In order to send and receive data across the radio air interface and between

different protocols, various channels are being used. The channels are used
to distinguish the kind of data and to transport them across the radio access
network. Different channels provide interfaces to the higher layers of the LTE
protocol stack and enables an orderly and defined segregation of the data.

There are three types of channels into which the various data channels are
grouped.
 Physical channels: The physical channels carry control plane and user
plane information over the air.
 Transport channels: The transport channels offer information transfer to
Medium Access Control (MAC) and higher layers.
 Logical channels: The logical channels provide data transfer services for
the MAC layer.
1. Logical Channels:
Control and user plane data are carried on logical channels between the RLC
and MAC layer. Logical channels can be classified into:
 Control channels - used for the transfer of control plane information
only.
 Traffic channels - used for the transfer of user plane information only.

LTE Channels
1.1 Logical Control Channels:
  Paging Control Channel (PCCH) - used for paging the UE
 Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) - used for broadcasting MIBs/SIBs
 Common Control Channel (CCCH) - common to multiple UE's
 Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH) - used to transmit dedicated control
information for a particular UE
 Multicast Control Channel (MCCH) - used for transmit information for
Multicast reception

1.2 Logical Traffic Channels:

 Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH) - used for dedicated traffic for a
particular UE
 Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH) - used to transmit Multicast data

2. Transport Channels:
Control and user plane data are carried on transport channels between the
MAC and physical layer.

2.1 Downlink Transport Channels:

 Paging Channel (PCH) - used for paging
 Broadcast Channel (BCH) - used for MIB, get mapped to BCCH
 Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH) - used for SIB, data transfer
 Multicast Channel (MCH) - used for transmitting MCCH information to
set up multicast transmissions

2.2 Uplink Transport Channels:

 Random Access Channel (RACH) - used for the initial access to the
network (RANDOM ACCESS Procedure)
 Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH) - used for UL data transfer
3. Physical Channels:
Control and user plane data are carried on physical channels between the
different levels of the physical layer.

3.1 Downlink Physical Channels:

 Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) - used for transmitting MIB
 Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) - for SIB, data
 Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) - multicast channel
 Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) - for HARQ ack/nack
status
 Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) - control channel (carries
information to UE about the scheduling of PDSCH), UL grant,
Indication for paging, carries HARQ ACK/NACK

3.2 Uplink Physical Channels:

 Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) - contention channel used
for transmission of random access preambles
 Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) - carries UL control and user
information
 Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) - carries UL control
information (SRs, HARQ, CQ)

LTE tutorial-Page3
This page on LTE terminology covers LTE and LTE advanced technology
related terms. It include terms eNB,eNodeB,UE,OFDMA,SC-FDMA,LTE
frame,Resource block(RB), Resource Element(RE),Slot,sub frame,reference
signal, synchronization signal,S-GW,MME,X2 interface, S1 interface, Uu
interface, Control channel, data channel,LTE channel types,logical channel,
transport channel, physical channel, P-SS,S-
SS,PBCH,PDSCH,PDCCH,PCFICH,PCH,RS,SRS,DMRS,PRACH,
PUSCH,PUCCH, carrier aggregation,voice over LTE etc.
eNB or eNodeB It is similar to Base station which is used in GSM networks. Also
called as eNodeB.
UE: It is similar to mobile subscriber.
OFDMA: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access, used in physical layer
of LTE Downlink.
SC-FDMA: Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access, used in physical
layer of LTE Uplink.
LTE Frame: LTE frame are of 2 types TDD and FDD. In both the cases, frame is
composed of 10 sub frames and each sub frame is made of 2 slots. Frame size
is 10ms.
Resource Block (RB): It is the smallest block of resource that can be allocated
to UE by eNB; it is 12 subcarriers for 7 symbols.
Resource Element (RE): The smallest unit of radio resources, one subcarrier for
one symbol.
Slot: 7 consecutive symbols for short Cyclic Prefix, 6 symbols for long cyclic
prefix.
Sub frame: 2 consecutive timeslots.
Reference Signal: Similar to pilot carrier and is used for channel estimation at
the receiver.
Synchronization signal: There are two synchronization signals, Primary and
secondary. Both are transmitted in slot 0 and slot 10 in all the frames. It is same
as preamble used in earlier systems and used for time, frequency
synchronization purpose.
S-GW: Serving Gateway
MME: Mobility Management Entity
X2 interface: Interface used between eNodeB and eNodeB.
S1 interface: Interface used between eNodeB and core network interface
(MME/S-GW).
Uu interface: This is the air interface used between eNodeB and UE.
Control channel: This channel carry control information used to make, maintain
and terminate the connection. Used for the transfer of control plane information in
LTE.
Data channel: This channel carry traffic information. Used for the transfer of user
plane information.
Channel structure in LTE:
LTE adopts a hierarchical channel structure. LTE defined three channel types i.e.
logical,transport and physical channels. Each associates with a service access
point (SAP). (SAP) between different layers. These channels are used by lower
layers to provide services to the upper layers.
Logical Channels: What to Transmit.
They are used by MAC layer to provide services to RLC layer. Each logical
channel is defined as per type of information it carries. In LTE, there are two
categories of logical channels depending on the service they provide: control
channels and traffic channels. The new LTE categories M1 and NB1 are added
in LTE 3GPP Release 13.
Transport Channels: How to Transmit.
PHY uses transport channel to offer services to the MAC layer. It is characterized
by how and with what characteristics data is transferred over the air.

Physical Channels: Actual Transmission

Each physical channel maps to a set of resource elements in the time frequency
grid that carry information from upper layers. The basic entities that make a
physical channel are REs and RBs. A resource element is one subcarrier by one
OFDM symbol and typically this could carry one (or two with spatial multiplexing)
modulated symbol(s). A resource block is a collection of resource elements and
in the frequency domain this represents the smallest quanta of resources that
can be allocated.
P-SS: Primary synchronization signal
S-SS: secondary synchronization signal
PBCH: Physical Broadcast Channel
PDSCH: Physical Downlink Shared Channel
PDCCH: Physical Downlink Control Channel
PCFICH: Physical Control Format Indicator Channel
PHICH: Physical Hybrid ARQ Indication Channel
PCH: Paging channel
RS: Reference Signal, used both in uplink and downlink
SRS: Sounding reference signal, used in uplink
DMRS: Demodulation Reference Signal
PRACH: Physical Random Access Channel used in uplink
PUSCH: Physical Uplink Shared Channel
PUCCH: Physical Uplink Control Channel
LTE CHANNEL STRUCTURE
(3GPP TS 36.211 and 36.212)
The physical layer provides transport channels to the L2. These transport channels differ in
their characteristics how data is transmitted and are mapped to different logical channels
provided by the MAC layer. Logical channels describe which type of data is conveyed.

LOGICAL CHANNELS
The logical channels can be divided into control channels and traffic channels. The control
channels are used for transfer of control plane information and the traffic channels are used
for the transfer of user plane information. The following logical channels are supported for
LTE:

Control Channels
• Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH): A downlink channel for broadcasting system
control information.
• Paging Control Channel (PCCH): A downlink channel that transfers paging information.
This channel is used when the network does not know the location cell of the UE.
• Common Control Channel (CCCH): This channel is used by the UEs having no RRC
connection with the network. CCCH would be used by the UEs when accessing a new cell or
after cell reselection.
• Multicast Control Channel (MCCH): A point-to-multipoint downlink channel used for
transmitting MBMS scheduling and control information from the network to the UE, for one
or several MTCHs. After establishing an RRC connection this channel is only used by UEs
that receive MBMS.
• Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH): A point-to-point bidirectional channel that
transmits dedicated control information between a UE and the network. Used by UEs having
an RRC connection

Traffic Channels
• Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH): A Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH) is a point-to-
point channel, dedicated to one UE, for the transfer of user information. A DTCH can exist in
both uplink and downlink.
• Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH): A point-to-multipoint downlink channel for
transmitting traffic data from the network to the UEs using MBMS.

TRANSPORT CHANNELS
An effort has been made to keep a low number of transport channels in order to avoid
unnecessary switches between different channel types, which are found to be time
consuming in UMTS. In fact there is currently only one transport channel in downlink and
one in uplink carrying user data, i.e., channel switching is not
needed. For LTE, the following transport channels are provided by the physical layer:
Downlink:
• Broadcast Channel (BCH): A low fixed bit rate channel broadcast in the entire coverage
area of the cell. Beam-forming is not applied.
• Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH): A channel with possibility to use HARQ and link
adaptation by varying the modulation, coding and transmit power. The channel is possible
to broadcast in the entire cell and beamforming may be applied. UE power saving (DRX) is
supported to reduce the UE power consumption. MBMS transmission is also supported.
• Paging Channel (PCH): A channel that is broadcasted in the entire cell. DRX is
supported to enable power saving.
• Multicast channel (MCH): A separate transport channel for multicast (MBMS). This
channel is broadcast in the entire coverage area of the cell. Combining of MBMS
transmissions from multiple cells (MBSFN) is supported.

Uplink:
• Uplink Shared channel (UL-SCH): A channel with possibility to use HARQ and link
adaptation by varying the transmit power, modulation and coding. Beamforming may be
applied.

• Random Access Channel (RACH): A channel used to obtain timing synchronization

(asynchronous random access) and to transmit information needed to obtain scheduling
grants (synchronous random access). The transmission is typically contention based. For
UEs having an RRC connection there is some limited support for contention free access.

LTE CHANNEL STRUCTURE AND MAPPING

PHYSICAL CHANNELS
The physical layer offers services to the MAC layer in the form of transport channels. User
data to be transmitted is delivered to the physical layer from the MAC layer in the form of
transport blocks.

The MAC layer at the transmitter side also provides the physical layer with control
information necessary for transmission and/or reception of the user data. The physical
layer defines physical channels and physical signals. A physical channel corresponds to a set
of physical resources used for transmission of data and/or control information from the MAC
layer. A physical signal, which also corresponds to a set of physical

resources, is used to support physical-layer functionality but do not carry any information
from the MAC layer.

Physical channels
• Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) – transmission of the DL-SCH transport
channel

• Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) – transmission of the UL-SCH transport

channel

• Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH) – indicates the PDCCH format
in DL

• Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) – DL L1/L2 control signaling

• Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) – UL L1/L2 control signaling

• Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) – DL HARQ info

• Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) – DL transmission of the BCH transport channel.

• Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) – DL transmission of the MCH transport channel.

• Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) – UL transmission of the random access

preamble as given by the RACH transport channel.

Physical signals
• Reference Signals (RS) – support measurements and coherent demodulation in uplink
and downlink.

• Primary and Secondary Synchronization signals (P-SCH and S-SCH) – DL only and
used in the cell search procedure.

• Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) – supports UL scheduling measurements

RSRP, EPRE, Total Power
We often use different concept of power definition depending on situations and we often get
confused by these different power concept. So it is important to have clear understanding
on those different definition.
When you use various test equipment, there are cases where different equipment use
different power concept. For example, some equipment would request you to specify the
power in EPRE (power/15 Khz) and some equipment would request you to specify the total
power (total power across all the allocated RBs).

Some of the most confusing power concepts are RSRP, EPRE and total power. Definition and
Differences among these powers can be illustrated as follows. For the simplicity, I use the
structure of only one RB and TM1 (Single Antenna)

Directly or indirectly from this illustrations, you can infer some additional facts as follows :
 EPRE indicate power for one resource element (RE). This can be used for any channel
(e.g, Reference Signal, PDSCH etc). This value does not vary with system bandwidth
or number of RBs.
 RSRP is an averaged value for all the Resource Elements for Reference Signal within
a symbol. Since this is the averaged value, the value would be similar to EPRE value
you set for the Reference Signal. If there is no noise at all, RSRP would be same as
EPRE you set for Reference Signal.
  Total Channel Power is summed value of all EPREs within a symbol. This value may
vary with different symbols since each symbol may have different channel
combination (e.g, Symbol 0 in first slot is made up of multiple component - PCFICH,
HICH, RS. Symbol 4 is made up of PDSCH and Reference signal).
For simplicity, if we take the symbol which is made up of only PDSCH (e.g, Symbol 3,5,6)
we may come out with the following formula. For different symbols, you may have a little
bit different values depending on P-a, P-b configurations. But you can apply this formula for
other symbols if you can tolerate around +/- 1dB differences.
Total Power of PDSCH (in linear scale )
= EPRE for PDSCH x Number of PDSCH RE
= EPRE for PDSCH x Number of RB x 12 (assuming for the symbol with
no Reference Signal)

Total Power of PDSCH (in dB/dBm scale )

= EPRE for PDSCH (in dBm) + 10 Log(Number of PDSCH RE)
= EPRE for PDSCH + 10 Log(Number of RB x 12)

Total Power is not affected by the system bandwidth, it is affected by number of RBs being
used at the specific moment of the calculation.

For example, if you allocated -90 dBm/EPRE for PDSCH and allocated 100 RBs for the
PDSCH, the Total Power of PDSCH become as follows.
Total Power of PDSCH (in dB/dBm scale )
= EPRE for PDSCH + 10 Log(Number of RB x 12)
= -90 + 10 Log(100 x 12)
= -90 + 30.8
= - 59.2 dBm