LTE Q/A

What is LTE?
LTEi (Long Term Evolution) is initiated by 3GPPi
to improve the mobile phone standard to cope
with future technology evolutions and needs.
What is goal of LTE?
The goals for LTE include improving spectral
efficiency, lowering costs, improving services,
making use of new spectrum and reformed
spectrum opportunities, and better integration
with other open standards.
What speed LTE offers?
LTE provides downlink peak rates of at least
100Mbit/s, 50 Mbit/s in the uplink and RAN
(Radio Access Network) round-trip times of
less than 10 ms.
What is LTE architecture?
The evolved architecture comprises E-UTRAN
(Evolved UTRAN) on the access side and EPC
(Evolved Packet Core) on the core side.

The figure below shows the evolved system

architecture

What is EUTRAN?
The E-UTRAN (Evolved UTRAN) consists of eNBs,
providing the E-UTRA user plane
(PDCP/RLC/MAC/PHY) and control plane (RRC)
protocol terminations towards the UE. The eNBs are
interconnected with each other by means of the X2
interface. The eNBs are also connected by means of
the S1 interface to the EPC (Evolved Packet Core),
more specifically to the MME (Mobility Management
Entity) by means of the S1-MME and to the Serving
Gateway (S-GW) by means of the S1-U.

What are LTE Interfaces?

The following are LTE Interfaces
S1-MME :- Reference point for the control
plane protocol between E-UTRAN and MME.
S1-U:- Reference point between E-UTRAN
and Serving GW for the per bearer user

plane tunnelling and inter eNodeB path

switching during handover.
S3:- It enables user and bearer information
exchange for inter 3GPP access network
mobility in idle and/or active state.
S4:- It provides related control and
mobility support between GPRS Core and
the 3GPP Anchor function of Serving GW. In
addition, if Direct Tunnel is not
established, it provides the user plane
tunnelling.
S5:- It provides user plane tunnelling and
tunnel management between Serving GW
and PDN GW. It is used for Serving GW
relocation due to UE mobility and if the
Serving GW needs to connect to a noncollocated PDN GW for the required PDN
connectivity.
S6a:- It enables transfer of subscription
and authentication data for
authenticating/authorizing user access to
the evolved system (AAA interface)
between MME and HSS.
Gx:- It provides transfer of (QoS) policy and
charging rules from PCRF to Policy and
Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) in
the PDN GW.
S8:- Inter-PLMN reference point providing
user and control plane between the
Serving GW in the VPLMN and the PDN GW
in the HPLMN. S8 is the inter PLMN variant
of S5.

 S9:- It provides transfer of (QoS) policy and

charging control information between the
Home PCRF and the Visited PCRF in order
to support local breakout function.
S10:- Reference point between MMEs for
MME relocation and MME to MME
information transfer.
S11:- Reference point between MME and
Serving GW.
S12:- Reference point between UTRAN and
Serving GW for user plane tunnelling when
Direct Tunnel is established. It is based on
the Iu-u/Gn-u reference point using the
GTP-U protocol as defined between SGSN
and UTRAN or respectively between SGSN
and GGSN. Usage of S12 is an operator
configuration option.
S13:- It enables UE identity check
procedure between MME and EIR.
SGi:- It is the reference point between the
PDN GW and the packet data network.
Packet data network may be an operator
external public or private packet data
network or an intra operator packet data
network, e.g. for provision of IMS services.
This reference point corresponds to Gi for
3GPP accesses.
Rx:- The Rx reference point resides
between the AF and the PCRF in the TS
23.203.
SBc:- Reference point between CBC and
MME for warning message delivery and
control functions.

What are LTE Network elements?

eNB
eNB interfaces with the UE and hosts the
PHYsical (PHY), Medium AccessControl (MAC),
Radio Link Control (RLC), and Packet Data
Control Protocol (PDCP) layers. It also hosts
Radio Resource Control (RRC)
functionality corresponding to the control
plane. It performs many functions including
radio resource management, admission
control,scheduling, enforcement of negotiated
UL QoS, cell information
broadcast, ciphering/deciphering of user and
control plane data, and
compression/decompression of DL/UL user
plane packet headers.
Mobility Management Entity
manages and stores UE context (for idle state:
UE/user identities, UE mobility state, user
security parameters). It generates temporary
identities and allocates them to UEs. It checks
the authorization whether the UE may camp on
the TA or on the PLMN. It also authenticates
the user.
Serving Gateway
The SGW routes and forwards user data
packets, while also acting as the mobility
anchor for the user plane during inter-eNB
handovers and as the anchor for mobility
between LTE and other 3GPP technologies

(terminating S4 interface and relaying the

traffic between 2G/3G systems and PDN GW).
Packet Data Network Gateway
The PDN GW provides connectivity to the UE to
external packet data networks by being the
point of exit and entry of traffic for the UE. A
UE may have simultaneous connectivity with
more than one PDN GW for accessing multiple
PDNs. The PDN GW performs policy
enforcement, packet filtering for each user,
charging support, lawful Interception and
packet screening.

What are LTE protocols & specifications?

In LTE architecture, core network includes
Mobility Management Entity (MME), Serving
Gateway (SGW), Packet Data Network Gateway
(PDN GW) where as E-UTRAN has E-UTRAN
NodeB (eNB).
How does Timing Advance (TA) works in LTE?
In LTE, when UE wish to establish RRC
connection with eNB, it transmits a Random
Access Preamble, eNB estimates the
transmission timing of the terminal based on
this. Now eNB transmits a Random Access
Response which consists of timing advance
command, based on that UE adjusts the
terminal transmit timing.

The timing advance is initiated from E-UTRAN

with MAC message that implies an adjustment
of the timing advance.
What is VoLGA?
VoLGA stands for "Voice over LTE via Generic
Access". The VoLGA service resembles the
3GPP Generic Access Network (GAN). GAN
provides a controller node - the GAN controller
(GANC) - inserted between the IP access
network (i.e., the EPS) and the 3GPP core
network.

The GAN provides an overlay access between

the terminal and the CS core without requiring
specific enhancements or support in the
network it traverses. This provides a terminal
with a 'virtual' connection to the core network
already deployed by an operator. The terminal
and network thus reuse most of the existing
mechanisms, deployment and operational
aspects.