QoS in UMTS

Claudiu Chioariu
Helsinki University of Technology
Seminar on Internetworking 2004, T-110.551
claudiu_chioariu@yahoo.com

Abstract telecommunication specific technologies, services, and envi-

ronment collects new challenging problems, especially from
This paper sets out to explore the main challenges the end- the quality of service perspective. Further, this article intro-
to-end quality of service (QoS) poses to the third generation duces the quality of service as seen in the 3G context and
(3G) telecommunication architecture and their solutions. We explains the difference between the classic circuit switched
assume the reader has basic knowledge about the 3G archi- (CS) and the packet switched (PS) approaches. We will con-
tecture, however, the fundamental parts of the network will tinue by providing an overview of the IP and UMTS QoS
be shorly introduced in the context of this paper. We describe architecture and identifying the main challenges QoS puts
the requirements the telecommunication networks have to to the UMTS architecture. Identification of the main prob-
meet, identify the most important ones and present a criti- lems and their envisaged solutions is the core of our paper.
cal evaluation of the their solutions. A Critical approach! Finally, the conclusions are presented. What is the focus,
What the article does put here! KEYWORDS: UMTS release, where to put? Many UMTS releases (99,
4, 5, 6) appeared as the work to enhance UMTS continues.
UMTS architecture, as defined by 3GPP release 99, is based
on a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
1 Introduction
The digital cellular system, originating in Europe and now 1.1 What is QoS?
available for hundreds of millions of people around the
world, has enjoyed impressive growth in the past few years. Generally, Quality of Service (QoS) is the mechanism insur-
3G, a generic term used to describe the third generation ing that a service can be delivered to the end user in an ac-
of technology used in cellular telecommunication network ceptable time-frame and that the service properties are stable
comprises many communication systems and technologies. over time within predefined boundaries. More specifically,
Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS) is a [4] defines QoS a the total outcome of the service perfor-
network-wide standard for 3G based on Global System for mance, measured in terms of speed, accuracy and reliability.
Mobile (GSM) communication standard, which provides ac- From the network point of view QoS refers to the capabil-
cess to a wide range of services. Transport and access mech- ity to provide different network services to different network
anism assuring the services are more separated from the ser- traffic. Different services translate into different character-
vices themselves than in the previous generations thus giv- istics for the network flows, for example: bandwidth, error
ing UMTS a strong service orientation. On the other hand, ratio, delay and jitter (delay variation). As such, QoS does
the Internet has grown extremely fast, imposing a major not create additional network resource - it does not create
paradigm shift and pressuring the telecommunication net- additional bandwidth for example - but allow for the existing
works to adopt the technologies, architectures and services network resources to be managed in order to provide pre-
already present in the Internet. The current trend is to have dictable parameters for network resources
Internet Protocol (IP) as an intermediate layer for all the The traditional telecommunication networks (GSM) guar-
telecommunication services. With the IP establishment as antee a high and fixed QoS by using circuit switching for
the "de facto" transport protocol for future (UMTS and be- real-time applications, which consumes a lot of system ca-
yond) telecommunication networks, the drawbacks residing pacity. This is due to the fact that a link is reserved for the
in the architecture of IP propagaged too. The lack of QoS entire lifetime of a connection and the capacity is provided
has been an important handicap of IP whil used in Internet even for times where no data is transferred. On the other
because multiservice networks did not have the possibility to hand, packet switching allow for more efficient use of the
differentiate between the services at the network level. As a system capacity, user idle time and volume charging policy
consequence all the services were treated in the same way, [3]. Aslo in terms of packet-loss and packet-delay the packet
making, for example, time-constrained voice services to de- switching (PS) is the technology of choice over the radio in-
teriorate because network resource were allocated to e-mail terface [2]. Finally, packet switching allow for fast devel-
related packets which could endure far greater time-delays. opment of compelx services thus making the PS the main
Adding to the problem, the architecture of fixed Internet evolution area in the telecommunication field.
networs and wireless cellular telecommunication networks End-to-end QoS means that the evaluation of the service is
have traditionally been different and the need to integrate to done from the end-user perspective [5]. The end user could

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HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27





 


 

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Figure 1: End-to-end connectivity possibilities.

be a terminal or even another 3G network. The end-to-end

QoS UMTS requirement implies that QoS management is Figure 2: UTMS QoS Architecture
needed in all involed domains: wireless domain, IP core, ex-
ternal IP network. Additionally the interworking between
domains should be assured like depicted in the figure 1 [6]
here 1 here . ments along the path from the sender to the receiver in order
for the resource reservations to be made. IntServ provides an
Figure 1: End-to-end connectivity possibilities.
absolute QoS, admission control and per-flow statistics, but
Two Terminal Equipmemnt (TE) coud use just the wire-
scalability of the mechanism is a probem. IntServ identifies
less and UMTS domain to communicate, like in case [A],
three service categories:

or the external network domain could be involved, like in
case [B] . When the TEs are connected just by the means Guranteed Service which assures firm QoS
of UMTS network the UMTS QoS mechanism are enough.
However, in the second case the end-to-end quality depends
 Controller Load services which provides the equivalent
on UMTS network and external network QoS mechanisms of a best-effort service in a light loaded network
and on the interworking between them.  Datagram Service characterized by the absence of any
QoS level (the same best-effor tipe of service as tradi-
tional IP networks provide).
2 Overview of IP and UMTS Archi-
tecture 2.2 UMTS QoS architecture
From a QoS point of view the UMTS is a network of ser-
2.1 DiffServ and IntServ vices. As defined by Third Generation Partnership Project
As a best-effort delivery service with no guarantee for in- (3GPP) UMTS relies on a layered Bearer Service (BS) ar-
dividual packets, IP does not offer any qualities guarantees chitecture, where each layer is using the services of the lay-
for the applications. Differentiated Services (DiffServ) [7] ers below while providing its services to the layers above, as
is an IP-based QoS technology which attempts to solve the shown in the bearer architecture diagram of Figure. 2 . Ac-
QoS problems without making any resource reservation for cording to [9], a bearer service is a service which provides
flow establishment and maintenance. The control is based the capability for data transmission between user-network
on DiffServ Code Point (DSCP) which is contained in the IP access points. Each bearer service is defined using its QoS
header. The DiffServ aware routers perform traffic differen- parameters, which define such things as traffic type, bit rates,
tiation according to the DSCPs of the received packets. Diff- error ratio.
Serv routers are not required to keep any state information Network elements introduction
about the traffic flows, different flows with the same DSCP The entities involved the the UMTS packet data architec-
value are treated in the same way. ture which provide QoS services are the following:
The main advantage of the DiffServ architecture is its sim-  The User Equipment (UE) is the UMTS terminal. Mo-
plicity. On the other hand, as all the flows with the same bile Terminal (Mobile Terminal) and Terminal Equip-
DSCP value are seen as a single flow with an unique per-hop ment (TE) are the functional blocks of the UE. MT is
behavior (PHB) DiffServ provides just relative QoS, in the the part which interfaces with the wireless domain, be-
sense that that the QoS for one flow depends on the behav- ing responsible for handling of radio signals. TE pro-
ior of other flows. Integrated Services (IntServ) architecture vides the user interaface and the application.
[8], on the other hand, conveys the application requirements
to the network elements which have to contain QoS mecha-  The Radio Access Network (RAN) provides the in-
nisms to insure the promised QoS level. For resource reser- terface to the core network and can be composed of
vation a signaling protocol is used, usually Resource Reser- Base Stations (the UMTS evolution of the GSM Bast
vation Protocol (RSVP), which transports the QoS require- Transceiver Station) and the Radio Network Controllers

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HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking
(the UMTS evolution of the GSM Base Station Con-
troller). The BSs task is to transmit data over the radio
interface to and from the MT and to interface with the
RNCs.
 The Core Network Edge Node (CN Edge Node) pro-
vides the interface between the RAN and the packet
switched core assuring session and mobility manage-
ment.
 The CN Gateway connect the PS core network to ex-
ternal networks. It maintains the routing information
necessary to tunnel the packet data between the net-
works, has mostly functions typicall for gateways in IP
networks.
After a UE has attached to the UMTS network (attaching
procedure is out of the scope of this paper) a Packet Data
Protocol (PDP) context shoud be activated by the UE in or-
der to send or receive data. Successful activation starts the
establishment of a data session and QoS management pro-
cedures in the UE and the CN EdgeNode and CNGateway
network as well .The PDP context contains the QoS parame-
ters for the connection between the UE and the CN Gateway.
In UMTS Rel. 5 it is possible to control the QoS of a com-
bined set of IP flows using an interface between CN Gateway
and a Policy Control Function entity [5]. After a first PDP
context was established a "secondary" PDP context could be
created in relation with the first one, and using a newly cre-
ated Radio Access Bearer. More, the Rel 5 allows UE, CN
Edge Node and CN Gateway modification and deactivation
of the PDP context [12].
Bearers introduction
The upper layer end-to-end application service itself is
seen as a Bearer Service (BS), with service source and ser-
vice destination (the end users). In the UMTS model the end-
to-end service is built upon three services: local BS, UMTS
BS service and the external BS. Local BS translates between
the end-user service attributes in TE and MT. As it is out
of the scope of the UMTS network this bearer is not cov-
ered by the standards, neither by this paper. UMTS BS is
the provider of the services that the UMTS network offers.
It covers the RAN and the CN domain. UMTS BS has con-
trol plane and user plane functions. In the control plane dif-
ferent BS manages handle the establishment, modification
and maintenance of the services. The user plane functions
comprise user and signaling data traffic maintenance as de-
fined by the QoS attributes. External BS maps the UMTS
bearer service to the QoS attributes of the external network
service. The latter could be, for example, another UMTS
bearer service or the Internet best-effor service. UMTS BS
uses two other lower level services: Radio Access BS and
Core Network BS. The first one provides confidential trans-
port of signaling and user data between the MT and the CN
Edge Node [5] either with the QoS htat corresponds to the
one the UMTS BS has negotiated, or with the default QoS for
signaling. RA BS abstracts the RAN to a service with cer-
tain QoS attributes. It controls the Radio BS which abstracts
the radio interface services and the RAN Access BS which
provides transport services with different QoS between RAN
and CN Edge Node.
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Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27
3 UMTS QoS Requirements
3.1 UMTS QoS Requirements analysis
The UMTS QoS general requirements, as introduced by [4],
define the constraints the set of attributes characterizing the
QoS should meet.
 QoS attributes negotiation between UE and UMTS CN
Gateway node should be possible as well as renegoti-
ating the QoS for active sessions. The UE and 3G CN
Gateway node should be able to indicate the QoS prop-
erties to the application layer
 Interoperability with previous existing QoS schemes
should be assured. The overall complexity generated
by the QoS mechansisms should be low.
 Mapping between the application QoS attributes and
the UMTS services should be done by the UMTS QoS
mechanisms.
 The QoS mechanisms should assure different levels of
QoS using the UMTS mechanisms independent of QoS
mechanisms of other networks.
 It should be possible to have different QoS attributes for
multiple streams of a session. [10] A session is consid-
ered to be a progression of events devoted to a particu-
lar activity. A stream provided to a session is a distinct
service with its own QoS attributes. For example, for
a given session. Simultaneous voice and data transfer
should be possible, and each of the different streams
should be provided with diffrenet QoS.
 Asymmetric bearers (with different QoS for uplink and
downlink) should be supported.
In order to better control the QoS mechanisms, 3GPP de-
mands application traffic differentiation into a finite num-
ber of profiles (four), named classes. The differentiation is
mainly done considering the delay sensitiveness of the infor-
mation to be carried [5]:
1. Conversational Class: provides as its name implies con-
versational services. They comprise real-time symmet-
ric services as voice over IP or videotelephon. Hu-
man perception of the maximum transfer delay defines
the characteristics of this traffic class. Suggestions ex-
ist [12] for a fixed resource allocation in the network
for Conversational Class services. Codec negotiation is
also important, as usage of different codecs by the two
peers will involve time-consuming transcoding [13]. A
codec is an entity used for compressing a specific type
of information (audio, video) into a smaller number of
bits and subsequent retrieval of the original information
with the purpose of raising the efficiency of the trans-
mission.
2. Streamig Class: Comprise typically one-way real-time
services used by a human destination. Examples of this
services include video downloading, news stream, web-
radio. For this services low delay is not a stringent re-
quirement due to application level buffering in UE and
HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27

UTRAN. The buffering offers to the end user the ap-

pearance of a real-time service. Codec usage needs to
be negotiated as for the Conversational class.

3. Interactive Class: Provides an asymmetric non real-

time service with more capacity for the downlink than
for the uplink. Interactive Web, database retrieval, are
examples of interactive services. If packet error hap-
pens the retransmission increases the delay thus dimin-
ishing the QoS; low bit error rate is essential for this
! " #
class.

4. Background Class: Background class services are char-

acterized by the fact that the destination is not expect-
Figure 3: UMTS bearer attributes defined for each bearer
ing the data to arrive within a certain time. Examples
traffic class
of this services include the background delivery of e-
mails, files, SMS. This class requires to that the packets
should be transmitted with a low bit error rate.
descriptor" optimizes the service provided to source with sta-
As described by [14] the main challenges that the UMTS tistical properties, like conversational speech. Signalling in-
QoS architecture has to overcome are (more, we synthesized, dication flags control traffic SDUs in order to perimit higher
merge bullets): priority for control plan application traffic. The other param-
 Translation parameters and mechanisms - Service dif-
eters are considered self-explanatory.
The mapping of the UMTS Bearer Service Attributes to
ferentiation based on a set of traffic classes needs a sim- the Radio Access Bearer Service Attributes is straight for-
ple and reliable translation mechanism between the dif- ward. Some of the UMTS Bearer Service parameters have
ferent domains involved [figure 1]. the same value for the Radio Access Bearer, for example the
 "maximum bit rate", "delivery order", "maximum SDU size"
UMTS QoS Management - The network should be and other have different values, for example "SDU error ra-
monitored and managed to assure the implementation tion", "transfer delay". The parameters which have the same
of the user agreements. Negotiation and modification value describe the service independently of the network ele-
of the QoS available from the network should be possi- ment element positioning, there are more generic in nature.
ble. The parameters which are different are typically evaluated
having the access points as references, and consequently are
End-to-end QoS has two dimensions: a vertical one which
additive. The UMTS Bearer Service SDU error ration repre-
referrs to the mapping of high level bearer service attributes
sents the fraction of the lost or erroneous SDUs between the
into lower level bearer service parameters and a horizontal
MT and CNGateway, and is naturally the sum of the SDU er-
one which implies translation of the QoS attributes and QoS
ror ratios exhibited by the Radio Access Bearer Service and
management mechanism between the domains.
the CN Bearer Service. The "Transfer delay" is also relative
In the context of vertical mapping the paper describes the
to the access point at which is measures, an consequently its
UMTS Bearer Service attributes and reports the extent to
value differs when mapping from the UMTS BS to the lower
which the standards elucidate the mapping towards the un-
layers.
derlying bearer services. We will explore proposed mecha-
While, as described before, the Radio Access Bearer Ser-
nisms to map the UMTS service classes to attributes typical
vice attributes are well specified the mapping to the Radio
for IP based bearer services. (stress in the beginning that
Bearer Service is declared [5] to be a task of Radio Ac-
the focus is on IP, not ATM, not Frame Relay). Horizontal
cess Network Work(ing?) Group Two, but no information
mapping will be illustrated with examples, underlying the
about the specification which defines the Radio Bearer Ser-
UTMS network functional requirements and the means they
vice parameters is provided. However, [15] defines a number
could be fulfilled.
of (radio ) "configurations" which describe the RadioBearer
Attributes, for example maxDat - the number of retransmis-
3.2 Vertical Mapping sion after which a SDU will be discarded, inSequenceDeliv-
ery, receivingWindowSize. The configurations provide for
Figure 3. 3 presents the UMTS Bearer Service parameters foundation for RadioAccessBearer Service parameters con-
for each class. The traffic class is itself an attribute [5]. trol. As such, 3gpp does not describe the mapping between
Table 3: UMTS bearer service attributes defined for each the param.
bearer traffic class The attributes for RAN Access Bearer Service and Core
Service Data Unit (SDU) represents the payload of user Network Bearer Service are not listed, as they depend on
data and the "Delivery order" specifies if the UMTS bearer the transport technology . The operator has the choice of
has to deliver the SDUs in order or not. The Alloca- transport technology and the mapping mechanism. For IP
tion/Retention priority is used to distinguish between bear- RAN Access and CoreNetwork bearer services 3gp man-
ers when allocating or retaining resources. "Source statistics dates the usage of DiffServ as defined by IETF. The map-

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HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking
ping is controlled by the operator as it depends on the re-
source provisioning among different DiffServ classes. The
freedom left to to the operators in mapping the attributes of
the above bearer attributes is justified by the fact that the op-
erators have complete control over their network, and usu-
ally the CNEdge Node and the wired part of the RAN typi-
cally belong to the same operator. However, if this is not the
case then DiffServ semantics should solve the interoperabil-
ity challenges.
3.3 Network level QoS Translation manage-
ment on the wireless interface
Service differentiation based on a set of traffic classes needs
a simple and reliable translation mechanism between the
different domains involved (picture 1) : wireless domain,
UMTS network, external IP network. We will further fo-
cus on the domain integration points: the wireless inteface
and the interface to external IP network.(THIS SHOULD BE
PUT AT THE BEGINNING)
As explained in clause 4.1 due to the mapping of Ra-
dio Access Bearer Service parameters and those of the Ra-
dio Bearer Service (explain that in 4.1) there should be no
translation problems between low-level bearers. The map-
ping from of application layer parameters to the IP Bearer
Service parameters is application dependent. UE Translator
entity translates the IP QoS attributes into PDP Context pa-
rameters.
While the radio interface does not raise translation con-
cerns, its particularities put pressure on the protocol stack
architecture. Feng and Song [17] consider the efficiency of
the Transmission Control Protocl (TCP) over the wireless in-
terface the main bottleneck in assuring high end-to-end QoS.
They list limited bandwith, long round trip time, high error
rate and the bursty nature of the errors as influencing the TCP
performance over the wireless connections. [17] focuses on
the TE/MT Local Bearer Service, which is out of the scope
of this paper as stated (Where?), and TCP protocol. How-
ever, the problems TCP encounters will unavoidably propa-
gate to the protocol which has to perform the transmission
layer functionality. As fundamental properties of the radio
interface generate this problems, they will show up on the
interface between the UE and the UTRAN too.
The solution that Feng [17] discusses is a link-layer (LL)
correction mechanism. The LL has direct access to the phys-
ical layer protocol thus allowing for faster response time than
higher level protocols. However [19] has shown that tranport
layer protocols unware of the link layer protocol could result
in complicated interaction which could decrease the overall
performance. Wireless TCP (WTCP) is proposed in [20] as
a protocol to run on the base station (BS) which achieves
better thoughput than standard TCP.
The author thinks that whaterver LL and TL protocols
where used over the wireless interface between the UE and
the RAN,the radio interface characteristic asks for a protcol
stack with LL capabilities properties and TL aware LL pro-
tocol. Translation of WTCP algorithsm to the procol stack
used over the MT to RAN interface should improve the over-
all performance exhibited by the TL.
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Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27
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Figure 4: Qos Management functions for UMTS bearer ser-
vice in the control plane. Each BS Manger controlls the cor-
responding Bearer Service properties
3.4 Network level QoS Translation manage-
ment on the external network interface
[5] does not elaborate the External Bearer Service due to the
diversity of external networks to which the UMTS network
should be able to connect. Instead, it provides ([16], [5] a
functional architecture for the QoS management functions
of the network entities. Inteworking requires interworking
between the QoS UMTS mechanisms and the one of the ex-
ternal IP network, typicall based on IntServ of DiffServ ar-
chitecture.
FIGURE 5. QoS management functions for UMTS bearer
service in the control plane (picture should be modified).
Each BS Manager controls the corresponding Bearer Service
properties.
Further we describe the control procedures necessary to
assure an application QoS. In the UE the application layer re-
quirements are translated into the IP Bearer Service require-
ments by using application specifig mechanisms which are
out of the scope of this paper. By using the Translation func-
tion the IP BS Manager transates the IP specific QoS mecha-
nisms into the the PDPContext properties. By using the ser-
vice of the underlying bearer service managers the UMTS
BS Manager sends the PDPContex request to the UMTS BS
Manager serving the Gateway. As the external network is
an IP based network the PDPContext information is trans-
lated back into the IP Bearer Service properties using the
Translator functionality residing in the Gateway. The Trans-
lator functions need information about mapping between the
UMTS and the external IP QoS.
If the external IP network is DiffServ enabled then the
Tranlator should be connected to a Service Level Agree-
ment (SLA) repository. The SLA is a contract between the
provider of a service (in this case the external IP network)
and the customer (the UMTS network) which specifies the
services offered to the customer. The IntServ equivalent of
the SLA is Trafiic Specification (TSpec).
The "uplink" case, data flowing from the UE to the GGSN,
has been decribed above. The "downlink" case typically
follows ther reverse path. UE is reposnible for controlling
the demanded PDPContext (sent to the Gateway node), but
the finally provided PDPContext could be controlled by the
HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27

other end of the communication did not allocate enough re-

sources in their SLAs The user of the low loaded network
could not distinguish the cause of the service degradation
and he would unfairly penalize his own network.
In the same time, as mentioned in [17] the use of Dense
Wavelight Divison Multiplexing (DWDM) in core networks
relaxes the need for complicated QoS mechanism. Over-
provisioning alone, or as part of other mechanisms is also
mentioned in [16] as a possible QoS mechanism. The au-
thor endorses the usage of monitored overprovision as a QoS
mechanism. Overprovision of UMTS networks and dedi-
Figure 5: QoS Mapping between UMTS and DiffServ cated interfaces between direct interconnected UMTS net-
works which do not make use of Translation functions will
improve the overall user experience while abandoning com-
plex and expensive software optimizations for cheap and
Gateway node.
readily available hardware.
The Gateway is required to support DiffServ Edge func-
tions although RSVP functions and service-based local pol-
icy enforcement functions are also allowed. 4 Conclusion
As described in [16] the current foucus is on external IP
networks supporting DiffServ interworking with UMTS net- Don’t use diffserv. Where are we, alternatives (stressing less
works which contain Gateways with DiffServ Edge function- that in point 4).
ality. DiffServ Edge function comprises classification and
conditioning as supported by the DiffServ boundary nodes
[7]. 5 Conclusion
DiffServ defines three classes: expedited forwarding (EF)
[RFC 3246], assured forwarding (AF) [RFC 2597] and best- References
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framework diminish the level of end-to-end QoS control. Servivce(GPRS); Service Description, Stage 1
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enjoy actually the same performances, and keeping in hand concept and architecture
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HUT T-110.551 Seminar on Internetworking Sjökulla, 2004-04-26/27

[8] G.Camarillo, G.Eriksson, J.Holler, H.Schulzrinne.

Grouping of Media Lines in the Session Description
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