LTE stands for Long Term Evolution.

The technology designed and developed by 3GPP as air

interface for cellular mobile communication systems. It is used to increase the capacity and speed of
mobile telephone networks.LTE is marketed as 4G technology. For current release of LTE
specifications, one can visit 3GPP site http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/htmlinfo/SpecReleaseMatrix.htm.

source of figure: wikimedia commons

As mentioned in the diagram above LTE system composed of two main parts. User device is
referred as UE i.e. User Equipment and Base station is known as eNodeB. eNodeB is connected to
internet back bone via SGW-serving gateway or MME-Mobility Management Entity.LTE is somewhat
similar to HSPA and its downlink access technique is similar to mobile wimax i.e. OFDMA.
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,SSS,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 associats 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.
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 Air interface

The Air interface between LTE network and UE supports high data rate owing to OFDM and Multiple
antenna techniques employed. OFDMA is used from network to UE air interface and SC-FDMA is

used from UE to network air interface. Refer following links to know OFDMA basics.
OFDMA Types OFDM versus OFDMA OFDMA Physical layer

LTE System Architecture Evolution

As shown in the figure LTE SAE(System Architecture Evolution) consists UE,eNodeB and
EPC(evolved packet core). Various interfaces are designed between these entities which include Uu
between UE and eNodeB, X2 between two eNodeB, S1 between EPC and eNodeB. eNodeB has
functionalities of both RNC and NodeB as per previous UMTS architecture.LTE is completely IP
based network.
The basic architecture contains the following network elements.
1. LTE EUTRAN (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio)
2. LTE Evolved Packet Core.

LTE EUTRAN
It is a radio access network standard meant to be a replacement of the UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA .
Unlike HSPA, LTE's E-UTRA is an entirely new air interface system. It provides higher data rates,
lower latency and is optimized for packet data. EUTRAN (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio)
consists of eNB (Base station). EUTRAN is responsible for complete radio management in LTE.
When UE powered is on, eNB is responsible for Radio Resource Management, i.e. it shall do the
radio bearer control, radio admission control, allocation of uplink and downlink to UE etc. When a
packet from UE arrives to eNB, eNB shall compress the IP header and encrypt the data stream. It is
also responsible for adding a GTP-U header to the payload and sending it to the SGW. Before the
data is actually transmitted the control plane has to be established. eNB is responsible for choosing
a MME using MME selection function. The QoS is taken care by eNB as the eNB is only entity on
radio. Other functionalities include scheduling and transmission of paging messages, broadcast
messages, and bearer level rate enforcements also done by eNB.

LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC)

The LTE EPC consists of MME, SGW, PGW, HSS and PCRF.

Mobility Management Entity (MME):

The MME is a control entity. It is responsible for all the control plane operations. All the NAS
signaling originates at UE and terminates in MME. MME is also responsible for tracking area list
management, selection of PGW/SGW and also selection of other MME during handovers. MME is
also responsible for SGSN (Serving GPRS Support Node) selection during LTE to 2G/3G
handovers. The UE is also authenticated by MME.MME is also responsible for bearer management
functions including establishment of dedicated bearers for all signaling traffic flow.

Serving Gateway (SGW):

Serving gateway terminates the interface towards EUTRAN. For each UE there is a single Serving
GW associated with EPS at a given point of time. SGW acts as a local mobility entity for inter eNB
handovers. It also acts a mobility anchor for inter 3GPP mobility. SGW is responsible for packet
routing and forwarding, buffering the downlink packets. As eNB is responsible for uplink packet
marking, SGW is responsible for downlink packet marking.

PDN Gateway (PGW):

PGW terminates SGi interface towards the PDN. PGW is responsible for all the IP packet based
operations such as deep packet inspection, UE IP address allocation, Transport level packet
marking in uplink and downlink, accounting etc. PGW contacts PCRF to determine the QoS for
bearers. It is also responsible for UL and DL rate enforcement.

Home Subscriber Server (HSS):

The HSS is a central database that contains user-related and subscription-related information. The
functions of the HSS include functionalities such as mobility management, call and session
establishment support, user authentication and access authorization. It also holds information about
the PDNs to which the user can connect. In addition the HSS holds dynamic information such as the
identity of the MME to which the user is currently attached or registered. The HSS may also
integrate the authentication center (AUC), which generates the vectors for authentication and
security keys.

Policy Control and Charging Rules Function (PCRF):

The PCRF is responsible for policy control decision-making as well as for controlling the flow-based
charging functionalities in the Policy Control Enforcement Function (PCEF), which resides in the PGW. The PCRF provides the QoS authorization (QoS class identifier [QCI] and bit rates) that
decides how a certain data flow will be treated in the PCEF and ensures that this is in accordance
with the user's subscription profile

Types of OFDMA
OFDMA stands for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access. It is the most popular access
technique adopted in next generation wireless technologies such as Mobile WiMAX, LTE, LTE
Advanced etc. In OFDMA technique, number of frequency bins in a single IFFT is divided and
allocated to different mobiles(users). In Mobile WiMAX resource allocation is based on number of
slots. Slot definition varies based on zone types, but slot is composed of number of subcarriers and
number of OFDMA symbols. One slot in PUSC is made of 1 subchannel and 2 OFDMA symbols.
Here 1 subchannel consists of many subcarriers. For example in a 1024 point FFT, there are 30
subchannels and each subchannel is made of 24 data subcarriers. In LTE and LTE Advanced
resource allocation is based on number of resource blocks. One Resource block consists of 12
subcarriers and 7 OFDMA symbols. In Mobile WiMAX terminal is referred as Mobile Subscriber
Station and in LTE/LTE Advanced terminal is referred as UE.
There are two main types of OFDMA viz. distributed OFDMA and localized OFDMA depends on
how the sub carriers are assigned to the terminals/mobile subscribers.

If the subcarriers are contiguously assigned to each terminal then it is calledlocalized OFDMA.
Number of subcarriers assigned to the terminal is determined based on data rate requirement as
desired by the user. This is because one subcarrier carry one or more than one bits based on
modulation technique. For BPSK it is one bit, for QPSK 2 bits,for 16QAM 4 bits and so on. Hence
bits carried on total subcarriers in a symbol time gives us data rate.
If the distributed subcarriers are assigned to each terminal then it is calleddistributed OFDMA. This
distributed subcarriers are obtained using permutation technique.
As mentioned and depicted in the figure above, resource allocation out of chunk of sucbcarriers of a
IFFT size can be either continuous or permuted per user. Distributed OFDMA has advantage over
localized OFDMA as it is more resistant to time varying fading channel. Localized OFDMA is simpler
to implement compare to distributed one. Interleaving also does the same job as performed in a
distributed OFDMA.

OFDM vs OFDMA-difference between OFDM and OFDMA

This page on OFDM vs OFDMA describes difference between OFDM and OFDMA technologies.

OFDM
In OFDM systems, only a single user can transmit on all of the sub-carriers at any given time. In
order to support multiple users time and/or frequency division access techniques are used in OFDM.
The major setback to this static multiple access scheme is the fact that the different users see the

wireless channel differently is not being utilized. OFDMA, on the other hand, allows multiple users to
transmit simultaneously on the different sub-carriers per OFDM symbol. OFDM is employed in Fixed
WiMAX system deployed around the world for broadband internet service. Figure 1 depicts OFDM
frame structure employed in fixed WiMAX system. Here Downlink sub frame is transmitted by Base
station to subscriber stations and Uplink sub frame is transmitted by multiple subscriber stations to
the Base Station. Both the frame is composed of more than one OFDM symbols and each symbol is
made up of subcarriers, which fall in data and pilot subcarriers, where data subcarriers carry the
user data. There are 192 data sub carriers in Fixed WiMAX System. The point here is Subscriber
station has been assigned one or more symbols by BS and all the data carriers of the symbols are
occupied by one SS. It is depicted in the figure that entire 256 carriers are allocated to the user at its
predetermined time slot in TDD frame.

OFDMA
In the case of OFDMA, which is employed in Mobile WiMAX system deployed around the world and
also employed in LTE system being deployed, total subcarriers are permuted and assigned to sub
channel. Hence many SSs can occupy the same sub channel but use different subcarriers to
transmit the information. Figure 2 describes OFDMA frame used in Mobile WiMAX System. It clearly
mentions that one symbol is composed of more than one sub channel and each sub channel is
composed of distributed subcarriers. The point here is each symbol is used by more number of SSs
to transmit and receive the information which is depicted by Burst 1 and Burst 2 in the figure. As
mentioned in OFDMA subcarriers are divided among users at the same time instant. Figure
mentions 1024 FFT case here.

The Frame structures mentioned here only for demonstrating the concept and it differs in the actual
wimax system.
Both OFDM and OFDMA is used to achieve high data rate transmission over the air. With OFDMA
system can support more subscribers with sub channelization concept compare to OFDM.
Both OFDM and OFDMA is implemented using IFFT and FFT operation at transmitter and receiver
respectively.For OFDM entire input of IFFT is occupied fully by either subscriber sttaion or Base
Station. For OFDMA part of input values (consecutively) is occupied by Subscriber station and at
rest of the inputs zeros or nulls are inserted. Same is done with other subscribers and so on.
To undertand difference between OFDM and OFDMA one should also refer difference between FDM
and OFDM multiplexing techniques. Refer OFDM physical layer and OFDMA physical layer as per
fixed wimax and mobile wimax standards.
Further OFDM vs OFDMA can be explored by studying compasion between WiMAX and LTE
standards. Refer wimax vs lte page in terminology section.

Types of OFDMA
OFDMA stands for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access. It is the most popular access
technique adopted in next generation wireless technologies such as Mobile WiMAX, LTE, LTE
Advanced etc. In OFDMA technique, number of frequency bins in a single IFFT is divided and
allocated to different mobiles(users). In Mobile WiMAX resource allocation is based on number of
slots. Slot definition varies based on zone types, but slot is composed of number of subcarriers and
number of OFDMA symbols. One slot in PUSC is made of 1 subchannel and 2 OFDMA symbols.
Here 1 subchannel consists of many subcarriers. For example in a 1024 point FFT, there are 30
subchannels and each subchannel is made of 24 data subcarriers. In LTE and LTE Advanced
resource allocation is based on number of resource blocks. One Resource block consists of 12
subcarriers and 7 OFDMA symbols. In Mobile WiMAX terminal is referred as Mobile Subscriber
Station and in LTE/LTE Advanced terminal is referred as UE.

There are two main types of OFDMA viz. distributed OFDMA and localized OFDMA depends on
how the sub carriers are assigned to the terminals/mobile subscribers.

If the subcarriers are contiguously assigned to each terminal then it is calledlocalized OFDMA.
Number of subcarriers assigned to the terminal is determined based on data rate requirement as
desired by the user. This is because one subcarrier carry one or more than one bits based on
modulation technique. For BPSK it is one bit, for QPSK 2 bits,for 16QAM 4 bits and so on. Hence
bits carried on total subcarriers in a symbol time gives us data rate.
If the distributed subcarriers are assigned to each terminal then it is calleddistributed OFDMA. This
distributed subcarriers are obtained using permutation technique.
As mentioned and depicted in the figure above, resource allocation out of chunk of sucbcarriers of a
IFFT size can be either continuous or permuted per user. Distributed OFDMA has advantage over
localized OFDMA as it is more resistant to time varying fading channel. Localized OFDMA is simpler
to implement compare to distributed one. Interleaving also does the same job as performed in a
distributed OFDMA.

Difference between SC-FDMA and OFDM

This page describes difference between SC-FDMA and OFDM modulation techniques.
SC-FDMA means Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access and OFDMmeans Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing.

As shown in the figure in SC-FDMA one extra module DFT is added before IFFT module in the
transmitter chain and IDFT is added in the receiver chain. This converts OFDM chain into SC-FDMA
chain. Without this two modules the chain is referred as OFDM transmit and receive chain.

SC-FDMA system usually will have low PAPR compare to OFDM system.
SC-FDMA system is less sensitive to frequency offset compare to OFDM system.
SC-FDMA is widely used in LTE subscriber terminals in the transmit path and its variant OFDMA is
used in the eNodeB downlink(or receive path of LTE subscribers). While OFDM is used in many
broadband technologies such as wimax-16d/16e, WLAN-11a/11n/11ac.
OFDM is referred as multicarrier modulation. It uses multiple rf carrier signals at different frequencies
which sends some of the bits on each of the assigned channels. This seems to be similar to FDM
but in the case of OFDM, total subcarriers are divided into subchannels and these subchannels are
mapped to one single data/traffic source.

Merits of OFDM
SC-FDMA has merits as mentioned above. OFDM also has many advantages compare to SCFDMA.
Frequency selective fading will be able to affect few of the subchannels/subcarriers and not entire
band.
OFDM overcomes effect of ISI occuring mostly in multipath channel environment.

FDM vs OFDM - Difference between FDM and OFDM

This page describes difference between FDM and OFDM techniques.
FDM stands for Frequency Division Multiplexing and OFDM stands for Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing.

As shown in the figure in FDM systems carriers are far apart with respect to each other and in
OFDM systems carriers are densely packed and are orthogonal to the other carriers. Orthogonal
means peak of one carrier occurs at null of the other. Hence OFDM system is bandwidth efficient
compare to FDM system. In FDM system carriers are not orthogonal.

OFDM system usually will have more Peak to Average Power ration i.e. PAPR compare to FDM
system. PAPR can be reduced by use of scrambler module and other techniques in OFDM systems.
OFDM system provides higher data rate compare to FDM system in the same bandwidth usage.
FDM systems are used in radio, satellite communications requiring good amount of guard bands
between adjacent frequency bands. OFDM systems are used in wimax-16d/16e, wlan-11g/11n and
LTE technologies requiring higher data rate and mainly used for broadband internet service.
In OFDM systems multipath interference is more compare to FDM systems but can be
avoided/reduced using high end algorithms such as cyclic prefix insertion etc.
In FDM case entire bandwidth is used by user/subscriber, while in OFDM bandwidth is divided into
many narrow band channels and each is allocated to user/subscriber. Hence OFDM supports more
subscribers/channels compare to FDM.
If one wants to understand difference between FDM and OFDM, it requires wast knowledge on
carrier multiplexing techniques for optimal utilization of scarce frequency resoures.

Basics of LTE Technology

LTE tutorial-Page2
This tutorial on LTE covers following topics.

Introduction:
LTE is the next generation of technology which is backword compatible with cellular technologies
such as HSPA,GSM,CDMA etc. LTE means Long Term Evolution.LTE which is known as 4G
technology is being specified in Release 8 and 9 of the 3GPP standard. Release 10 is referred as
LTE-Advanced. The LTE radio transmission and reception specifications are documented in TS
36.101 for the UE ( User Equipment) and TS 36.104 for the eNB (Evolved Node B). Downlink and
uplink transmission in LTE are based on the use of multiple access technologies: specifically,
orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) for the downlink, and single-carrier
frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) for the uplink. The work on the specifications is
ongoing, and many of the technical documents are updated quarterly. The latest versions of the 36series documents can be found at http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/specs/archive/36_series/ LTE Physical
layer is described in TS36.211 and TS36.212 releases. 36.211 mentions physical channels and
modulation while 36.212 mentions multiplexing and channel coding.

LTE system basic parameters and LTE Frame structure:

Frame Size=10ms
No. of slots=20.
No of Slots per Sub frame =2.
Slot duration=0.5 ms
Sub frame duration=1 ms
Basic time unit Ts for BW of 20MHz, (1/15000)*2048 seconds equal to 32.55ns.
There are two types of frames in LTE;FDD and TDD. Type 1, applicable to FDD- Here there are total
20 slots, each is 0.5ms. 2 slots constitute 1 sub frame. Total Frame duration is 10ms.

Type 2, applicable to TDD- Here there are 10 sub frames, each is 1 ms,sub frame 0 and 5 are
dedicated for downlink always while sub frames 1 and 6 are dedicated for control frame.Sub frames
2, 3, 4 and 7, 8, 9 depend on UL/DL configuration table defined in the standard.Frame has switch
point periodicity of 5 ms.

LTE Features
The key features of LTE physical layer are mentioned below.
Channel Bandwidth: 1.4/3/5/10/15/20 MHz
FFT size : 128/256/512/1024/1536/2048
Cyclic Prefix : Normal, Extended
DL multiple access: OFDMA
UL multiple access: SC-FDMA
Duplexing :FDD & TDD
Subcarrier mapping: Localized
Subcarrier hopping: Yes
Data Modulation : QPSK/16QAM/64QAM
Subcarrier spacing: 15KHz
Channel Coding : convolutional coding and turbo coding
MIMO :2 or 4 at transmit and 2 or 4 at receive side
HARQ :incremental redundancy
LTE EARFCN stands for E-UTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number. The page describes
LTE EARFCN equation and table for calculation of downlink EARFCN(N DL) and uplink
EARFCN(NUL). It provides link to LTE EARFCN calculator which is very useful for LTE EARFCN to
frequency and vice versa conversion.
EARFCN number is within range 0 to 65535 and equation between LTE carrier frequency(MHz) and
EARFCN is mentioned below.

LTE EARFCN Equation

Fdownlink = FDL_Low + 0.1 (NDL - NDL_Offset)
Fuplink = FUL_Low + 0.1 (NUL - NUL_Offset)
Where,
NDL is downlink EARFCN
NUL is uplink EARFCN
NDL_Offset is offset used to calculate downlink EARFCN
NUL_Offset is offset used to calculate uplink EARFCN

LTE Tutorial-Page7
This tutorial on LTE covers LTE frame structure.

LTE Frame structure

The LTE frame structure are of two types based on topology either FDD orTDD. Total Frame
duration is about 10ms. There are total 10 subframes in a frame. Each subframe composed of 2 time
slots.

Type 1, LTE frame structure is applicable to FDD system. As shown in the figure below, an LTE TDD
frame is made of total 20 slots, each of 0.5ms. Two consecutive time slots will form one subframe.
10 such subframes form one radio frame. One subframe duration is about 1 ms. Hence LTE radio
frame will have duration of about 10ms. Each radio frame will have 307200 Ts. Where in one Ts
equals 1/(15000 x 2048) seconds.

Type 2, LTE frame structure is application to TDD system. As shown in the figure, here radio frame
composed of two half frames, each of 5ms duration resulting in total frame duration of about 10ms.
Each radio frame will have total 10 subframes,each subframe will have 2 time slots. subframe
configuration is based on Uplink downlink configuration(0 to 6). Usually in all the cases, subframe #0
and subframe#5 is always used by downlink. The Special subframe carry DwPTS(Downlink Pilot
Time Slot),GP(Guard Period) and UpPTS(Uplink Pilot Time Slot). For the 5ms DL to UL switch point
periodicity case, SS(Special subframe ) exists in both the half frames. For the 10ms DL to UL switch
point periodicity case, SS exists only in first half frame.

DL to UL configuration which determines what goes in all the subframes is mentioned below in the
table.

LTE Tutorial-Page10
This tutorial on LTE covers LTE channels.
LTE technology works based on three channel types viz. logical channel,transport
channel and physical channels. These channels are used by lower layers to provide services to
the upper layers.
The access points to the Layer L2/L3 are transport channels. They get mapped to physical channels.
These physical channels will have different modulation-code rate as mentioned below and are
exclusively used by LTE PHYSICAL Layer to carry upper layer information.

LTE Logical,Transport and Physical channels

Following figure mentions LTE logical channels,transport channels and physical channels and
mapping between them.

As shown logical channels are of two types; one carrying control information and the other carrying
traffic informtion. These gets mapped to transport channels as depicted in the figure.

Physical Channels
PDSCH - Stands for Physical Downlink Shared Channel, mainly used to carry high speed
data/multimedia information. Can be either QPSK/16QAM/64QAM.
PDCCH - Stands for Physical Downlink Control Channel, mainly used to carry UE specific control
information. It will have QPSK modulation used.It is mapped on resource elements(REs) in first 3
OFDM syms(symbols) in first slot of subframe.
CCPCH - Stands for Common Control Physical Channel, carries cell-wide control information. QPSK
is used. CCPCH is transmitted exclusively on 72 subcarriers centered around DC carrier.

Physical Signals

Physical signals do not convey L2/L3 layer information, but mainly used for synchronization and
channel estimation purpose. RS is used for estimating channel response. P-SS and S-SS
synchronization signals used for determining network frame timing information i.e. start of the
information.

Transport Channels
Downlink and Uplink transport channels carry L2/L3 information.
It also configures LTE PHY layer.
It sends status information such as packet error and CQI to upper layers.
Also supports peer-peer signaling between higher layers.
Based on broadcast,unicast or multicast concept different transport channels exist. Downlink
channels include BCH(broadcast channel),DL-SCH(downlink shared channel, to multiple mobile
subscribers or UEs),PCH(paging channel, used for UE DRX and broadcasted over entire cell
),MCH(multicast channel, transmitted over entire cell). Uplink channels include RACH(Random
Access Channel), UL-SCH(Uplink Shared Channel).
Uplink PRBs(Physical Resource Blocks) are assigned to UE by eNodeB scheduler. PUSCH is used
and shared by multiple UEs to carry upper layer information towards eNodeB. It will employ
QPSK/16QAM/64QAM modulation types.
his page covers LTE timers which include T300, T301, T303, T304, T305, T310, T311, T320 and
T321.

LTE
Timers
T300

T301

T303

T304

T305

Function at Start/Stop/Expiry
>>Starts at the RRC connection REQ transmit
>>Stops at the Receipt of RRC connection setup or reject message OR at the cell
reselection time OR upon abortion of connection establishment by Higher layers (L2/L3).
>>At the expiry performs the actions
>>Starts at the RRC Connection Re-establishment REQUEST
>>Stops at the Receipt of RRC Connection Re-establishment OR
RRC Connection Re-Establishment REJECT message OR
When selected cell becomes unsuitable to continue further
>>At expiry, it Go to RRC_IDLE mode
>>Starts when access is barred while performing RRC CONNECTION ESTABLISHMENT
for MO(Mobile Originating) calls
>>Stops while entering RRC_CONNECTED and upon cell re-selection mode
>>At expiry, Informs higher layers about barring alleviation
>>Starts at the Receipt of RRC CONNECTION RECONFIGURATION message along with
Mobility Control Info OR at the receipt of mobility from EUTRA command message
including CELL CHANGE ORDER
>>Stops at the successful completion of HANDOVER to EUTRA or CELL CHANGE
ORDER is met
>>At expiry, it performs action based on need.
1. In the case of CELL CHANGE ORDER from E-UTRA OR intra E-UTRA handover,
initiate the RRC connection re-establishment procedure.
2. In case of HANDOVER to E-UTRA, perform the actions defined as per the specifications
applicable for the source RAT.
>>starts when access is barred while performing RRC CONNECTION ESTABLISHMENT
for MO signaling

T310

T311

T320

T321

>>Stops when entering RRC_CONNECTED and when UE does cell re-selection

>> At expiry, Informs higher layers about barring alleviation
>>Starts when UE detects PHY layer related problems (when it receives N310 consecutive
out-of-sync INDs from lower layers)
>>Stops 1. When UE receives N311 consecutive in-sync INDs from lower layers/
2. Upon triggering the HANDOVER procedure
3. Upon initiating the CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHMENT procedure
>> At expiry, if security is not activated it goes to RRC IDLE else it initiates the
CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHMENT Procedure
>>Starts while initiating RRC CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHMENT procedure
>>stops upon selection of suitable E-UTRA cell OR a cell using another RAT
>>At expiry it enters RRC IDLE state
>> Starts upon receipt of t320 or upon cell re- selection to E-UTRA from another RAT with
validity time configured for dedicated priorities (in which case the remaining validity time is
applied).
>>Stops upon entering RRC_CONNECTED state, when PLMN selection is performed on
request by NAS OR upon cell re-selection to another RAT
>> At expiry, it discards the cell re-selection priority info provided by dedicated signaling
>>starts upon receipt of measConfig including a reportConfig with the purpose set
to reportCGI
>> Stops at either of following cases:
1. Upon acquiring the information needed to set all fields of globalCellIdfor the requested
cell
2. upon receipt of measConfig that includes removal of thereportConfig with the purpose
set to reportCGI
>> At expiry initiates the measurement reporting procedure, stop performing the related
measurements and remove the correspondingmeasID

LTE Tutorial-Page8
This tutorial on LTE physical layer for both UE and eNodeB.

LTE Physical Layer

Block schematic of PHY layer eNodeB Transmitter:
Following diagram depicts LTE eNodeB physical layer modules. LTE eNodeB is similar to Base
station of other technologies such as Wimax,GSM etc. eNodeB Physical layer consists of Channel
coding,rate matching, scrambler,mapper, layer mapping,pre-coding,resource element mapper, ofdm
module. CRC is appended to the data from MAC layer before being passed through the PHY layer.

Let us understand LTE physical layer with example of downlink shared channel(DL-SCH). As shown
in the figure for eNodeB Transmitter upper layer data in the form of transport block is the input to the
physical layer.
At first the transport block is passed through a CRC encoder, we will use 24 bit CRC method. If the
number of bits is more than 6144 bits then it is broken into smaller blocks. It is then turbo coded.
Turbo coding is a form of concatenated coding, consisting of two convolutional encoders with certain
interleaving between them. Rate matching acts as rate coordinator between preceding and
succeeding blocks, it uses a buffer. Modulation used is QAM. It is then passed through a OFDM
modulator. The same is shown below in the DL-SCH channel processing figure.

CRC
A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is used for error detection in transport blocks. The entire transport
block is used to calculate the CRC parity bits. The transport block is divided by a cyclic generator
polynomial to generate 24 parity bits. These parity bits are then appended to the end of transport
block. The polynomial is as follows:
G(x)= x24 + x23 + x18 + x17 + x14 + x11 + x10 + x7 + x6 + x5 + x4 + x3 + x + 1
Segmentation and 2nd CRC: If the input block size is greater than 6144 bits, it is split in to smaller
blocks. Again CRC is performed and redundant parity bits are appended to each resulting smaller
block. Also, filler bits are added so the code block sizes match a set of valid block sizes input to
turbo code.

Turbo coding
The constituent encoders used are convolutional encoders. The input to the first constituent encoder
is the input bit stream to the turbo coding block. The input to the second constituent encoder is the
output of the QPP interleaver, a permutated version of the input sequence.

Rate Matching and modulation

The rate matching block creates an output bit stream with a desired code rate. The rate matching
algorithm is capable of producing any arbitrary rate. The bit streams from the turbo encoder are
interleaved followed by bit collection to create a circular buffer. Bits are selected and pruned from the
buffer to create an output bit stream with the desired code rate.

Physical Channels: Actual Transmission

Each physical channel corresponds to a set of resource elements in the time-frequency grid that
carry information from higher layers. The basic entities that make a physical channel are resource
elements and resource blocks. A resource element is a single subcarrier over 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. The transport channels need to be mapped in to actual
physical channels.
PDSCH channel carries user data originating from the higher layer. It is associated to DL-SCH. It
has various steps involved in it, such as scrambling, modulation mapper, layer mapper, precoding,
resource mapping, and OFDM modulation.

As shown in figure, Scrambling Produces a block of scrambled bits from the input bits according to
the relation given by the equation.
b^=b+c mod 2
Where b^ denotes the scrambled bits, b denotes the input bits, c denotes the scrambling sequence.
Modulation Maps the bit values of input to complex modulation symbols with the modulation scheme
specified. There are three modulation schemes for the PDSCH: QPSK (Quadrature phase shift
keying), 16QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) and 64QAM (Quadrature Amplitude
Modulation). Layer mapper splits the data sequence in to a number of layers. Precoding is used for
transmission in multi-antenna wireless communications. In conventional single-stream beam
forming, the same signal is emitted from each of the transmit antennas with appropriate weighting
(phase and gain) such that the signal power is maximized at the receiver output. The resourcemapping block maps the actual data symbols, reference signal symbols and control information
symbols into a certain resource element in the resource grid.

Block schematic of PHY layer User Equipment (UE):

Following diagram depicts LTE User Equipment(UE) physical layer modules. LTE UE is similar to
subscriber station of other technologies such as Wimax,GSM etc. It consists of channel coding,rate
matching,scrambler,mapper,transform precoder, resource element mapper and SC-FDMA. CRC is
appended to the data before passed to the PHY.

VoLTE tutorial-Voice Over LTE basics and types

This VoLTE tutorial covers VoLTE (Voice Over LTE) basics, types of VoLTE which include VoLTE
using IMS(VOIP) and VoLTE using CSFB(SRVCC).
LTE is all IP based network and mainly designed for internet/data applications. Hence to support
voice over LTE there are two options. The first is using VOIP(voice vover IP) with the help of IMS(IP
Multimedia system) and the the second one is using legacy 2G/3G Circuit Switched Fall
Back(CSFB) with the concept called SRVCC. We will see below how these works.

VoLTE using IMS(VOIP)

As shown in the figure above in LTE called EUTRAN comprised of more than one eNodeB. eNodeB
in LTE has functionalities of RNC and NodeB of 3G. MME,S-GW,HSS and P-GW will form
EPC(Evolved Packet Core). eNodeBs and EPC form EPS(Evolved Packet System). LTE supports
voice call using VOIP using IMS. If it is VOIP to VOIP call, it will remain within LTE network and
supported using VOIP protocols. But if it is VOIP to CS call for GSM/WCDMA network, IMS with the
help of application servers and legacy MSC transfers the PS call to legacy networks (2GGERAN/3G-UTRAN). If it is VOIP to PSTN call, IMS directs through PSTN interface to respective
exchanges.

VoLTE using 2G/3G CSFB(using SRVCC)

When UE moves from LTE network to say legacy networks(GSM/WCDMA), based on measurement
report submitted by UE handover is performed and tranfer of Voice over IP call to legacy voice call is
performed . This to happens UE should support SRVCC. SRVCC stands for Single Radio Voice Call
Continuity. It means UE will be connected with sigle radio at a time and hence one single RAT(either
LTE or GSM or WCDMA). Hence battery life becomes longer here with SRVCC capable UE.

Useful Links
Other than this volte tutorial, refer wireless tutorials on various IEEE and 3gpp standards with links
mentioned on left side panel.

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.

Automatic Neighbour Relation (ANR)

in ANR, wiki, LTE

Manually provisioning and managing neighbor cells in traditional mobile network is challenging task
and it becomes more difficult as new mobile technologies are being rolled out while 2G/3G cells
already exist. For LTE, task becomes challenging for operators, as in addition of defining intra LTE

neighbour relations for eNBs operator has to provision neighboring 2G, 3G, CDMA2000 cells as
well.
According to 3GPP specifications, the purpose of the Automatic Neighbour Relation (ANR)
functionality is to relieve the operator from the burden of manually managing Neighbor Relations
(NRs). This feature would operators effort to provision
Figure below shows ANR and its environment as per 3GPP. It shows interaction between eNB and
O&M due to ANR.

The ANR function resides in the eNB and manages the conceptual Neighbour Relation Table (NRT).
Located within ANR, the Neighbour Detection Function finds new neighbours and adds them to the
NRT. ANR also contains the Neighbour Removal Function which removes outdated NRs. The
Neighbour Detection Function and the Neighbour Removal Function are implementation specific.

An existing Neighbour cell Relation (NR) from a source cell to a target cell means that eNB
controlling the source cell knows the ECGI/CGI and Physical Cell Identifier (PCI) of the target cell
and has an entry in the NRT for the source cell identifying the target cell.
For each cell that the eNB has, the eNB keeps a NRT. For each NR, the NRT contains the Target
Cell Identifier (TCI), which identifies the target cell. For E-UTRAN, the TCI corresponds to the EUTAN Cell Global Identifier (ECGI) and Physical Cell Identifier (PCI) of the target cell.
The ANR function relies on cells broadcasting their identity on global level, E-UTRAN Cell Global
Identifier (ECGI) and allows O&M to manage the NRT. O&M can add and delete NRs. It can also
change the attributes of the NRT. The O&M system is informed about changes in the NRT.
Intra-LTE/frequency ANR:
The eNB serving cell with ANR function, instructs each UE to perform measurements on neighbor
cells, as a part of the normal call procedure. The eNB may use different policies for instructing the
UE to do measurements, and when to report them to the eNB.
When UE discovers new cells ECGI, the UE reports the detected ECGI to the serving cell eNB.
In addition the UE reports the tracking area code and all PLMN IDs that have been detected. The
eNB adds this neighbour relation to NRT.
Inter-RAT/Inter-frequency ANR:
The eNB serving cell with ANR function can instruct a UE to perform measurements and detect cells
on other RATs/frequencies .during connected mode. The eNB may use different policies for
instructing the UE to do measurements, and when to report them to the eNB.
The UE reports the PCI of the detected cells in the target RATs/frequencies. When the eNB receives
UE reports containing PCIs of cell(s), eNB may instruct the UE to read the CGI and the RAC of the
detected neighbour cell in case of GERAN detected cells and CGI, LAC and, RAC in case of UTRAN
detected cells. For the Interfrequency case, the eNB may instruct the UE to read the ECGI, TAC and
all available PLMN ID(s) of the inter-frequency detected cell.
The eNB updates its inter-RAT/inter-frequency Neighbour Relation Table after receiving relevant info
from UE.