LTE Layer 3 (RRC Layer) Interview Questions

1. What is difference between Acceptable, Suitable and Reserved Cell.

2. How is state “Camped on Any Cell” different from “Any Cell Selection” state?
3. What is CSG cell and CSG whitelist?
4. Differentiate HPLMN, EHPLMN, RPLMN.
5. What is Hybrid Cell?
6. What is difference between Serving Cell and Primary Cell? How many Maximum Serving
Cell can be there in total?
7. Describe what does UE extract from the PBCH? How do we get to know about antenna
Configuration from MIB?
8. Describe what does UE get from tuning to PSS?
9. Describe what does UE get from tuning to SSS?
10. In brief describe (main parameters) what does UE get in SIB1?
11. In brief describe what does UE get in SIB2?
12. In brief describe what does UE get in SIB3?
13. In brief describe what does UE get in PCCH?
14. Where is MIB and SIB1 mapped in frame?
15. Describe how do you get SIB2 to SIB13 info and periodicity?
16. What is SI Modification Period? How do you get notified?
17. After reading SI (System Information), what is the action by UE before Cell Selection? How
does it get the input?
18. What is Access Class.? What are special provides by AC 11 and 15?
19. In which Idle states Emergency call is possible by AC 0 to 9?
20. In Order to select a valid candidate PLMN, what is the minimum signal level(RSRP)? What is
the minimum quality(RSRQ)?
21. What is the “S” criteria. Specify the minimum value for candidate Cell.
22. What is “R” Criteria. What is relation Q_hyst, Q_qualmin, & Q_rxlevmin.
23. What are the triggers to make UE go from Idle to Connected mode?
24. What is Registration? What are the triggers for Registrations?
25. What is the difference between Intial and stored Info Cell (Re)Selection?
26. What is SIntraSearchP? When will UE choose not to perform measurements in Intra-
Frequency cells?
27. What is SnonIntraSearchP? When will UE choose not to perform measurement in Inter-
RAT/Inter-Freq cells
28. What are the mobility states of UE?
29. Where do you get T_cr_max, N_cr_H, N_cr_M? When will a mobile go to medium mobility
state?
30. What are the mobility scaling factors, sf-high and sf-medium? How do you use them?
31. In Cell (re)Selection, what is the relation between Squal, ThreshX_HighQ and
TreselectionRAT?
32. What is Ranking and when will a UE initiate re-relection w.r.t. time, timer and measurement
threshold?
33. Compared to Non CSG cells, how is the reselection rule for a CSG cell?
34. What is special in the re-selection from a CSG/Hybrid cell to non-CSG cell?
35. What is the basic criteria to pass to initiate TA Registration?
36. What is a PF (Paging Frame) and PO (Paging Occasion)?
37. Except SI info, How else does eNB control UE Mobility in Idle Mode?
38. What are the logical channels/Message types associated with SRB0, SRB1, SRB2, DRB and
MRB?
 39. When UE reconfigures(deletes earlier value) a field(SRB, DRB etc..), the existing value is
released except for during ?.
40.  What are the two (types of) messages there for BCCH in the DL-SCH?
41. Can more than 1 SIB message be included in an SI message? Which ones and in what
condition?
42. How does the UE get the System Information of Serving Cells other than P Cell?
43. How does an Relay Node acquire the System Information? Does it get it like UE Monitoring?
44. When is MIB and SIB1 scheduled in a frame?
45. How does UE know that there is a change in SI and it needs to monitor and read the SIBx?
46. What are the triggers for UE to again Monitor the SI and read/update the values.
47. When is Paging initiated?
48. When is RRC connection establishment initiated?
49. When is Initial security activation initiated?
50. When is RRC connection reconfiguration initiated?
51. When is Counter check initiated?
52. When is RRC connection re-establishment initiated?
53. When is RRC connection release initiated?
54. When is RRC connection release requested by upper layers initiated?
55. When is Radio resource configuration initiated?
56. What are Radio link failure related actions initiated?
57. What are UE actions upon leaving RRC_CONNECTED initiated?
58. What are UE actions upon PUCCH/ SRS release request initiated?
59. When is Proximity indication initiated?
60. What are the 4 different RRC keys which change on every establishment or Handover?
61. Describe briefly difference between Handover, Cell Change Order, CSFallBack and SRVCC.
62. What are the entities added/deleted on SRB add/delete?
63. What are the entities added/deleted on DRB add/delete?
64. What are the entities added/deleted on SCell add/delete?
65. In ASN.1, what is the difference between SEQUENCE, SET and CHOICE? Illustrate.
66. Form a BCCH-MIB Binary Message with following Info:
BCCH-BCH-Message ::= SEQUENCE { message BCCH-BCH-MessageType }
BCCH-BCH-MessageType ::= MasterInformationBlock
MasterInformationBlock ::= SEQUENCE { dl-Bandwidth ENUMERATED { n6, n15, n25, n50,
n75, n100},
phich-Config PHICH-Config,
systemFrameNumber BIT STRING (SIZE (8)), “assume 10101010”
spare BIT STRING (SIZE (10)) }
PHICH-Config ::= SEQUENCE { phich-Duration ENUMERATED {normal, extended},
phich-Resource ENUMERATED {oneSixth, half, one, two} }

LTE Layer 2 (MAC,RLC,PDCP) Interview Questions

1. What is DRX and DRX active period? What channels does it monitor in active period?
2. What is MAC-Contention Resolution Timer – What is the start and end activity?
3. What is HARQ RTT Timer?
4. What is msg3 buffer?
5. What is PRACH Resource Index?
6. What is RA-PRACH-Mask Index?
7. What are the Logical Channels carried through HARQ?
8. What are the Logical Channels NOT carried through HARQ?
9. What are the Physical Channels Terminate at MAC/Physical boundary and are irrelevant to
the upper layers?
10. What are the Logical channels through which PBCH is carried through?
11. What are the Logical Channels Carried by UL-SCH and DL-SCH?
12. What Logical channels are carried by PDCCH and PUCCH Physical Channels?
13. Which entities and situations and when do they initiate MAC RA Procedure? List them.
14. When is your Temporary C-RNTI gets converted to C-RNTI? How many bits is it?
15. How many RA Preambles are there? Why some of them are reserved by eNB?
16. What is the RA-Preamble-Group A and B? What is the difference?
17. While UE trying RA, if paging & Reserved-preamble comes from eNB, will UE abandon the
current RA and restart?
18. RA-RNTI = 1+t_id+10*f_id. Explain what is t_id and f_id and their possible value range?
19. What are the types of RAR?
20. How do you know how many RAPIDs are there and length of the RAR?
21. What is Backoff indicator? What is the UE action on receiving this?
22. What is RAR window?
23. If UE receives the RAR but not contention resolution message, within what time/mechanism
it will retransmit?
24. What are the parameters/info you get from eNB in the RAR?
25. What is relationship between HARQ Entity and HARQ Process. What is the maximum entity
and processes allowed in each UE?
26. Why there is a dedicated MAC process for BCH?
27. What is the maximum time a UE will backoff, before retransmitting the RA?
28. What is TTI bundling? How many TTI’s can be bundled together?
29. In Logical Channel Prioritization, what is PBR and BSD?
30. How much is Bj incremented each TTI and what is its maximum value in MAC?
31. Rewrite the channels/data in the priority order which MAC considers – CCCH, any other
LoCH, BSR, PHR,BSR with padding.
32. What channels are normally carried by TM, UM and AM RLC. List them for each.
33. Are all MAC, RLC and PDCP PDU/SDU’s byte aligned?
34. What is HARQ? Explain briefly?
35. Any reason why RLC is recommended to do ARQ and not HARQ?
36. What is polling bit? How is it managed?
37. What is Poll_SN? How does it help?
38. What is sliding window? What is outside and inside window?
39. What is receiving window? What are the two edge variables describing ends of window for
AM?
40. What is the re-assembly units work. What variable does it maintain and moves for AM?
41. What is Frame Indicator? What are the possible indicators?
42. What is Re-segmentation Flag RF?
43. What do you send in STATUS_PDU?
44. What is LSF Field indicate?
45. What is SO_start and SO_end?
46. What is t_Status_Prohibit?
47. What is Poll_PDU and Poll_Byte?
48. For a voice call, Minimum how many MAC, RLC and PDCP entities and Processes will you
design both directions taken together? Specify porpose of each.
49. What is ROHC?
50. What is Cyphering?
51. How are Cyphering Keys generated?
52. What is Integrity Protection?
53. What are the keys for Integrity and how are they generated?
54. What kind of ARQ or HARQ is implemented in PDCP?
 55. What is the maximum size of PDCP SDU recommended?
56. What is COUNT and what is it used for?
57. What is DRB and SRB. What is special about SRB0?
58. What is FMS (First Missing SN) and Bitmap for STATUS PDU?
59. What is MAC-I? How does it help?
60. What are the various PDCP SN sizes possible?

LTE Layer 1 (Physical Layer) Interview Questions

1. What is the smallest time measurement unit Ts in LTE? Show the calculation. How many Ts
are there in 1 subframe?
2. In normal cyclic prefix, what is the length of the 0th and 1st symbol CP in Terms of Ts? How
is the length of total time if all 7 CPs are added together in a time slot in terms of Ts and
seconds?
3. In extended CP. How many resource elements are there in a Resource Block?
4. In DL, How many RS symbols are there in a normal RB in case of 2×2 MIMO?
5. What is the difference between OFDMA and SC-FDMA? Why OFDMA is not used in both
the directions?
6. What are the 3 parameters, based on which scrambling code is generated?
7. Cell ID, Reference Signal and?
8. How many Maximum bits are there for PUCCH of format 1/1a/1b and 2/2a/2b each and they
are spread in how many symbols?
9. In a group hopping, how many hopping patterns are there and how many sequence shift-
patterns?
10. How many PUSCH DMRS RE’s are there in a RB in a subframe?
11. How many DMRS are there in a RB in a PUCCH of type 1/1a/1b and of type 2/2a/2b?
12. Which symbol locations are occupied for DMRS in a PUCCH of type 1 and type 2? (Start
counting from 0).
13. Which Channels/Signals are relevant only in Physical layer and they are not needed and not
mapped in Transport or Logical Channels. List them for DL and UL separately.
14. What is a preamble format? How many types are there? Explain when which type of format
is suitable?
15. What is the length of preamble sequence in bits and how many RB’s are required to send?
16. Preamble sequence is of 6 Bits which makes total preamble 2^6=64. 6 RBs are required to
send it.
17. What is the smallest and largest RB size in LTE and how much Mhz bandwidth does that
correspond to?
18. What is REG?
19. What is CCE? How many CCE’s are required to carry PDCCH? Explain different
configurations.
20. What are Cyclic delay diversity (CDD) and spatial diversity and difference between them?
21. What is CSI and what are the values transmitted as CSI?
22. CSI stands for Channel State Information. It is sent in uplink by UE to eNodeB. The CSI
parameters are Rank Indicator (RI), Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) and Precoding Matrix
Indicator (PMI)
23. What is UE specific reference signal and when/how is it used?
24. What is SRS and where is it physically mapped? Explain.
25. What is DCI? What is sent in DCI format 0?
26. What is CFICH and where is it mapped? How many symbols and REGs does it occupy?
27. What is PHICH and how many REGs does one PHICH occupy and where in the DL Physical
Resource?
28. How many mobiles PHICH can be sent in the same symbol and how are they multiplexed?
29. How many types of Ref Signals are transmitted in DL? Mention and explain.
30. How many types of Ref Signals are transmitted in UL? Mention and explain.
31. How is PHICH and CFICH allocated in different cells so that they avoid interference. Show it
pictorially to explain.
32. In case of 4×4 MIMO, how many reference signals are there in an RB? What is the %tage
occupied by Ref signals in this case?
33. What is MBSFN and MBSFN region?
34. What is PSS and SSS? What information is derived out of these signals? Where are they
mapped in Physical resources?
35. Where is PBCH mapped? How many RB’s do they occupy?
36. What si the minimum bandwidth required for LTE system and why?
37. Which are the Physical channels UCI and DCI are sent?
38. What is the valid CRC length in bits?
39. For a buffer of length 6140 from MAC (TTI), what is the number of segments? Why?
40. Describe briefly how, where and how many padding “0” bits are inserted in code
segmentation.
41. Which channel case Turbo coding is used? And which channel case Bit Repetition Coding is
used?
42. What is the smallest and biggest segment size for Encoding?
43. For Turbo Encoder – If block size is 80, what is the number of output bits?
44. For Convolutional Encoder- If block size is 80, what is the number of output bits?
45. What is Trellis Termination for Turbo Encoder? How many bits are additional terminated with
and with which streams?
46. Total Number of bits G and mapped onto G’=G/(L*M) symbols. What is L and M?
47. For Turbo coding rate matching, data block is to be spread in how many columns?
48. What is the control information multiplexed with data of PUSCH? And what are the control
information interleaved together with PUSCH?
49. How many Symbols are used for PUSCH in a SRS subframe per subcarrier, including
multiplexed CQI.
50. What is the control information encoded in UCI (PUCCH)?
51. Can control information be sent on PUSCH without UL-SCH data?
52. What is the CRC length, total number of segments, Encoder type and Modulation for PBCH?
53. For DL-SCH, PMCH and PCCH, what is CRC length, number of segments, Encoder type
and modulation?
54. What is the CRC length for CFICH and HICH respectively? What kind of encoder is used for
them?
55. What is Q(in) and Q(out) in Radio Link Monitoring process? Explain each in 1 sentence.
56. For RAR, how many bits is TA? If the TA is 25 in the RAR, what is the TA adjustment
required in microseconds?
57. How many bits is TA adjustment for non-RAR. If the TA value is 25(decimal), how much milli/
microsecond timing is to be adjusted? Is the timing to be increased or decreased?
58. Normally, when should the TA adjustment should take place, if you receive it in subframe x?
59. If you receive a Scell Activation or De-activation in subframe x, when should that be
effective?
60. What is EPRE? In EPRE calculation what is the relationship with Cyclic Prefix?
61. What are the main factors in calculation of Power for PUSCH? List them.
62. What is TPC and TPC accumulation? What is the max accumulation(dbm) value in both +ve
and -ve direction?
63. Range of TPC can be from
64. What is power headroom and Power scaling factor?
65. Cell Parameter P(B) is denoted by ρ(B)/ρ(A). What are these 3 parameters w.r.t. symbol
EPRE? What is the maximum?
66. List the parameters UE must have before Random Access?
67. What are the factors which determine the initial RA power?
68. After getting RAR, What do you send to eNB and after how long delay?
69. If you do not receive RAR within RAR window, after/before what delay would you retransmit?
70. What is the significance of “UL delay” and “hopping flag” in RAR?
71. What is the max number of DL HARQ processes for FDD and TDD in UL/DL both?
72. What is Transmit Diversity and Cyclic Diversity? Explain each in a sentence.
73. Explain difference between Resource allocation type 0 and 1?
74. What is RBG(Resource Block Group) and size of each RBG?
75. What are the parameters defining the TBS size?
76. What is the minimum (with minimum modulation) and Maximum(with maximum modulation)
TBS (Transport Block Size) for one layer.
77. If for single layer TBS size is “X”, will the TBS size be n.X for n layers? Why?
78. What is RV (redundancy version)?
79. What is CSI elements? What is Periodic and Aperiodic CSI? In which case PUCCH and
PUSCH is used?
80. What is TTI Bundling? Max how many MACs can be configured for this?
81. What are PMI and RI?
82. For every subframe of PUSCH/PDSCH, when/how is the (N)AKnowledhement sent?
83. What is RNTI? List the types of RNTI (with their default values, if any).
84. What is Sounding Procedure? Explain briefly. What are parameters defining SRS?
85. What is the difference between type 1 and type 2 hopping?
86. What is difference between intra-subframe and inter-subframe?
87. What is the difference between BPSK, QPSK,16QAM and 64QAM. Describe briefly.
88. Ans= All these are digital Modulations BPSK can carry one bit per symbol
89. OPSK can carry two bits per symbol, 16 QAM four bits per symbol and 64 QAM carry 6 bits
per symbol.
90. What are the 4 configurations of CCE? How will you find number of PDCCH accomodatable
in a subframe?
91. What is Common and UE-Specific Search Space?
92. How is PHICH assigned on the control region?
93. How is CFICH assigned in the control region?
94. Where are DMRS mapped on the PUSCH RB in a subframe?
95. What is cyclic shift and how is it used for PHICH or other control information among UE’s?
96. What is the spreading factor used for PHICH after repeat encoding and what is the total
symbols occupied?
97. What is semi-persistent scheduling? How is it utilised w.r.t. Scheduling Requests?
98. How many bits are used to send SR in PUCCH? How is SR sent and multiplexed with other
control information?
99. How many users PDCCH can be multiplexed for format 1 and format 2 respectively on the
same physical resource?
100. In rel-10 how many antenna max assumed for UE and eNB?
101. How many types of reference signals are there in Downlink? List them.
102. In case of 4 antennas with 4x4MIMO, maximum how many codewords and layers
can be configured?
103. How do you get the Physical Cell ID from eNB even without reading BCH?
104. Explain why a mobile with speed more than 500Km/Hour will fail to remain connected
with LTE? What is the limit?