Module 5
Overview and Channel Structure of
LTE
• The Long-Term Evolution (LTE) project in 3GPP focuses on
enhancing the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA)—the 3G
RAN developed within 3GPP, and on optimizing 3GPP’s overall
radio access architecture.
• Another parallel project in 3GPP is the Evolved Packet Core (EPC),
which focuses on the CN evolution with a flatter all-IP,
packet-based architecture.
• The complete packet system consisting of LTE and EPC is called
the Evolved Packet System (EPS).
• LTE is also referred to as Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access
(E-UTRA), and the RAN of LTE is also referred to as Evolved
UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN).
• The radio interface of a wireless network is the interface between
the mobile terminal and the base station, and thus in the case of
LTE it is located between the RAN–E-UTRAN and the user
equipment.
• It is composed of only one logical node—the evolved Node-B
(eNode-B).
• Compared to the traditional Node-B, the eNode-B supports
additional features, such as radio resource control, admission
control, and mobility management, which were originally
contained in the RNC.
• This simpler structure simplifies the network operation and
allows for higher throughput and lower latency over the radio
interface.
Introduction to LTE
Design Principles:
1. Network Architecture:
•LTE was designed to support packet-switched traffic with support
for various QoS classes of services.
•LTE is different in the sense that it is a clean slate design and
supports packet switching for high data rate services from the
start.
•The LTE radio access network, E-UTRAN, was designed to have
the minimum number of interfaces (i.e., the minimum number of
network elements) while still being able to provide efficient
packet-switched transport for traffic belonging to all the QoS
classes such as conversational, streaming, real-time,
non-real-time, and background classes.
2. Data Rate and Latency:
• The design target for downlink and uplink peak data rates for
LTE are 100 Mbps and 50 Mbps, respectively, when operating
at the 20MHz frequency division duplex (FDD) channel size.
• The target for one-way latency in the user plane is 5 ms in an
unloaded network, that is, if only a single UE is present in the
cell.
• For the control-plane latency, the transition time from a
camped state to an active state is less than 100 ms, while the
transition time between a dormant state and an active state
should be less than 50 ms.
3. Performance Requirements:
The target performance requirements for LTE are specified in
terms of spectrum efficiency, mobility, and coverage.
Spectrum Efficiency:
• The average downlink user data rate and spectrum efficiency target
is three to four times that of the baseline HSDPA network.
• Similarly, in the uplink the average user data rate and spectrum
efficiency target is two to three times that of the baseline HSUPA
network.
• The cell edge throughput, measured as the 5th percentile
throughput, should be two to three times that of the baseline
HSDPA and HSUPA.
Mobility:
• The mobility requirement for LTE is to be able to support hand
off/mobility at different terminal speeds.
• Maximum performance is expected for the lower terminal speeds of
0 to 15 km/hr, with minor degradation in performance at higher
mobile speeds up to 120 km/hr.
• LTE is also expected to be able to sustain a connection for terminal
speeds up to 350 km/hr but with significant degradation in the
system performance
Coverage:
• For the cell coverage, the above performance targets should be met
up to 5 km.
• For cell ranges up to 30 km, a slight degradation of the user
throughput is tolerated and a more significant degradation for
spectrum efficiency is acceptable, but the mobility requirements
should be met.
• Cell ranges up to 100 km should not be precluded by the
specifications.
MBMS Service:
• LTE should also provide enhanced support for the Multi media
Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) compared to UTRA
operation.
4. Radio Resource Management:
• The radio resource management requirements cover various aspects
such as enhanced support for end-to-end QoS, efficient support for
transmission of higher layers, and support for load
sharing/balancing and policy management/enforcement across
different radio access technologies.
5. Deployment Scenario and Co-existence with 3G:
• Standalone deployment scenario, where the operator deploys LTE
either with no previous network deployed in the area or with no
requirement for interworking with the existing UTRAN/GERAN
(GSM EDGE radio access network) networks.
• Integrating with existing UTRAN and/or GERAN deployment
scenario, where the operator already has either a UTRAN and/or a
GERAN network deployed with full or partial coverage in the same
geographical area.
6. Flexibility of Spectrum and Deployment:
• LTE was designed to be operable under a wide variety of spectrum
scenarios, including its ability to coexist and share spectrum with
existing 3G technologies.
• Service providers in different geographical regions often have
different spectrums in terms of the carrier frequency and total
available bandwidth, which is why LTE was designed to have a
scalable bandwidth from 1.4MHz to 20MHz.
• In order to accommodate flexible duplexing options, LTE was
designed to operate in both frequency division duplex (FDD) and
time division duplex (TDD) modes.
[Link] with 3G and 2G Networks:
• Multimode LTE terminals, which support UTRAN and/or
GERAN operation, should be able to support measurement of,
and handover from and to, both 3GPP UTRAN and 3GPP
GERAN systems with acceptable terminal complexity and
network performance.
Network Architecture
• The entire network is composed of the radio access network
(E-UTRAN) and the core network (EPC), both of which have
been defined as new components of the end-to-end network in
Release 8 of the 3GPP specifications.
The main components of the E-UTRAN and EPC are:
UE: The mobile terminal.
eNode-B:
•The eNode-B (also called the base station) terminates the air
interface protocol and is the first point of contact for the UE.
•The eNode-B is the only logical node in the E-UTRAN, so it
includes some functions such as radio bearer management, uplink
and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data
packet scheduling, and mobility management.
Mobility Management Entity (MME):
•It manages mobility aspects in 3GPP access such as gateway
selection and tracking area list management.
Serving Gateway (Serving GW):
•The Serving GW terminates the interface toward E-UTRAN, and routes
data packets between E-UTRAN and EPC.
•In addition, it is the local mobility anchor point for inter-eNode-B
handovers and also provides an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility.
• Other responsibilities include lawful intercept, charging, and some
policy enforcement.
•The Serving GW and the MME may be implemented in one physical
node or separate physical nodes.
Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW):
•The PDN GW terminates the SGi interface toward the Packet Data
Network (PDN).
•It routes data packets between the EPC and the external PDN, and is the
key node for policy enforcement and charging data collection.
• It also provides the anchor point for mobility with non-3GPP accesses.
•The external PDN can be any kind of IP network as well as the IP
Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) domain.
•The PDN GW and the Serving GW may be implemented in one
physical node or separated physical nodes.
S1 Interface:
• The S1 interface is the interface that separates the E-UTRAN and the
EPC.
•It is split into two parts: the S1-U, which carries traffic data between
the eNode-B and the Serving GW, and the S1-MME, which is a
signaling-only interface between the eNode-B and the MME.
X2 Interface:
•The X2 interface is the interface between eNode-Bs, consisting of two
parts:
•The X2-C is the control plane interface between eNode-Bs,
•The X2-U is the user plane interface between eNode-Bs.
•It is assumed that there always exists an X2 interface between
eNode-Bs that need to communicate with each other, for example, for
support of handover.