Location management UE procedures from power on to IDLE UE procedures in IDLE and Active Handover Protocol stack RRC state

3GPP terminology

Mobility management
Area
Location Area (LA), GSM (CS domain) Routing Area (RA), GPRS (PS domain) Tracking Area (TA), LTE (PS domain)
LA1
Cell 3 cell 1 cell 2

LAC
Location Area Code

LA2
Cell 4 Cell 5 Cell 6

MM related procedures
LA/RA/TA update Paging, (paging channel)

UE procedures from Power on

Generic Procedures
Search Camped Attached(Registered) Standby
Time slot sync. Frame sync. system information received (camped on cell) Attach to network UE go to Stand by

Detail procedures for LTE cell camping

Frequency acquisition Primary Sync Signal acquisition Time slot sync. Secondary Sync Signal acquisition Frame sync. With PSS and SSS, Cell ID can be calculated If reference signal Location is properly decoded, PBCH(MIB) can be detected From MIB, SFN(system frame number) and system BW can be detected Decode PCFICH and detect how many symbols are allocated for PDCCH Decode DCI for SIB1 from PDCCH Decode SIB1 and get the scheduling information for the SIBs Decode SIBs (other that SIB1)

Frame Structure of LTE

MIB, SIB type 1

Master Information Block (MIB)
DL-bandwidth PHICH config System frame number Note: CRC of MIB contains information of tx. antenna number of eNodeB

System Information Block (SIB) type 1

PLMN identity, TA code, Cell identity & Cell status Cell selection information Scheduling information of other type of SIB

UE procedures in Idle and Active

Idle
Cell reselection / location update Listen to paging channel Receive system information

Active
Measurement Handover

Cell type
acceptable cell:
An "acceptable cell" is a cell on which the UE may camp to obtain limited service (originate emergency calls and receive ETWS and CMAS notifications).

suitable cell:
A "suitable cell" is a cell on which the UE may camp on to obtain normal service

Barred cell:
A cell is barred if it is so indicated in the system information

reserved cell:
A cell is reserved if it is so indicated in system information

Type of handover
Frequency
Intra / Inter frequency handover

RAT (Radio Access Technology)

Intra / Inter system (RAT) handover

Hard/Soft/Softer
Hard handover (2G/3G/4G) Soft handover (3G) Softer handover (3G)

Backward / Forward
Backward handover (source cell target cell ) Forward handover (target cell source cell ), Rel. 9

Handover (1), Soft handover, WCDMA

Handover (2)
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. UE in RRC connected state Network sends reconfiguration message with neighbor cell information UE measures the neighbors as per the neighbor list and RAT priorities. No measurement gaps are required to measure intra-frequency cells. Measurement gaps are required to measure inter-frequency and inter-RAT cells. UE reports the cells which meet the measurement reporting criteria in measurement reports. Network validates the same and sends RRC connection reconfiguration with mobility control info (Handover message). This message includes target cell ID, target cell RACH parameters and an optional dedicated preamble (for contention free random access) UE slams the timing and triggers PBCH and random access in parallel on the destination cell Upon receiving message 2 (random access response with UL grant), UE sends RRC reconfiguration complete message. 8.After RACH completion, UE attempts to decode SIBs on the new cell

6. 7.

SRNC reallocation (Network)

Protocol Stack, LTE (control plane)

Protocol stack, UMTS (user plane)

RRC State
WCDMA
IDLE/ Cell FACH/Cell DCH /Cell PCH (cell level) / URA PCH(RA level)

LTE
IDLE/ CONNECTED
Note:
RRC link setup always initialized from UE RRC link release always initialize from Network

Registration, RRC stat and CPU state

Registered / attached

Registration

search

connected idle

connected

RRC

active

DRX
sleep

DRX

CPU

3GPP Terminology
PLMN = MCC + MNC
HPLMN, EPLMN, RPLMN,

IMSI = MCC + MNC + sequence no. IMEI CAMP on cell, ATTACH to network ( or Registration ) ICC / SIM, UICC/USIM Roaming R99(WCDMA) /R5(HSDPA) /R6(HSUPA) /R7(HSPA+) / R8(DCHSPA), LTE

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Cell select / re-select in RRC Idle (1)

Cell select / re-select in RRC Idle (2)

Cell selection criteria

Srxlev > 0 AND Squal > 0
where: Srxlev = Qrxlevmeas (Qrxlevmin + Qrxlevminoffset) Pcompensation Squal = Qqualmeas (Qqualmin + Qqualminoffset)

broadcast in system information

Reference Signal Receive Quality, RSRQ

The RSRQ measurement provides additional information when RSRP is not sufficient to make a reliable handover or cell reselection decision
RSRP is the average of the power of all resource elements (one symbol) which carry cell-specific reference signals over the entire bandwidth RSSI is the total received wideband power including all interference and thermal noise Assume that only reference signals are transmitted in a resource block, and that data and noise and interference are not considered. In this case RSRQ is equal to -3 dB If reference signals and subcarriers carrying data are equally powered, the ratio corresponds to 1/12 or -10.79 dB

Cell Ranking criteria

The cell-ranking criterion Rs for serving cell and Rn for neighbouring cells is defined by:
Rs = Qmeas,s + Qhyst Rn = Qmeas,n Qoffset

broadcast in system information

The UE shall perform ranking of all cells that fulfil the cell selection criterion S If a cell is ranked as the best cell the UE shall perform cell reselection to that cell. In all cases, the UE shall reselect the new cell, only if the following conditions are met:
the new cell is better ranked than the serving cell during a time interval TreselectionRAT; more than 1 second has elapsed since the UE camped on the current serving cell.

Cell Re-selection example

Cell Re-selection example

Figure 19 shows one possible scenario in a real network.

Assume that
the UE belongs to network operator 1 (green). There are two other carriers also operating an LTE network but of course at different frequencies.

The terminal receives all base stations but at different power levels. Based on the above definition the UE will select the strong cell for each carrier . Using this the UE will start with network operator 3 (blue) and figure out after decoding the SIB Type 1 that the PLMN saved on the USIM does not match to the transmitted one. From this information it will stop with its attempt and proceed to the next strongest signal, which is operator 2 ( red). Now the PLMN does not correspond so the UE will continue with signal 3 (green) and the PLMN will match. The UE continues to use the information in SIB Type 1 and Type 2 to compute the cell selection criteria. In this example, the parameters transferred and belonging to eNB1 do not fulfill S > 0 where the UE will move along with demodulating and decoding the information provided by eNB2. S > 0 is fulfilled and the UE starts camping on this cell.

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