What is RRC and RAB?

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Posted by leopedrini Monday, May 20, 2013 11:21:00 AM Categories: Course

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To work with modern wireless networks such as UMTS and LTE, it is essential that the telecom
professional has full understanding of its basic concepts, such as those that control the call
establishment and maintenance, whether it is voice (CS) or data (PS).

In this scenario, RAB and RRC are two of the most important concepts because they are
responsible for all the negotiation involved in those calls.

In addition to RAB and RRC, we still have some other terms directly involved in context, as RB,
SRB, TRB, among others. These terms are also important concepts, since without them RAB and
RRC could not exist.
So lets try to understand today - the simplest possible way - what is the RRC and RAB role in the
calls of these mobile networks in practice. As it become necessary, we will also talk about other
concepts.
Note: All telecomHall articles are originally written in Portuguese. Following we translate to
English and Spanish. As our time is short, maybe you find some typos (sometimes we just use the
automatic translator, with only a final and 'quick' review). We apologize and we have an
understanding of our effort. If you want to contribute translating / correcting of these languages,
or even creating and publishing your tutorials, please contact us: contact.

Introduction
To start, we can divide a call into two parts: the signaling (or control) and data (or information).
Already ahead of key concepts, we can understand the RRC as responsible for the control, and
the RAB as responsible for the information part.
As mentioned, other auxiliary concepts are involved in calls, but our goal today is to learn the
most basic concepts - RRC and RAB, allowing us to evolve in our learning later.
Oddly enough, even professionals who already work with UMTS-WCDMA and LTE networks
have trouble to fully understand the concepts of RRC and RAB. And without this initial
understanding, hardly they can evolve with clarity and efficiency in their daily work.

Without further introduction, let's go straight to the point and then try to understand once and for
all these so important concepts.

Analogy
As always, and as usual the telecomHall, let's make an analogy that helps us to understand the
functioning of the RRC and RAB in practice.
Let's start imagining the following scenario: two people are cut off by a cliff. On the left side, a
person (1) want to buy some things that are for sale in a store (2) or deposit on the right side. In
the right side, in addition to the deposit, we also have a seller (3), which will help the buyer to
contact (negotiable) with the deposit.
As additional or auxiliary objects (4), we have some iron bars with different sizes, and some cars
- some like train wagon, others like remote control cars.
In short, we have the situation outlined in the image below.

And so, how this situation can be solved?

Let's continue with a possible solution: the buyer on the left write his request in a note, tie on a
small stone that he found on the floor, and send (1) it to the seller on the other side. So, the stone
carry the information or initial request.

The seller receives the request, but she need to send it to the deposit, in order for the shopping to
be sent. She sends the request on a remote control car (1), which run a previously demarcated
path to the deposit.

Some time later, the deposit response arrives to seller (1), which then checks to see whether she
will be able to send the data or not.

So that we can proceed with our call, let's consider a positive response. That is, what the buyer is
willing, or the 'resources' are available.
Seller realizes that to fulfill the request, and be able to send the purchases, she will need to build
a 'path' (1) between the two ends of the cliff, so the wagons could carry over with the
orders/receipts and purchases. Then, the seller uses some of its iron bars and creates a link
between the two sides.

Once established all the way between those involved, requests can be sent from both sides as
well as the purchases or any other information can be transferred by different paths and
wagons/cars!

If you managed to understand how the above problem was solved, congratulations, you just
understand how the most common form of UMTS-WCDMA and LTE communication happens!
Although analogies are not perfect, it help us a lot to understand the complex functioning of
these networks, especially in relation to new concepts such as RRC and RAB, but also a very
often used, the 'bearer' so much that it's worth talking a little bit about it.