Evolved Packet System:

Part 1

Vahid Shah-Mansouri
School of ECE, University of Tehran
Reference
 S. Sesia, I. Toufik, and M. Baker, “LTE: The UMTS Long Term
Evolution,” 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2011.

2 Cellular Networks
Contents
 Introduction to SAE
 LTE Physical Layer
 LTE Scheduling
 LTE Random Access Channel
 Uu Interface

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Why a New Generation?
 Data traffic was becoming dominant in cellular networks than
voice traffic.
 Data is not native to 2G/3G; it is an addendum.
 UMTS core network is designed for circuit switched traffic.
 Goals for the first
release of LTE was to
reach 100 Mbps DL
and 50Mbps uplink.

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3GPP Long Term Evolution
 LTE was designed from the scratch with the assumption
that all services would be packet-switched !
 LTE is referred mainly to the radio access network.
 The non-radio aspects of the 3GPP 4G system is called
System Architecture Evolution (SAE) which includes the
Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network.
 Together, LTE and SAE comprise the Evolved Packet
System (EPS), where both the core network and the radio
access are fully packet-switched.

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IMT Advanced
 International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced (IMT-Advanced
Standard) are the requirements issued by the ITU
Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2008 for what is marketed as 4G.
 IMT-Advanced is intended to
accommodate the quality of
service (QoS) and rate
requirements set by further
development of existing
applications like mobile
broadband access, Multimedia
Messaging
Service (MMS), video
chat, mobile TV, but also new
services like high-definition
television (HDTV).

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Standardization Timeline

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Performance Requirement Targets for LTE Release 8

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Operating Bands

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EPS Overall Architecture
 EPS provides the user with IP connectivity to a packet
data network (PDN) for accessing the Internet, as well as
for running services such as VoIP.
EPC

eUTRAN

LTE

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EPC-eUTRAN Functionalities
EPC Logical
node

11
 All-IP Operation
Control Plane
User Plane

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 Evolved UTRAN
 The access network of LTE,
3G LTE/SAE
E-UTRAN, simply consists
of a network of eNodeBs.
Core SAE Core
 Therefore, there is no (EPC)
centralized radio resource
management element like
RNC RNC
the RNC.
 RNC tasks are pushed to
NodeB NodeB e-NodeB e-NodeB
eNodeB or MME/SGW.
 The E-UTRAN architecture UE UE
is said to be flat.

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Evolved UTRAN
 The eNodeBs are normally  The E-UTRAN is responsible for
inter-connected with each other radio-related functions:
by means of an interface known  Radio Resource Management:
This covers all functions related
as X2. to the radio bearers such as
 eNBs are connected to the EPC radio bearer control, radio
by means of the S1 interface admission control, radio mobility
control, scheduling and dynamic
 To the MME by means of the S1- allocation of resources.
MME interface and
 Header Compression
 To the S-GW by means of the  Security
S1-U interface.
 Positioning: The E-UTRAN
 The protocols which run provides the necessary
between the eNBs and the UE measurements and other data to
are known as the Access the E-SMLC and assists the E-
SMLC in finding the UE position.
Stratum (AS) protocols.
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Access Stratum vs Non-Access Stratum
 On the signaling plane, the UE
communicates with two entities in
the infrastructure:
 the eNB and
 the MME (via the eNB).
 Access-stratum (AS):
 UE <-> eNB.
 AS consists of both user plane and
control-plane.
 The user-plane protocol is PDCP and
control-plane protocol is RRC.
 Non-access Stratum (NAS):
 UE <-> MME.
 NAS is only in the control plane.
 The protocol is called the NAS
protocol.

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Uu Interface
Uu Interface
 The air interface of the LTE.

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LTE Channels
 Control vs Traffic channels
 Dedicated vs Common/Shared Channels
 Uplink vs Downlink channels.

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Medium Access Control (MAC)
 The MAC layer consists of a
 HARQ entity: a combination of high-rate forward error
correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) error-control.
 Multiplexing/demultiplexing entity: composing and decomposing the
MAC PDUs and performs (de-) multiplexing of data from several
logical channels into/from one transport channel

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Medium Access Control (MAC)
 The MAC layer consists of a
 logical channel prioritization entity,
 a random access control entity, and a controller which performs various
control functions.
 Controller:
 Scheduling, Timing advance, DRX (a mechanism in which UE gets into sleep mode
for a certain period of time and wake up for another period of time)

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Channels
Downlink logical
channel multiplexing

Uplink logical
channel multiplexing

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Radio Link Control (RLC)
 An RLC entity is configured in one of three data
transmission modes:
 Transparent Mode (TM): no action
 Unacknowledged Mode (UM): segmentations, reordering
 Acknowledged Mode (AM): segmentations, reordering,
retransmission, status reporting

 RLC has the following tasks:

 The RLC layer reformats PDCP PDUs in order to fit them into
the size indicated by the MAC layer;
 the RLC reorders the RLC PDUs if they are received out of
sequence due to the HARQ operation performed in the MAC
layer.

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RLC AM

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 Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
 PDCP appears on the Uu interface.
 Functionalities:
 Retransmissions and re-ordering
 using sequence number.
 Header compression and decompression
 Robust Header Compression (ROHC) protocol
 Security functions:
 ciphering and deciphering for user plane and control plane data;
 integrity protection and verification for control plane data.
 Handover support functions:
 in-sequence delivery and reordering of PDUs for the layer above at
handover;
 lossless handover for user plane data mapped on RLC
Acknowledged Mode.
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User Plane PDCP

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 Radio Resource Control (RRC)
 Part of Uu control plane with the following
functionalities:
 RRC connection management (Radio Connection)
 all procedures related to the establishment, modification
and release of an RRC connection
 Establishment and release of radio resources
related to the transport of signalling messages or
user data between the UE and eNodeB.
 establishment of Signalling Radio Bearers (SRBs) and
Data Radio Bearers (DRBs).
 Broadcast of system information
 Performed through the BCCH logical control channel. The information
broadcast from the RRC layer is either related to the AS or NAS.

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Radio Resource Control (RRC)
 Paging
 This is performed through the PCCH logical control channel.
 Transmission of signalling messages to and from the MME
 These messages (known as NAS for Non Access Stratum) are transferred to and from the
terminal via the RRC; they are treated by RRC as transparent messages.
 Measurement control
 Refers to the configuration of measurements to be performed by the terminal as well as the
method to report them to the eNodeB.
 Support of inter-cell mobility procedures
 User context transfer between eNodeB at handover.

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RRC Channels
 In LTE, besides those three types of channels that UMTS
has (i.e., physical, transport, and logical), there are radio
(RRC) channels as well.
 Two types of radio (RRC) channels:
 Signaling radio bearers (SRB)
 Data radio bearers (DRB)
 Dedicated RRC messages are transferred across SRBs,
which are mapped via the PDCP and RLC layers onto
logical channels (either the Common Control CHannel
(CCCH) or a Dedicated Control CHannel (DCCH) in
RRC_CONNECTED).

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RRC Channels Mappings
 SRB0 is used for RRC messages on CCCH channel.
 SRB1 is for RRC UE messages using DCCH,
 SRB2 is for NAS dedicated information using DCCH.

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RRC Channel Mappings
 System Information and Paging messages are mapped directly to logical
channels: Broadcast Control CHannel (BCCH) and Paging Control CHannel
(PCCH).
 Data Radio Bearers (DRBs) carry user plane content.
 In logical level channel, we have dedicated channels. At the physical layer, all
are shared.

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RRC States
 In E-UTRAN, the RRC state machine is very simple and
limited to two states only:
 RRC_IDLE,
 RRC_CONNECTED

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RRC States
 Idle mode:
 There is no connection between the terminal and the
eNodeB.
 The UE performs.
 Periodic decoding of System Information Broadcast by E-UTRAN.
 Decoding of paging messages.
 Cell selection/reselection.
 Following cell reselection, it may happen that the terminal
changes its Tracking Area. To inform the network, the
terminal leaves temporarily the RRC_IDLE state so as to be
able to exchange the necessary signalling information with
the network.

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RRC States
 In RRC_CONNCTED
 Dynamic allocation of resources to the UE.
 The UE monitors Physical Downlink Control CHannel
(PDCCH) used to indicate the dynamic allocation of the
shared transmission resources in time and frequency (Physical
Downlink Shared CHannel (PDSCH) and Physical Uplink
Shared CHannel (PUSCH)).
 UE reports
 its buffer status.
 Downlink link quality
 Neighboring cell measurement information.

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AS and NAS States
 The RRC states are usually called AS state as well.
 There are NAS states as well.
 NAS state is composed of two components:
 EPS Mobility Management (EMM) state reflects whether the UE
is registered in the MME
 EMM-DEREGISTERED or EMMREGISTERED
 EPS Connection Management (ECM) state reflects the
connectivity of the UE with the Evolved Packet Core
 ECM-IDLE or ECM-CONNECTED

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AS and NAS States
 NAS and AS states have dependencies.

 The transition from ESM-IDLE to ECM-CONNECTED

not only involves change in RRC state but also includes
establishment of the S1-connection.

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AS and NAS States
 RRC connection establishment is initiated by the NAS
and is completed prior to S1-connection establishment,
which means that connectivity in RRC_CONNECTED is
initially limited to the exchange of control information
between UE and E-UTRAN.
 UEs are typically moved to ECM-CONNECTED when
becoming active.

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AS and NAS States
 In LTE, the transition from ECM-IDLE to ECM-CONNECTED
is performed within 100 ms.
 UEs engaged in intermittent data transfer need not be kept in
ECM-CONNECTED if the ongoing services can tolerate such
transfer delays.
 In any case, an aim in the design of LTE was to support similar
battery power consumption levels for UEs in
RRC_CONNECTED as for UEs in RRC_IDLE.

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Broadcast Control Channel
 BCCH is a downlink channel used to carry broadcast system control
information (e.g. SIBs).
 System information is structured by means of System Information Blocks
(SIBs), each of which contains a set of functionally-related parameters.
 RRC message are used to transfer system information.

38 Cellular Networks
 LTE Multiple Access

Vahid Shah-Mansouri, Fall 1395

Faculty of ECE, University of Tehran
LTE PHY Key Features
 The design of the LTE physical layer (PHY) is heavily
influenced by the requirements for high peak transmission
rate (100 Mbps DL/50 Mbps UL) and multiple channel
bandwidths (1.25-20 MHz).
 Multiple access scheme
 DL: OFDMA with CP (Cyclic Prefix)
 UL: Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) with CP
 Adaptive modulation and coding
 DL/UL modulations: QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM
 Convolutional code and Rel-6 turbo code
 Advanced MIMO spatial multiplexing techniques
 (2 or 4)x(2 or 4) downlink and uplink supported
 Support for both FDD and TDD

40 Cellular Networks
OFDM
 The OFDM technology is based on using multiple narrow band
sub-carriers spread over a wide channel bandwidth.
 The sub-carriers are mutually orthogonal in the frequency
domain which mitigates inter-symbol interference (ISI).
 Each of these sub-carriers experiences ‘flat fading’.
 This obviates the need for complex frequency equalizers
which are featured in 2G/3G technologies.

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OFDM
 The downlink physical layer of LTE is based on OFDMA.
 Multiple access is achieved in OFDMA by assigning
subsets of subcarriers to individual users

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OFDM
 OFDMA has certain drawbacks
 High sensitivity to frequency offset
 High peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR).
 Single carrier FDMA is the solution for uplink.

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Frame Structure
 The radio frame in LTE has a length of 10 ms.
 Each frame is divided into 10 equally sized subframes of 1 ms.
 Each subframe consists of two equally sized slots of 0.5 ms.
 Each slot consists of a number of OFDM symbols which can be
either seven (normal cyclic prefix) or six (extended cyclic prefix).

44
Resource Block and Element
 The sub-carrier frequency
spacing is 15 KHz.
 The minimum LTE
bandwidth consists of 72
subcarriers (1.08 MHz).
 One symbol transmission
in one subcarrier is called
resource element (RE).
 12 subcarriers (180Khz) in
one time slot builds a
resource block (RB).
 Scheduling is done on a subframe
(RB pair) basis for both the
downlink and uplink.

45
OFDMA Time-Frequency Multiplexing

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 LTE Scheduling

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Scheduling in LTE
 The core of the LTE transmission scheme is the use of shared-
channel transmission with the overall time–frequency resource
dynamically shared between users.
 The scheduler controls, for each time instant, to which users
the different parts of the shared resource should be assigned.
 To support downlink scheduling, a terminal may provide the
network with channel-state reports indicating the
instantaneous downlink channel quality in both the time and
frequency domains.

48 Cellular Networks
Scheduling in LTE
 The goal of a resource scheduling algorithm in the
eNodeB is to allocate the RBs and transmission powers
for each subframe in order to optimize a function of a set
of performance metrics:
 example maximum / minimum / average throughput, maximum
/ minimum / average delay, total/per-user spectral efficiency or
outage probability.
 In the downlink, the resource allocation strategy is
constrained by the total transmission power of the
eNodeB.
 In the uplink, the main constraints on transmission power
in different RBs arises from a multicell view of inter-cell
interference and the power headroom of the UEs.
49 Cellular Networks
Scheduling in LTE
 Dynamic Scheduling  Semi-Persistent Scheduling
(SPS)
 Suitable for bursty traffic.
 a VoIP service periodically
 eNB allocates downlink/uplink
generates many small-sized
radio resources to the UE using
packets at short intervals.
resource allocation information
called downlink/uplink  reducing the number of the
assignment downlink assignment and the
uplink grant is required to
 The down-link assignment and
increase the number of
the uplink grant are signalled
supportable simultaneous VoIP
separately to the UE through
calls in a cell
the Physical Downlink Control
CHannel (PDCCH), masked  SPS is used to allocate radio
with the UE’s C-RNTI. resources for a long time period
with a minimized load on the
PDCCH.
50 Cellular Networks
Scheduling in LTE
 Scheduling algorithms can make
use of two types of measurement
information to inform the
scheduling decisions:
 Channel State Information (CSI)
 Traffic measurements (volume and
priority).
 Power headroom

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Channel Quality Indicators (CQI)
 CQI is measured by the UE and eNB to measure the
quality for scheduling.
 For this purpose, reference signals are transmitted via the
eNB (CQI reference resource).
 Reference signals are transmitted with specific power,
modulation, and coding schemes.
 The type of modulations, coding and transmit power are
introduced in SIB2.
 Reference signals are transmitted on various RBs.

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CQI Reporting
 CQI ie reported
 Periodic
 Period is defined by the eNB.
 The Physical Uplink Control CHannel is used for periodic
CQI.
 Aperiodic
 Aperiodic CQI reporting on the PUSCH is scheduled by
the eNodeB by setting a CQI request bit in an uplink
resource grant sent on the Physical Downlink Control
CHannel (PDCCH).

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CQI reporting
 The frequency granularity of the CQI reporting is
determined by eNB:
 Wideband: The UE reports one wideband CQI value for
the whole system bandwidth.
 eNB configured subbands: The UE reports a wideband
CQI value for the whole system bandwidth as well as a CQI
value for each subband.
 UE-selected subbands: The UE selects a set of M
preferred sub-bands of size k which has better channel
quality and report them plus wideband reports.

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Scheduling in LTE

55 Cellular Networks
LTE Scheduling
 In LTE, scheduling is performed at the MAC and per
logical channels.

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Buffer Status Reporting
 The BSR indicates how much data are buffered in the UE’s memory.
 For uplink radio resource allocation, a UE needs to send the BSR to
the eNB to indicate the amount of data in the UE that need to be
transmitted.
 Two formats are defined for the BSR: Long BSR and Short BSR
 The Long BSR is used to deliver buffer status information for the four
Logical Channel Groups (LCGs)
 The Short BSR is used to deliver buffer status information for only
one LCG.
 Which BSR format is used depends on what triggers the BSR, how
many LCGs have data to send, and how much space is available in the
MAC PDU.

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Buffer Status Reporting
 The above states that the amount of data is indicated not per
logical channel but per LCG.
 By grouping logical channels with similar attributes into at most
four LCGs and by making the UE report the buffer status per LCG,
LTE strikes a good balance between reporting efficiency and
reporting accuracy

58 Cellular Networks
Buffer Status Reporting
 A BSR can be triggered in any of the following
situations:
 When data arrive for a logical channel which has higher
priority than the logical channels whose buffers are not
empty.
 When data become available for the UE’s buffer, which is
empty.
 When the retxBSR-Timer expires and there is still data in
the UE’s buffer.
 When a periodicBSR-Timer expires. This BSR is called a
Periodic BSR. This is used for the UE to periodically deliver
updated buffer status information to the eNB.
59 Cellular Networks
Scheduling Request (SR)
 The SR procedure starts when a regular BSR is triggered but uplink radio
resource to transmit the BSR is not available in the UE.
 During the SR procedure, the UE performs either transmission of the SR
over the PUCCH or initiates the Random Access (RA) procedure,
depending on whether the UE is configured with the PUCCH resource
for SR or not.
 The RA procedure is initiated only when the PUCCH resource for SR is
not configured.
 It is not always possible for the eNB to configure the UE with the PUCCH
resource for SR because the PUCCH resource in a cell is limited.
 Thus, there is a trade-off between resource allocation delay (due to
RACH procedure) and the PUCCH load.
 The PUCCH resource for SR is allocated by the eNB in a periodic
manner. The periodicity of the PUCCH resource allocated for SR is called
SR periodicity. The SR periodicity impacts upon the delay for the UE to
obtain uplink resource.
60 Cellular Networks
Power Headroom Reporting (PHR)
 With a given maximum power, if the UE is allocated more
resources than it can support, the decoding error rate at the
eNB will increase.
 Thus, it is important that the eNB has an accurate power
status for the UE and allocates a suitable amount of radio
resource.
 The Power Headroom Report (PHR) is used to provide the
eNB with information about the difference between the
nominal maximum transmit power and the estimated
required power for uplink transmission.

61 Cellular Networks
Inter-Cell Interference Coordination
 LTE is designed to operate with a one-cell frequency reuse,
implying that the same time-frequency resources can be used
in neighboring cells.
 From an overall system-efficiency point-of-view, having access
to the entire available spectrum in each cell and operating with
one-cell reuse is always beneficial.
 However, it may also lead to relatively large variations in the
signal-to interference ratio, and thus also in the achievable data
rates, over the cell area with potentially only relatively low
data rates being available at the cell border.
 Thus, system performance, and especially the cell-edge user
quality, can be further enhanced by allowing for some
coordination in the scheduling between cells.

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Inter-Cell Interference Coordination
 The basic aim of such inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC)
is to, if possible, avoid scheduling transmissions to/from
terminals at the cell border simultaneously in neighboring cells.
 To support such interference coordination, the LTE specification
includes several messages that can be communicated between
base stations (eNodeBs) using the so-called X2 interface.

63 Cellular Networks
Partial Frequency Reuse
 From a practical point of view, this result can be exploited in
the eNodeB scheduler by treating users in different ways
depending on whether they are cell-centre or cell-edge users.
 Each cell can then be divided into two parts – inner and outer.
 In the inner part, where users experience a low level of
interference and also require less power to communicate with
the serving cell, a frequency reuse factor of 1 can be adopted.
 For the outer part, scheduling restrictions are applied: when
the cell schedules a user in a given part of band, the system
capacity is optimized if the neighbouring cells do not transmit
at all; alternatively, they may transmit only at low power
(probably to users in the inner parts of the neighbouring cells)
to avoid creating strong interference to the scheduled user in
the first cell.
64 Cellular Networks
Partial Frequency Reuse
 This effectively results in a higher frequency reuse factor
at the cell-edge; it is often referred to as ‘partial frequency
reuse’ or ‘soft frequency reuse.

65 Cellular Networks
ICIC Methods
 In general, ICIC may be static or semi-static, with different
levels of associated communication required between
eNodeBs.
 Static ICIC:
 the coordination is associated with cell planning, and
reconfigurations are rare. This largely avoids signalling on the
X2 interface, but it may result in some performance limitation
since it cannot adaptively take into account variations in cell
loading and user distributions.
 Semi-static ICIC
 typically refers to reconfigurations carried out on a time-scale
of the order of seconds or longer. The inter-eNodeB
communication methods over the X2 interface can be used.

66 Cellular Networks
X2 Signaling to Support ICIC
 In relation to the downlink transmissions, a bitmap termed the
Relative Narrowband Transmit Power (RNTP) indicator can be
exchanged between eNodeBs over the X2 interface.
 Each bit of the RNTP indicator corresponds to one RB in the
frequency domain and is used to inform the neighbouring
eNodeBs if a cell is planning to keep the transmit power for
the RB below a certain upper limit or not.
 The value of this upper limit, and the period for which the
indicator is valid into the future, are configurable.
 This enables the neighbouring cells to take into account the
expected level of interference in each RB when scheduling UEs
in their own cells.

67 Cellular Networks
X2 Signaling to Support ICIC
 The reaction of the eNodeB in case of receiving an
indication of high transmit power in an RB in a
neighbouring cell is not standardized.
 A typical response could be to avoid scheduling cell-edge
UEs in such RBs.
 In the definition of the RNTP indicator, the transmit
power per antenna port is normalized by the maximum
output power of a base station or cell.
 For the uplink scheduling, “High Interference Indicator
(HII)”, is considered to announce the RB usage.
 The HII is not sent more often than every 20 ms.

68 Cellular Networks
X2 Signaling to Support ICIC
 A reactive indicator, known as the ‘Overload Indicator’
(OI), can be exchanged over the X2 interface to indicate
physical layer measurements of the average uplink
interference plus thermal noise for each RB.
 The OI can take three values, expressing low, medium,
and high levels of interference plus noise.
 In order to avoid excessive signalling load, it cannot be
updated more often than every 20 ms.

69 Cellular Networks
Carrier Aggregation
 In LTE release 10, the transmission bandwidth can be
further extended by means of so-called carrier
aggregation (CA), where multiple component carriers are
aggregated and jointly used for transmission to/from a
single terminal.
 Each aggregated carrier is referred to as a component
carrier.
 The component carrier can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5,
10, 15 or 20 MHz and a maximum of five component
carriers can be aggregated, hence the maximum
aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz.

70 Cellular Networks
LTE Random Access Procedure
Why Random Access Procedure
 RACH Procedure is used for
 initial access to the network to receive dedicated traffic channels
OR
 Time synchronization between the UE and eNB.
 Random access procedure is required if
 A UE in RRC_CONNECTED state, but not uplink-synchronized,
needing to send new uplink data or control information (e.g. an
event-triggered measurement report);
 A UE in RRC_CONNECTED state, but not uplink-synchronized,
needing to receive new downlink data, and therefore to transmit
corresponding ACK.
 A UE in RRC_CONNECTED state, handing over from its current
serving cell to a target cell;
 A transition from RRC_IDLE state to RRC_CONNECTED.

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Physical Uplink Channels
 Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH)
 Uplink data and some control information data.
 Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)
 ACK/NACK, CQI/PMI, SR transmission
 If UE has application data or RRC signalling then, user control
information (UCI) is carried over PUSCH. If UE does not have
any application data or RRC signalling then UCI is carried over
PUCCH.
 Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH)

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PRACH
 The random access procedure is mapped at the physical
layer onto the PRACH.

74 Cellular Networks
 Importance of Random Access
 RACH is repeated in the LTE for an eNB with specific rate.
 Each RACH can accommodate limited number of devices.
 For applications such as Machine Type Communications, there are large
number of devices (in order of 10,000) generating small amount of data.
 The cell or core bandwidth can handle such traffic but random access
becomes a critical bottleneck.

75 Cellular Networks
76 Cellular Networks
Contention based vs Contention Free
 RACH procedure is carried out via transmission of a
code called preamble in the PRACH.
 There are limited number of orthogonal preambles.
 A device can have a dedicated code which results in a
contention free RACH procedure.
 Otherwise, the device needs to choose randomly from
the pool of preambles which results in contention.

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Contention Based Random Access Procedure
 It is inherently contention-
based:
 Step 1: Preamble transmission;
 Step 2: Random access
response;
 Step 3: Layer 2 / Layer 3 (L2/L3)
message;
 Step 4: Contention resolution
message.

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Step 1: Preamble Transmission
 The UE selects one of the 64 - Ncf available PRACH
contention-based signatures, where Ncf is the number of
signatures reserved by the eNB for contention-free RACH.
 The initial preamble transmission power setting is based
on an open-loop estimation with full compensation for the
path-loss.
 The UE estimates the path-loss by averaging
measurements of the downlink Reference Signal Received
Power (RSRP).

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Step 2: Random Access Response
 The Random Access Response (RAR) is sent by the eNB on the
Physical Downlink Shared CHannel (PDSCH).
 RAR includes:
 Identity of the detected preamble
 Temporary ID known as “Cell Radio Network Temporary Identifier” (C-
RNTI)
 A timing alignment instruction to synchronize subsequent uplink
transmissions from the UE.
 An initial uplink resource grant for transmission of the Step 3 message
 Backoff timer
 The UE expects to receive the RAR within a time window
broadcasted by the eNB.
 The earliest is 2 ms after the tried RACH.
 The minimum delay for the transmission of another preamble after
the end of the RAR window is 3 ms.

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Step 3: Layer 2/Layer 3 (L2/L3) Message
 This message is the first scheduled uplink transmission on the
PUSCH
 It makes use of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ).
 It conveys the actual random access procedure message, such
as an RRC connection request, tracking area update, or
scheduling request but no Non-Access Stratum (NAS)
message.
 It is addressed to the temporary C-RNTI allocated in the RAR
at Step 2.
 In case of a preamble collision having occurred at Step 1, the
colliding UEs will receive the same temporary C-RNTI
through the RAR and will also collide in the same uplink time-
frequency resources when transmitting their L2/L3 message.

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Step 4: Contention Resolution Message
 The contention resolution message uses HARQ.
 It is addressed to the C-RNTI and, in the latter case,
echoes the UE identity contained in the L2/L3 message.
 In case of a collision followed by successful decoding of
the L2/L3 message, the HARQ feedback is transmitted
only by the UE which detects its own UE identity (or C-
RNTI).
 Other UEs understand there was a collision, transmit no
HARQ feedback, and can quickly exit the current random
access procedure

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RACH Preamble
 Zadoff–Chu (ZC) sequences are used as RACH preambles.
 ZC sequences are non-binary unit-amplitude sequences.
 The ZC sequence of odd-length NZC is given by

For any value of u, the above equation provides NZC codes by

varying n from 0 to NZC-1.

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RACH Preamble
 ZC codes properties:
 A ZC sequence has constant amplitude. The constant amplitude
property limits the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio.
 ZC sequences of any length have ‘ideal’ cyclic autocorrelation.
The correlation with its circularly shifted version is a delta
function.

 If NZC is prime, the Discrete Fourier Transform of a Zadoff–Chu

sequence is another Zadoff–Chu sequence.
 The cross-correlation between two Zadoff–Chu sequences
provided that |u1-u2| is relative prime to NZC is .

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Cyclic Prefix and Guard Time
 Due to different propagation delays, two sequences
transmitted by two UEs may be received at different times.
 To absorb propagation delay, Guard Time (GT) is used.
 We then copy a section from the end of the symbol to the
beginning, known as Cyclic Prefix (CP).
 At the receiver, we remove CP
from the beginning without
knowing the delay offset.

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Time Advance (TA) Calculation
 RACH is carried out on a non-synchronized channel.
 eNB samples the whole timeslot and removes CP time
from the beginning and GT from the end.
 The received preambles is a cyclically shifted version of
the transmitted preamble.
 Thanks to the cyclic shift behavior of the ZC code, the
sampled preamble is also a ZC code.
 However, to avoid confusion between two preambles, we
cannot use all the codes from one root. We need some
distance between the used codes.
 TA can be calculated from the shifts in the preamble.
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Sequence Duration
 Trade-off between sequence length and overhead
 Compatibility with the maximum expected round-trip
delay.
 The lower bound for TSEQ must allow for unambiguous
round-trip time estimation for a UE located at the edge of the
largest expected cell including the maximum delay spread.

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 Sequence Duration
 Coverage performance
RACH SNR=

 PRA(r) = Pmax + Ga - L(r) - LF - PL (dB)

 PRA: signal power
 L(r) : Okumura-Hata empirical model of
distance-dependent path-loss
 Ga: eNodeB Receiver Antenna Gain
(including cable loss)
 Pmax: UE transmitted power
 LF: Log-normal fade margin (0 db)
 PL: Penetration loss

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 PRACH Formats
 There are four preamble formats possible for PRACH
and is broadcast in the System Information.
Preamble T TSEQ TCP Usage
format PRACH (μs) (μs)
0 1 msec 800 103.13 Normal 1 ms random access burst with 800 μs
preamble sequence, for small to medium cells (up to
14 km)
1 2 msec 800 684.38 2 ms random access burst with 800 μs preamble
sequence, for large cells (up to 77 km) without a link
budget problem
2 2 msec 1600 203.13 2 ms random access burst with 1600 μs preamble
sequence, for medium cells (up to 29 km) supporting
low data rates
3 3 msec 1600 684.38 3 ms random access burst with 1600 μs preamble
sequence, for very large cells (up to ~100 km)
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CP and GT Duration
 Since we remove the first TCP seconds of the symbol, the
remaining part should contain information.
 Therefore, max delay spread.

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CP and GT Duration
 Since we remove the first TCP seconds of the symbol, the
remaining part should contain information.
 Therefore, max delay spread.

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Cyclic Shift Dimensioning (low speed cells)
 The NZC is chosen as 839 for LTE RACH.
 For one root sequence, 839 cyclic shifts of the sequence provide 839
orthogonal sequences.
 LTE mandates use of 64 preambles.
 Various propagation delays do not allow use of all 839 preambles for one root.
 Let NCS denote the minimum required distance between sequences derived
from one root sequence.
 If r is the maximum cell radius in km, shows the delay spread in ng is
the number of additional guard samples due to the receiver pulse shaping filter,
then we have

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Cyclic Shift Dimensioning
 When different roots are used, the preambles are not
orthogonal anymore.
 The chance that orthogonal preambles are chosen by
different UEs approaches zero as cell radius increases.

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PRACH Resource Configurations
 Depending on the RAN load, the number of PRACHs in
eUTRAN can vary.
 Higher number of PRACHs, higher chance for initial
access but lower resources for uplink data transfer.
 5 Different configuration types are defined in the
standard.

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95 Cellular Networks
PRACH Implementation

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UE Preamble Transmission
 The PRACH preamble can be generated at the system
sampling rate, by means of a large IDFT.

 The DFT block is optional as the sequence can be mapped

directly in the frequency domain at the IDFT input

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eNB Reception

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RACH Throughput
 The number of UEs in a RACH: N
 The number of preambles: M
 Load per preamble: G=N/M,
 RACH Throughput =
 Maximum throughput is achieved for N=M which is
 UE Success probability:
 UE collision probability
 Maximum capacity of one preamble:
 How to control the number of UEs trying in one RACH?

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Access Class Barring
 In LTE, all UEs are members of one out of ten randomly
allocated mobile populations, defined as Access Classes (AC) 0
to 9.
 The population number is stored in the SIM/USIM.
 In addition, UEs may be members of one or more out of 5
special categories (Access Classes 11 to 15), also held in the
SIM/USIM.
 These are allocated to specific high priority users as follows.
 Class 15 - PLMN Staff;
 Class 14 - Emergency Services;
 Class 13 - Public Utilities (e.g. water/gas suppliers);
 Class 12 - Security Services;
 Class 11 - For PLMN Use.
 Class 10 - Emergency calls
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Access Class Baring (ACB) factor
 When the eNB is overloaded, it will bar some ACs randomly by
broadcasting the ACB information. ACB information contains the
following information:
 Which ACs are barred
 ACB factor (0.05 ~ 0.95)
 ACB Time (4~512 sec)
 ACB factor plays persistent probability role for users of their
class.
 For users initiating emergency calls (AC 10) their access is
controlled by AB-BarringForEmergency (boolean): barring or not
 For UEs with AC 11- 15, their access is controlled by AC-
BarringForSpecialAC (boolean): barring or not.
 ACB is updated in SIB2 every 160ms.

101 Cellular Networks

RAT Selection and Re-selection
PLMN Selection
 Whenever a UE is switched on or re-registers after leaving
connected mode, it attempts to camp on the last registered
PLMN.
 If there is no registered PLMN stored in the USIM, the UE
selects and attempts registration on other PLMNs using either
the automatic mode or the manual mode.
 The UE scans all RF channels according to its capabilities to find
available PLMNs.
 On each carrier, the UE shall search for the strongest cell and
read its system information.
 The allowed PLMN information in USIM determines which
PLMN will be selected finally.
 After successful registration, the selected PLMN becomes the
Registered PLMN (R-PLMN).
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Cell Selection
 After a UE has selected a PLMN, it performs cell selection
(it searches for a suitable cell on which to camp).
 Subsequently, the UE registers its presence in the tracking
area, after which it can receive paging information.
 This is performed at RRS_idle state.
 When camped on a cell, the UE regularly verifies if there
is a better cell; this is known as performing cell
reselection.

104 Cellular Networks

Cell Selection
 The simplest way from a network and signaling point of
view to balance traffic is cell selection/ reselection in RRC
Idle state.
 For this purpose, the eNode-BTS broadcasts information
on neighboring LTE cells or RATs (GSM, UMTS and
CDMA) in their system information messages.

105 Cellular Networks

Cell Selection
 Cell selection consists of the UE searching for the strongest
cell on all supported carrier frequencies of each supported
RAT until it finds a suitable cell.
 Upon leaving connected mode, the UE should normally
attempt to select the cell to which it was connected.
 The connection release message may include information
directing the UE to search for a cell on a particular frequency.
 When performing ‘any cell selection’, the UE tries to find an
acceptable cell of any PLMN by searching all supported
frequencies on all supported RATs.
 The UE may stop searching upon finding a cell that meets the
‘level/quality’ criterion applicable for that RAT.

106 Cellular Networks

Cell Selection
 Cell selection criterion or “S-Criterion”:
Srxlev = Qrxlevmeas - (Qrxlevmin - Qrxlevminoffset)
 Qrxlevmeas is the measured cell receive level value,
 Qrxlevmin is the minimum required receive level in the cell.
 Qrxlevminoffset is the offset which may be configured to
prevent ping-pong between PLMNs.
 A cells is selected if Srxlev>0.
 The cell selection related parameters are broadcast
within the SIB2 message every 320 ms.

107 Cellular Networks

Cell Re-Selection
 After cell-selection, the UE keeps updating its selection called
cell re-selection.
 The UE has a list of RATs to be connected with their
corresponding priorities announced by selected eNB.
 Measurements rules:
 Intra-frequency: The UE is required to perform intra-frequency
measurements only when the quality of the serving cell is below or
equal to a threshold announced by UE (SintraSearch).
 Inter-frequencies/RATs: The UE is required to measure other
frequencies/RATs of lower or equal priority only when the quality of
the serving cell is below or equal to another threshold announced by
UE (SnonintraSearch).
 High priority rule: The UE is always required to measure frequencies
and RATs of higher priority.

108 Cellular Networks

Re-Selection Evaluation
 RAT reselection is priority based.
 E-UTRAN configures an absolute priority for all applicable
frequencies of each RAT.
 The UE reselects a cell on a higher priority frequency if the S-
criterion of the target cell exceeds a high threshold (ThreshX-
High) for longer than a certain duration Treselection.
 The UE reselects a cell on a lower-priority (another RAT) if
the S-criterion of the serving cell is below a low threshold
(ThreshServing-Low) while the Scriterion of the target cell exceeds a
threshold (ThreshX-Low) during the time interval Treselection.
 Thresholds and priorities are configured per frequency, while
Treselection is configured per RAT.

109 Cellular Networks

Cell Ranking
 For similar priority cells (usually same RAT), if there are
more than one option, the UE selects the cells which has
the highest Rn-Rs
For neighbour cell n: Rn = Qrxlevmeas,n + Qoffes,n
For serving cell s: Rs = Qrxlevmeas,s + Qhyst,s
 Qoffes,n : is an offset applicable between serving and
neighbouring cells on frequencies of equal priority (the
sum of the cell-specific and frequency-specific offsets).
 Qhyst,s : is a parameter controlling the degree of hysteresis
for the ranking.
 These are broadcast by BTS.
110 Cellular Networks
Speed Dependent Scaling
 The UE scales the cell reselection parameters depending
on its speed.
 The UE speed is categorized by a mobility state (high,
normal or low).
 UE determines it based on the number of cell
reselections which occur within a defined period,
excluding consecutive reselections between the same two
cells.

111 Cellular Networks