Circuit-Switched Fallback Ultra-Flash CSFB

White Paper

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

Senior Researcher: Xiaobo Wu, Wireless MBB Research Department, Wireless Network Research Department, Huawei Area of expertise: LTE Voice, CSFB, VoLTE/SRVCC Xiaobo Wu has over eight years of experience in telecommunications. As a leading technical member of Huaweis Wireless Service and Network Evolution Research team, he is responsible for voice solution research and its standardization, e.g. CSFB, VoLTE/SRVCC. Xiaobo Wu is also a delegate representing Huawei in 3GPPs working group for system architecture. His expertise in LTE voice is broadly acknowledged by the 3GPP standards community and he is recognized as an outstanding delegate of that 3GPP working group.

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

LTE Voice Solutions Introduction

Long Term Evolution (LTE) has become a globally deployed standard. However, as an all-IP, data-only transport technology utilizing packet switching, LTE and LTE-capable terminals introduce new challenges for meeting the quality of service expectations established by circuit-switched mobile telephony. 3GPP developed two approaches for providing voice services with LTE: Circuit-Switched Fallback (CSFB) and Voice over LTE (VoLTE), which is supported by Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC). As shown in Figure 1, to enable CSFB, the MME (Mobile Management Entity) connects to the MSC (Mobile Switching Center) Server via a SGs interface enabling the UE to be both CS- and PS-registered, which enables to fall back from LTE to circuit switched, i.e. doing CSFB, when needed for a call. VoLTE is a voice telephony solution that delivers voice services over LTE access using 3GPPs IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). However, LTE coverage is not necessarily the same as 2/3G coverage, especially in early LTE deployments. For scenarios where the UE leaves VoLTE coverage, SRVCC is carried out to handover the VoLTE call to a 2/3G CS call. This voice call continuity is accomplished by the following two steps, as shown in Figure 2: SRVCC Inter-RAT (IRAT) Handovers are performed like traditional handovers between 2G and 3G, whereby a handover sends the users device from LTE radio access to GERAN/UTRAN radio access. SRVCC Session Transfers are performed as a new mechanism to move IMS access control and voice media from LTE/IMS to legacy CS core network.

A voice interruption of shorter than 300 ms is mandatory for commercial voice services, which requires excellent synchronization between SRVCC IRAT Handover and SRVCC Session Transfer procedures. This synchronization is one of the biggest challenges for SRVCC. 3GPP consequently introduced enhanced SRVCC (eSRVCC) in Rel-10 for better synchronization, which comes with a new Access Transfer Control Function (ATCF)/Access Transfer Gateway (ATGW) in the IMS signaling/media path. Figure 1 CSFB Architecture

Figure 2 SRVCC Architecture

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

CSFB Challenges
VoLTE, i.e. IMS together with SRVCC, is clearly the means for providing voice services via LTE. Deployment schedules, however, may differ for different networks. CSFB, as an interim on the way to VoLTE, has been launched commercially in several markets worldwide, and has already become the predominant global solution for voice in early LTE handsets. Furthermore, CSFB will remain in place for many years as a principal LTE voice roaming solution, and as a principal LTE emergency call solution even when VoLTE is deployed. Compared to a native 2/3G CS call, a main drawback of legacy CSFB is the amount of steps that are added for switching from LTE to 2/3G networks before the voice call, which incurs longer call-setup times, especially in case of LTE to GSM CSFB, as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 CSFB Call Delay

The industry has already invested a considerable amount of effort in speeding up the switching. However, results have remained limited and call-setup times continue to be not satisfactory compared to native 2/3G CS calls. Furthermore, some of these efforts require CSFB-specific network updates, which do not necessarily provide any value when evolving the network to support VoLTE/SRVCC. However, there is still strong interest in improving the CSFB performance, but preferably via network updates, which are also useful when evolving network to support VoLTE/SRVCC. Besides long call-setup times, there are other difficulties inherent to CSFB deployment and its evolution towards VoLTE/SRVCC in the future. Specifically, CSFB requires strict mapping between the Tracking Area (TA) and Location Area (LA) as well as the upgrading of all MSC Servers surrounding the LTE coverage. Also, since mapping between TA and LA cannot be 100% accurate, operators have to do a lot of CSFB-specific network planning/configuring, like adjusting existing 2/3G Location Areas (LA) for better mapping to LTE Tracking Areas (TA). This is important as inaccurate TA/LA mapping may result in Mobile Terminated call failure, forcing operators to employ Mobile Terminated Roaming Retry (MTRR) or Mobile Terminated Roaming Forwarding (MTRF), which requires updating the entire CS core network.

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

Ultra-Flash CSFB Solution

Instead of simply speeding up the switching process, Ultra-Flash CSFB performs some CS call-related procedures in parallel to the switching from LTE to 2/3G, i.e. it triggers the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure during the CSFB procedure, which results in obvious benefits of being able to provide an equivalent or even shorter call-setup time than that of a native 2/3G CS call. As shown in Figure 4, compared to legacy CSFB, the MME also connects to the MSC Server via the Sv interface, enabling the SRVCC IRAT Handover during CSFB. For this, the eNB triggers a SRVCC IRAT Handover during the CSFB procedure. As shown in Figure 5, with a default LTE data network connection in operation, the UE triggers a mobile originating (outgoing) CS voice call by sending an Extended Service Request message to the MME. As shown in Figure 6, the MME indicates to the eNB to start a CSFB procedure and the eNB initiates a SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure to switch the UE from LTE to 2/3G rather than initiating the PS handover or Redirection procedure of the legacy CSFB. Once a handover to 2/3G has begun, the UE follows the legacy CS call setup procedures except: Skipping the CS Radio Access Bearer (RAB) setup procedure, as the RAB is pre-allocated during the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure. Skipping some NAS procedures, as the MSC Server has already obtained some key information for the CS call. These two steps bring major gains for the call setup time, even with the longer CSFB-specific time needed for switching the RAT. Mobile Terminated (incoming) voice calls follow the same procedure except that paging happens as an additional step. Figure 5 Starting a CSFB call Figure 4 Ultra-Flash CSFB Architecture

Figure 6 SRVCC Handover to GERAN/UTRAN

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

Call-setup time for Ultra-Flash CSFB

As shown in Figure 7, an Ultra-Flash CSFB call-setup takes only about 3.6 seconds, which is significantly shorter than a native UTRAN call setup (4.85 seconds or 35% slower). In other words, Ultra-Flash CSFB can provide an even shorter call-setup time than a native 2/3G CS call. One may wonder why this can happen. The key factor is Ultra-Flash CSFB triggers the SRVCC IRAT Handover during the CSFB procedure, which results in faster call-setups even for scenarios involving switching from LTE to 2/3G. Faster call-setup times from Ultra-Flash CSFB are possible due to the following three aspects: The First Aspect During a SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure, Ultra-Flash CSFB performs some CS call-related procedures in parallel to switching from LTE to 2G/3G, specifically:

allocation procedure after the UE switches to 2/3G for performing the call-setup procedure. GERAN/UTRAN gets UE capabilities from E-UTRAN via the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure, so it does not need to retrieve UE capabilities from the UE after the UE switches to 2/3G.

The Second Aspect The MSC Server has already obtained some key information for the CS call during the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure, so it can skip some NAS procedures when the UE initiates the CS call via 2/3G after the switching, specifically:

Skipping the authentication procedure as the UE and network generate a CS security key during the SRVCC procedure. Skipping IMSI/IMEI retrieval procedures as the MSC Server gets them from MME. Skipping or delaying TMSI Reallocation procedure.

During CSFB-triggered switching, the CS RAB is already pre-allocated by the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure, so there is no need for the CS RAB

The Third Aspect In case of Ultra-Flash CSFB to GERAN, the call-setup signaling exchange between UE and GERAN is very quick with the pre-allocated radio resource, where all the signaling is transmitted via a fast signaling channel that uses the traffic channel.

Table1 Mobile Originated call-setup times for Ultra-Flash CSFB compared to native UTRAN CS calls, PS HO-based CSFB and redirection-based CSFB. (All units are in milliseconds.) UTRAN Mobile Originating Service Request for CSFB IRAT Measurement Handover from LTE to UTRAN Redirection from LTE to UTRAN CS Call-Setup Procedure Total

Native UTRAN CS Call 0 0 0 0 4850 4850

RedirectionBased CSFB 150 0 0 1100 5750 7000

PS HOBased CSFB 150 200 500 0 5650 6500

Ultra-Flash CSFB 150 200 500 0 2750 3600

Above data for CSFB to CSFB and Ultra-Flash CSFB to Ultra-Flash CSFB based on Huawei Lab test data. Call-setup times are from UE triggering CS call to UE receiving Alerting. Analysis shows Ultra-Flash CSFB to GERAN is similar to UTRAN. But legacy CSFB to GERAN is much worse than to UTRAN as shown in Figure 3. Call-setup time shown for legacy CSFB may even need to add another 1 to 2 seconds when the CSFB needs to include a Location Area Update or MTRR/MTRF procedure.

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

Figure 7 Mobile Originated call-setup Times for UTRAN (All units are in milliseconds)

Ultra-Flash CSFB Deployment

Ultra-Flash CSFB can be easily deployed by adding the IRAT Handover functionality from SRVCC to CSFB deployments:

which also means there is no need for the SRVCC Session Transfer procedure.

Operators only need to update some (one at the minimum) MSC Servers rather than all the MSC Servers surrounding the LTE coverage, which significantly minimizes the impact on legacy 2/3G networks. The network certainly knows which 2/3G cell is the best target for switching over to from the LTE cell, which means a strict TA/LA mapping is not needed as TA/LA misalignment is resolved by SRVCC IRAT Handover. As the problem of TA/LA misalignments is no longer relevant there is also no need for deploying MTRR or MTRF.

Ultra-Flash CSFB is a call-setup procedure rather than a VoLTE to 2/3G CS call handover procedure, so the SRVCC question about voice interruption time does not apply.

The above two key characteristics allow for an unproblematic and easy Ultra-Flash CSFB deployment. In summary, compared to legacy CSFB, Ultra-Flash CSFB significantly improves CSFB call-setup times and comes as an easy and future-proof deployment, which deploys a subset of the full SRVCC functionality and has no impact on terminals and GERAN/UTRAN RATs. As Ultra-Flash CSFB only relies on deploying a light SRVCC IRAT Handover, this allows for early or gradual investments into full SRVCC while smoothly evolving to VoLTE/SRVCC, which saves on operator investments. Compared to standard SRVCC functionality, please note:

One may also argue about deployment difficulties for Ultra-Flash CSFB. Fortunately, Ultra-Flash CSFB only requires a light SRVCC IRAT Handover rather than a full-blown SRVCC deployment, which significantly reduces deployment efforts compared to full SRVCC. Differences to full SRVCC are:

Similar to legacy CSFB, Ultra-Flash CSFB still relies on the legacy 2/3G CS domain to provide voice and therefore doesnt require deploying IMS,

Ultra-Flash CSFB may require some light software updates in eNB/MME/MSC servers. Regarding Ultra-Flash CSFB to UTRAN, eNB could have no impact but is only required to support PS Handover based CSFB.

Ultra-Flash CSFB White Paper

Figure 8 below shows the major phases of Voice evolution. The initial phase in LTE voice evolution introduces CSFB, which currently is under way. CSFB means all voice traffic is handled by legacy Circuit-Switched (CS) networks, while data traffic is preferably handled by LTE Packet-Switched (PS) for LTE capable terminals. During the next phase in LTE voice evolution currently under way, Ultra-Flash CSFB based on SRVCC IRAT Handover will be introduced. Transition to VoLTE/SRVCC Figure 8 LTE Voice Commercialization

with IMS is gradual with some early deployments and trials. In this phase, CS services such as voice and emergency calls are still mainly delivered using Ultra-Flash CSFB even when IMS is deployed. The final phase of LTE voice evolution introduces native VoLTE and full SRVCC functionality (including SRVCC IRAT Handover and SRVCC Session Transfer). Please note that Ultra-Flash CSFB is still heavily used at this stage especially for roaming terminals from networks without IMS and emergency call services.

Conclusions
Transition to VoLTE will be gradual and will not occur over a short period of time. CSFB will remain in place and co-exist with VoLTE for a long time. This, however, does not change the fact that legacy CSFB has a long call-setup time and some difficulties for deployment as well as for evolution towards VoLTE/SRVCC. Compared to legacy CSFB, Ultra-Flash CSFB requires deploying the IRAT Handover from SRVCC but has no impact on LTE-capable terminals and GERAN/UTRAN. Due to using the SRVCC IRAT Handover procedure, Ultra-Flash CSFB can significantly improve the CSFB call-setup time and comes as an easy and future-proof deployment. Furthermore, Ultra-Flash CSFB relies on only a subset from the overall SRVCC and supports easy evolution to VoLTE/SRVCC, which heavily saves operator investments. It might, however, require some limited software updates in the eNB (optional for UTRAN)/MME/MSC Server compared to standard SRVCC functionality. In the scope of this paper, it is assumed all that UEs support SRVCC IRAT Handover. Ultra-Flash CSFB is also possible with a non-SRVCC IRAT Handover-capable UE and can provide decent call-setup improvements, but enabling this requires some additional small updates for GERAN/UTRAN RATs.

References
[1] 3GPP TS 23.216: "Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC); Stage 2". [2] 3GPP TS 23.272: "Circuit Switched (CS) fallback in Evolved Packet System (EPS); Stage 2".

Copyright Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2013. All rights reserved.

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Trademarks and Permissions

and other Huawei trademarks are trademarks of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All other trademarks and trade names mentioned in this document are the property of their respective holders.

Notice
The purchased products, services and features are stipulated by the commercial contract made between Huawei and the customer. All or partial products, services and features described in this document may not be within the purchased scope or the usage scope. Unless otherwise agreed by the contract, all statements, information, and recommendations in this document are provided AS IS without warranties, guarantees or representations of any kind, either express or implied. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this document to ensure accuracy of the contents, but all statements, information, and recommendations in this document do not constitute the warranty of any kind, express or implied.

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Address: Huawei Industrial Base Bantian, Longgang Shenzhen 518129 People's Republic of China Website: Email: http://www.huawei.com support@huawei.com