scenarios because subscriber-
data sessions are kept within the visited network; therefore, in order for the home
operator to capture real-time information on both pre- and postpaid customers, it must
establish a Diameter interface between charging systems and the visited network's P-
Gateway.
In case of local breakout of ims services scenario, the visited network creates call
detail records (CDRs) from the S-Gateway(s), however, these CDRs do not contain all
of the information required to create a TAP 3.12 mobile session or messaging event
record for the service usage. As a result, operators must correlate the core data
network CDRs with the IMS CDRs to create TAP records

LTE Numbering & Addressing

Advertisements

Previous Page

Next Page

An LTE network area is divided into three different types of geographical areas
explained below:

S.N. Area and Description

The MME pool areas

1
This is an area through which the mobile can move without a change of serving
MME. Every MME pool area is controlled by one or more MMEs on the network.
The S-GW service areas
2
This is an area served by one or more serving gateways S-GW, through which the
mobile can move without a change of serving gateway.
The Tracking areas

3 The MME pool areas and the S-GW service areas are both made from smaller,
non-overlapping units known as tracking areas (TAs). They are similar to the
location and routing areas from UMTS and GSM and will be used to track the
locations of mobiles that are on standby mode.

Thus an LTE network will comprise of many MME pool areas, many S-GW service
areas and lots of tracking areas.

The Network IDs

The network itself will be identified using Public Land Mobile Network Identity
(PLMN-ID) which will have a three digit mobile country code (MCC) and a two or
three digit mobile network code (MNC). For example, the Mobile Country Code for
the UK is 234, while Vodafone's UK network uses a Mobile Network Code of 15.
The MME IDs

Each MME has three main identities. An MME code (MMEC) uniquely identifies the
MME within all the pool areas. A group of MMEs is assigned an MME Group
Identity (MMEGI) which works along with MMEC to make MME identifier (MMEI).
A MMEI uniquely identifies the MME within a particular network.

If we combile PLMN-ID with the MMEI then we arrive at a Globally Unique MME
Identifier (GUMMEI), which identifies an MME anywhere in the world:

The Tracking Area IDs

Each tracking area has two main identities. The tracking area code (TAC) identifies a
tracking area within a particular network and if we combining this with the PLMN-ID
then we arrive at a Globally Unique Tracking Area Identity (TAI).

The Cell IDs

Each cell in the network has three types of identity. The E-UTRAN cell identity (ECI)
identifies a cell within a particular network, while the E-UTRAN cell global identifier
(ECGI) identifies a cell anywhere in the world.

The physical cell identity, which is a number from 0 to 503 and it distinguishes a cell
from its immediate neighbours.

The Mobile Equipment ID

The international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) is a unique identity for the mobile
equipment and the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) is a unique
identity for the UICC and the USIM.

The M temporary mobile subscriber identity (M-TMSI) identifies a mobile to its

serving MME. Adding the MME code in M-TMSI results in a S temporary mobile
subscriber identity (S-TMSI), which identifies the mobile within an MME pool area.
Finally adding the MME group identity and the PLMN identity with S-TMSI results
in the Globally Unique Temporary Identity (GUTI).

LTE Radio Protocol Architecture

Advertisements

Previous Page

Next Page

The radio protocol architecture for LTE can be separated into control plane
architecture and user plane architecture as shown below:

At user plane side, the application creates data packets that are processed by protocols
such as TCP, UDP and IP, while in the control plane, the radio resource control
(RRC) protocol writes the signalling messages that are exchanged between the base
station and the mobile. In both cases, the information is processed by the packet data
convergence protocol (PDCP), the radio link control (RLC) protocol and the medium
access control (MAC) protocol, before being passed to the physical layer for
transmission.

User Plane

The user plane protocol stack between the e-Node B and UE consists of the following
sub-layers:

 PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol)

 RLC (radio Link Control)
 Medium Access Control (MAC)

On the user plane, packets in the core network (EPC) are encapsulated in a specific
EPC protocol and tunneled between the P-GW and the eNodeB. Different tunneling
protocols are used depending on the interface. GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) is
used on the S1 interface between the eNodeB and S-GW and on the S5/S8 interface
between the S-GW and P-GW.
Packets received by a layer are called Service Data Unit (SDU) while the packet
output of a layer is referred to by Protocol Data Unit (PDU) and IP packets at user
plane flow from top to bottom layers.

Control Plane

The control plane includes additionally the Radio Resource Control layer (RRC)
which is responsible for configuring the lower layers.

The Control Plane handles radio-specific functionality which depends on the state of
the user equipment which includes two states: idle or connected.

Mode Description

The user equipment camps on a cell after a cell selection or reselection process
where factors like radio link quality, cell status and radio access technology are
Idle considered. The UE also monitors a paging channel to detect incoming calls and
acquire system information. In this mode, control plane protocols include cell
selection and reselection procedures.

The UE supplies the E-UTRAN with downlink channel quality and neighbour cell
Connected information to enable the E-UTRAN to select the most suitable cell for the UE. In
this case, control plane protocol includes the Radio Link Control (RRC) protocol.

The protocol stack for the control plane between the UE and MME is shown below.
The grey region of the stack indicates the access stratum (AS) protocols. The lower
layers perform the same functions as for the user plane with the exception that there is
no header compression function for the control plane.