UMTS Tutorial Session 1 - Introduction

Vikalp Veer

Radio I/F protocol Stack

Radio I/F protocol stack can be categorized as
Control Plane

Used to Transfer Signaling RRC Protocol is used to signal between UE & RNC for example during connection est /rel

User Plane

Used to Transfer Data Example downloading a file or voice during speech call

Radio I/F stack defines the way in which data is

transferred between RNC and UE

Radio Interface Control Plane

RF signal

ATM

All the signaling messages originates from RRC

layer

Packets at the top of the layer is SDU and at the bottom of a layer is PDU Logical channels are used to transfer msg between RLC and MAC and Transport channels are used for msg between MAC and PHY

Physical channels are used between PHY of UE and PHY of Node B

Radio Interface NAS Layer (1/2)

Higher Layer of Control Plane is known as NAS

layer. Functionality includes

CC

and SM for CS establishment and release MM for both CS and PS.

and

PS

connection

NAS functionality is a part of UE and Core

Network. RNC and node B are limited to AS

Radio Interface NAS layer (2/2)

A NAS message is packaged into an RRC

message and transferred between UE and Node B using Initial Direct Transfer(IDT) message or RRC UL DT or RRC DL DT messages. RANAP protocol is used to transfer NAS message between an RNC and Core Network using RANAP initial transfer and RANAP direct transfer.

Concept of SRB (1/2)

Logical connection between RLC in UE and RNC

and is a control plane version of Radio Bearer in user plane. RB identity 1 to 4 is reserved for SRB and is sent over DCCH while SRB0 is always sent over CCCH. Each SRB has its own logical channel which is mapped into a single transport channel at MAC. An SRB associated with each RRC message can be deduced from logical channel type, RLC mode

Concept of SRB (2/2)

Majority of the RRC messages make use of SRB2. The RRC IDT message is always sent with high priority while the priority of the UL and DL Direct transfer messages depends upon the type of encapsulated NAS message.

Radio Interface User Plane

The Radio Interface User Plane is used to transfer

application data between an RNC and a UE

No RRC Layer here !!!

BMC (Broadcast/Multicast control) layer is used for

Cell Broadcast services and is transparent to all the other services and uses CTCH logical channel and FACH transport channel. BMC service operates in DL direction and requires another core network domain known as Broadcast Domain (BC) and make use of Iu-bc interface to

Radio Interface User Plane

No RRC Layer here !!!

PDCP Layer is optional and is applicable to PS

domain. It provides header compression for IP data streams for services where the payload is relatively small and IP header represents a significant percentage of the total data. Example includes VoIP service, where with 244 bits per 20 ms speech frame (for 12.2 kbps AMR speech codec), size of RTP/UDP/IP header is 320 bits for IPv4 and 480 bits for IPv6.

Radio Interface User Plane for VoIP

VoIP service make use of PDCP layer

Radio Interface User Plane for FTP

No PDCP since header size is typically 3% of the payload

Radio Interface User Plane for CS

Higher layers are represented by AMR speech

codec. RAB represents logical connection between the UE and the CN.RAB are specific to a service which a UE is using and has a particular QoS associated to it. RB represents logical connection between a UE and the RNC.