2

LTE Air Interface and Procedures

Mohamed A. El-saidny

2.1

LTE Protocol Stack

The LTE (long term evolution) air interface provides connectivity between the user equipment
(UE) and the eNB (eNodeB). It is split into a control plane and a user plane, as described in
Chapter 1. Among the two control plane signalings, the first is provided by the access stratum (AS) and carries signaling between the UE and the eNB. The second carries non-access
stratum (NAS) signaling messages between the UE and the MME (mobility management
entity), which is piggybacked into an RRC (radio resource control) message. The user plane
delivers the IP (Internet protocol) packets to and from the EPC (evolved packet core), the
S-GW (serving gateway), and the PDN-GW (packet data network gateway).
The structure of the lower layer protocols for the control and user planes in AS are the same.
Both planes utilize the protocols of PDCP (packet data convergence protocol), RLC (radio
link control), and MAC (medium access control), as well as the PHY (physical layer) for the
transmission of the signaling and data packets [1].
NAS is the layer above the AS layers. There are also two planes in NAS; the higher layer
signaling related to the control plane and the IP data packets of the user plane. NAS signaling exists in two protocol layers, EMM (EPS mobility management) and ESM (EPS session
management), as discussed in Chapter 1. The NAS user plane is IP-based. The IP data packets
pass directly into the PDCP layer for processing and transmission to or from the user.
Figure 2.1 illustrates the radio interface protocol stack. The protocol stacks reside in both
the UE and the E-UTRAN (evolved universal terrestrial radio access network). Control and
user plane data flow on the entire stack based on the type of traffic being exchanged from or to
the UE. It is illustrated in the figure that the NAS signaling uses the services of RRC, which
is then mapped into the PDCP. On the user plane, IP packets are also mapped into the PDCP
layer and then delivered down to the lower layers for transmission.
This chapter describes the air interface of LTE, focusing on the AS protocol layers. It then
provides an overview of the PHY layer structure and how it utilizes OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) for transmission. The chapter concludes with an end-to-end
Design, Deployment and Performance of 4G-LTE Networks: A Practical Approach, First Edition. Ayman Elnashar,
Mohamed A. El-saidny and Mahmoud R. Sherif.
2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.