LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

Some of these targets can be achieved by implementing a Flat Network Architecture,

with less involved nodes.

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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The EPS architecture is made up of an EPC (Packet Core Network, also referred as
SAE) and an eUTRAN Radio Access Network (also referred as LTE)

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The Evolved Packet Core contains a control plane entity called Mobility Management
Entity (MME), and two user plane entities called Serving Gateway (S-GW) and
Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW).

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

In the Evolved UTRAN, there is only one type of network element, called evolved
Node B (eNodeB or eNB).

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IP Header Compression/De-compression: the purpose of this technique is to avoid

sending repetitively the same or sequential data in the IP header.

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Advanced reading:
•When the S5/S8 interface is based on GTP tunnel (3GPP recommendation) the
Serving Gateway (or S-GW) does not need to be connected to the PCRF (the
mapping between IP service flows and GTP tunnels is done by the PDN-Gateway (or
P-GW)
•When the S5/S8 interface is based on PMIP (IETF recommendation) the mapping
between the IP service flow in the S5/S8 and the GTP tunnels on S1-U interface is
done by the S-GW and thus it will be connected to the PCRF to receive the mapping
information (Gxc interface)
•Lawful interception functionality: capability to deliver monitored user's data to
authorities for further inspection.
•S-GW to serve a certain geographical region in the network, while the P-GW serves
the whole networks for access to specific services/PDN networks. Therefore every
single S-GW should be connected to all P-GW in the network.

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

•IP address allocation is done when the UE attaches the network and later on , every
time the UE requests a connection to a new PDN network. Therefore the P-GW has
the DHCP functionality or is able to query and external DHCP server.
•A request for a bearer set-up may arrive to the P-GW either via the PCRF (external
data network originated) or via the S-GW (MME or UE originated)

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More about the PCRF on 3GPP TS 23.203: “Policy & Charging Control Architecture
(Release 8)”.

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•For each UE which is attached to the network, the HSS records are pointing to only
one serving MME at a time. If the UE moves to a new MME, the HSS will
automatically cancel the information on the previous MME.

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LTE –Uu
•NAS stands for Non-Access Stratum (3GPP TS 24.301)
•This signalling messages handled on this layer are transparent for the eNB
•The NAS Protocol is further split into 2 sub-protocols:
- EPS Mobility management (EMM)
- EPS Session management (ESM)
•RRC: Radio Resource Control: manages UE signalling and data connection.
Includes handover functions
•PDCP, Packet data convergence Protocol: responsible for IP header compression
(User plane, UP), encryption and integrity protection (Control Plane, CP)
•RLC, radio Link Control: responsible for segmentation and concatenation of the
PDCP-PDUs for radio interface transmission. It also performs error correction with
Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ)
•MAC: Medium Access Control:
- Scheduling of data according to priorities.
- Multiplexes the data to Layer 1 transport blocks.
- Error correction with Hybrid ARQ.
•LTE-Uu physical Layer: OFDMA/SC-FDMA

X2 Interface
•X2AP is the Control Plane (CP) application Protocol.
•It includes functions for handover preparation and maintenance of the relationship
between neighbor eNBs.
•SCTP/IP signalling transport: the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and
Internet Protocol (IP) represent standard IP transport suitable for signalling
messages. SCTP provides the reliable transport and sequenced delivery functions.
IP itself can be run on a variety of data link (L2) and physical (L1) technologies.
•The UP in the X2 interface allows to move DL packets from the source eNB to the
target eNB when the S1-U bearer section has not been reallocated yet.

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3GPP TS 36.410: S1 general aspects and principles

S1-MME
•NAS protocol messages are transparent to the eNB and are intended for direct
communication to the LTE UE
•S1AP: is the S1-MME interface application protocol. It handles the CP & UP
between the e-UTRAN and the EPC, including handover related messages when the
EPC is involved
•SCTP/IP signalling transport: the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and
Internet Protocol (IP) represent standard IP transport suitable for signalling
messages. SCTP provides the reliable transport and sequenced delivery functions.
IP itself can be run on a variety of data link (L2) and physical (L1) technologies.

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•S1flex  1 eNB to connect to several MME

•S1flex-U also supported: a single eNB can connect to several Serving GWs.

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S10
•GTP-C, GPRS Tunneling Protocol – Control Plane: in this case it handles mobility
related functions (Inter-MME TAU and handover)

S6a
•The application protocol at the S6a interface is DIAMETER as defined in RFC 3588.
Note that DIAMETER is carried over TCP or Stream Control Transmission Protocol
(SCTP) instead of UDP.
•SCTP/IP signalling transport: the Stream control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and
Internet Protocol (IP) represent standard IP transport suitable for signalling
messages. SCTP provides the reliable transport and sequenced delivery functions.
IP itself can be run on a variety of data link (L2) and physical (L1) technologies.

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LTE/EPS Network Architecture

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S5/S8 Interface (GTP candidate)

Control Plane
•GTP-C, GPRS Tunneling Protocol, Control Plane: It manages the UP connection in
the EPC: including the QoS parameters and the set up, maintenance and release of
the GTP-U tunnel.
•GTP-C also performs the mobility management functions within the EPC (i.e: UE
moves from one S-GW to another during a handover, but the connection remains
anchored in the same P-GW)
•UDP/IP: The Unit Datagram, Protocol (UDP) and IP are used as the basic transport
layer.
•UDP is used instead of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) because the higher
layers already provide reliable transport with error recovery and retransmission.
•IP packets in EPC may be transported on a variety of L2 and L1 technologies (i.e
ATM, Ethernet,…)

User Plane
•GTP-U, GPRS Tunneling Protocol, User Plane: it forms the GTP-U tunnel that will
be used to send the IP packets belonging to one EPS bearer.
•The same user may request different EPS bearer, each one will use its own GTP-U
tunnel

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S5/S8 Interface (IETF candidate)

Control Plane
•PMIP, Proxy Mobile IP is the alternative from IETF. (3GPP TS 29.275,PMIP Based
Mobility and Tunneling Protocols (Release 8)
•It takes care of Mobility Management, but does not include bearer management as
such.
•All traffic belonging to a UE connection to a particular PDN is handled together
•PMIP runs directly on top of IP, which is used as the transport layer.

User Plane
•GRE, Generic Routing Encapsulation: is used in the S5/S8 interface in conjunction
with PMIP (3GPP TS 29.275,PMIP Based Mobility and Tunneling Protocols (Release
8)
•It forms and IP tunnel for transportation of all data belonging to one UE connection
to a particular PDN.
•GRE is directly on top of IP and UDP is not used.

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Both Gx and Gxc are standardized in 3GPP TS 29.212: “ Policy and Charging
Control over the Gx reference point” (Release 8).

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SGi interface
•Downlink data coming from the external PDN must be assigned to the right SAE
bearer of the right user by analysis of the incoming packet’s IP addresses, port
numbers, etc.

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•When looking from the user point of view, E-UTRAN, UTRAN and GERAN, all
provide similar connectivity services. The difference may be appreciated by the user
in term of the data rate which is achieved and the improved performance in general.
•But from the architecture point of view, those Access Networks (ANs) are quite
different and many things are carried out differently.
•One example is the way how bearer are handled in the EPS network in comparison
to GERAN and UTRAN networks.
•The EPC needs a few new interfaces and functions to inter-work with the UTRAN
and the GERAN.
•The new interfaces are S3,S4 and S12.
•The interface from the SGSN to the HSS can be updated to S6d by introducing the
Diameter Protocol; but the used of the legacy Gr interface based on MAP is still
possible.
•Even if the inter-working interfaces do not run directly between the access networks,
from the EPC to the different AN, some new functions must be implement in the
radio network: i.e UE to measure and report different AN cell and the AN to decide
on inter-system handovers.
•In GSM/WCDMA inter-system handover to LTE, the anchor point is the SGSN.
•In LTE inter-system handover to GSM/WCDMA , the anchor point is the S-GW.

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S12 Interface
Protocol-wise, the S12 interface is similar to the Iu-PS interface between the SGSN
and UTRAN, or the Gn interface between the SGSN and PDN Gateway. In other
words, the GPRS Tunnelling Protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) encapsulates the
user data (that is, the end user IP packets) to be carried over the direct tunnel.

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•In order to deploy LTE in countries currently using cdma2000 systems (primarily the
United States), some ability to handover between LTE and cdma2000 networks is
indicated. To meet this requirement, 3GPP has explicitly adopted a number of
requirements to support interworking between E-UTRAN and 3GPP2 radio access
technologies.
•These requirements are as follows.
- Bidirectional data service interworking shall be supported between
cdma2000 1xRTT Revision A and LTE. There are no requirements that this be
seamless.
- Seamless voice service continuity shall be supported to/from LTE to
cdma2000 1xRTT Revision A.
- Bidirectional seamless service continuity shall be supported between
cdma2000 HRPD Revision A and LTE for both best effort and real time
applications.
- Bidirectional seamless service continuity shall be supported between
cdma2000 HRPD Release 0 and LTE for best effort applications only.

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•Generic inter-working solution is based on the S2 Interface. There are currently

several variants of this interface
•No interfaces between the Access Networks (ANs)
•Trusted non-3GPP AN: the network can run the 3GPP defined authentication
procedure (AKA: Authentication and Key Agreement). Otherwise it is considered an
un-trusted non-3GPP AN.
•The trusted non-3GPP AN is connected to EPC using S2a interface. Example of
trusted non-3GPP AN: cdma2000
•Un-trusted non-3GPP AN is connected to EPC using S2b interface. Example of un-
trusted non-3GPP AN: WLAN (IEEE 802.11)
•Both S2a & S2b use network controlled IP layer mobility with the PMIP protocol.
•For networks that do not support PMIP, Client MIPv4 Foreign Agent Mode is
available as an option for S2a.
•In addition to mobility functions, the architecture includes interfaces for
authenticating the UE and also Policy and Charging Control (PCC) functionalities via
the Gxa and Gxb interfaces towards the PCRF (Gxb no specified in Release 8).

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S2a
•This interface connects the EPC with a trusted non-3GPP IP access network.
•In the control plane the application layer is either Mobile IP version 4 (MIPv4) or
Proxy Mobile IP(PMIP).
•In the user plane, in case of interfacing a 3GPP2 data networks, a PMIP tunnel is
established.

S2b
•Interface towards an untrusted non-3GPP access network
•A new network element, the evolver Packet Data Gateway (ePDG) acts as a
gateway between the EPC and the untrusted non-3GPP data network.

S2c
•It provides the user plane with related control and mobility support between UE and
the PDN GW.
•This reference point is implemented over trusted and/or untrusted non-3GPP
Access and/or 3GPP access.

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•The best inter-working performance in terms of handover gap time is achieved by

specifying the networks to inter-operate very tightly to exchange critical information.
This will create an specific solution which is valid only for one type of AN.
•This tight interworking requires not only specification work from the LTE side, but
also from the other AN, which is by definition out of the 3GPP control.
•E-HRPD stands for Evolved High Rate Packet Data: it refers to the cdma200 HRPD
network that has been upgraded with new functionalities so it is suitable for
connecting to the EPC.
•S101 interface implements a signalling tunnel from the MME to the Radio Controller
in the E-HRPD AN.
•S103 interface in a UP tunnel used for forwarding in DL direction the data during the
time it take the handover execution. The difference is that the tunnel on the S103
interface is a GRE tunnel, in which there is only one tunnel per UE. It is therefore a
S-GW task to bind all the GTP tunnels belonging to one UE in the S1-U interface in a
single GRE tunnel towards the S103 interface.
•STa is the interface between the 3GPP AAA Server and the HSGW. It is used to
authenticate the UE and to receive it service profile.
• The CN aspects of the E-HRPD are specified in 3GPP2 Spec. X.P0057 and 3GPP2
Spec. X.P0022.

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S101
•The S101 is a CP interface that forms a signalling tunnel between the MME in the
EPC and the AN in the cdma2000 network.
•Its main function is to carry the signalling messages associated with the inter-
system handover, with the IMSI as a reference for the UE.
•It is used to coordinate the establishment of the data forwarding tunnel (S103)

S103
•It is a simple GRE tunnel for UP data forwarding in Handover.
•All control information is carried on S101.

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•In order to deploy LTE in countries currently using cdma2000 systems (primarily the
United States), some ability to handover between LTE and cdma2000 networks is
indicated. To meet this requirement, 3GPP has explicitly adopted a number of
requirements to support interworking between E-UTRAN and 3GPP2 radio access
technologies.
•These requirements are as follows.
- Bidirectional data service interworking shall be supported between
cdma2000 1xRTT Revision A and LTE. There are no requirements that this be
seamless.
- Seamless voice service continuity shall be supported to/from LTE to
cdma2000 1xRTT Revision A.
- Bidirectional seamless service continuity shall be supported between
cdma2000 HRPD Revision A and LTE for both best effort and real time
applications.
- Bidirectional seamless service continuity shall be supported between
cdma2000 HRPD Release 0 and LTE for best effort applications only. Note: LTE
to cdma2000 has a higher priority with operators and this is reflected in standards,
cdma2000 to LTE definition might not complete in Release 8 of 3GPP.

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