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Cellular Core Network

Cellular Networks
Guest lecture by Li Erran Li, Bell Labs
COS 461: Computer Networks
4/18/2012 W 10-10:50am in Architecture N101
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Cellular Networks Impact our Lives

More Infrastructure
More Mobile Connection
Deployment
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More Mobile Users More Mobile

Information
Sharing
 Mobile Data Tsunami Challenges 3

Current Cellular Technologies

Global growth 18 times from
2011 to 2016 Global Mobile Data Traffic Growth
2011 to 2016

AT&T network:
12 10.8

10
Annual Growth 78%
Over the past five years,

Exabytes per Month

8 6.9
wireless data traffic has
grown 20,000% 6
4.2
At least doubling every year 4
2.4
since 2007 2 0.6
1.3

Existing cellular technologies

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

are inadequate
Fundamental redesign of Source: CISCO Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobil Data
Traffic Forecast 2011 to 2016
cellular networks is needed
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Outline

Goal of this lecture: understand the basics of current

networks
Basic Architecture of LTE
Access Procedure
Why no carrier sensing
Connection Setup
Unlike WiFi, need to keep the same IP address at different
attachment points
Mobility Management
Power Management and Mobile Apps
Differences between 3G and LTE
Conclusion
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LTE Infrastructure
UE: user equipment
eNodeB: base station
eNodeB 1 S-GW: serving
gateway
P-GW: packet data
Cellular Core Network network gateway
MME: mobility
MME/PCRF/HSS management entity
HSS: home subscriber
server
eNodeB 2 PCRF: policy charging
S-GW 1 and rule function
UE 1

P-GW
eNodeB 3
Internet and
S-GW 2
Other IP Networks
UE 2
GTP Tunnels
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LTE Architecture (Contd)

Control Plane Home eNodeB, S-GW and P-

Subscriber GW are involved in
Data Plane
Server session setup, handoff,
(HSS) routing
Mobility
Management Policy Control and
Entity Charging Rules
(MME) Function (PCRF)

User Base Serving Packet Data

Equipme Network
nt (UE) Station Gateway Gateway
(eNodeB) (S-GW) (P-GW)
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Access Procedure

Cell Search Base station

Base station broadcasts
synchronization signals and cell
system information (similar to
WiFi)
UE obtains physical layer
information
UE acquires frequency and
synchronizes to a cell
Determine the start of the UE 2
downlink frame UE 1
Determine the cell identity

Random access to establish a

radio link
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Random Access
Client Base station Core network

Step 1: random access request (pick one of 64 preambles)

Step 2: random access response

Adjust uplink timing

Step 3: transmission of mobile ID

Only if UE is not known in Base station
Step 4: contention resolution msg

If ID in msg matches UE ID, succeed.

If collision, ID will not match!
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Random Access (Contd)

Why not carrier sensing like
Base station
WiFi?
Base station coverage is much
larger than WiFi AP
UEs most likely cannot hear
each other
How come base station can
hear UEs transmissions? UE 2
UE 1
Base station receivers are
much more sensitive and
expensive
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Connection Setup

Session Requests
UE to base station MME
Base station to MME
Session
MME obtains subscriber Request
info from HSS, selects S-
GW and P-GW
S-GW sends to P-GW UE S-GW P-GW
P-GW obtains policy
from PCRF
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Connection Setup (Contd)

Session Response
Establishes GPRS MME
Tunnels (GTP) between
S-GW and P-GW,
between S-GW and UE
Base station allocates
radio resources to UE UE S-GW P-GW
Session
Response
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Mobility Management

Handoff
Handoff without
MME
change of S-GW
No change at P-GW
Handoff with change
of S-GW or MME UE S-GW P-GW
Inter-technology
handoff (LTE to 3G)
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Mobility Management (Contd)

Paging
If S-GW receives a MME
Paging
packet to a UE in IDLE Request
state, inform MME
MME pages UE
through base station S-GW P-GW
UE
RRC_IDLE Packet received
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Outline

Basic Architecture of LTE

Access Procedure
Why no carrier sensing
Connection Setup
Unlike WiFi, need to keep the same IP address at
different attachment points
Mobility Management
Power Management and Mobile Apps
Differences between 3G and LTE
Conclusion
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Power Management: LTE

UE runs radio resource
control (RRC) state
machine
Two states: IDLE,
CONNECTED
Discontinuous reception
(DRX): monitor one
subframe per DRX cylce;
receiver sleeps in other
subframes

Courtesy:Morley Mao
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Power Management: UMTS

State promotions have promotion delay

State demotions incur tail times

Tail Time
Delay: 2s Delay: 1.5s

Channel Radio
Power
IDLE Not Almost
allocated zero
Tail Time CELL_FACH Shared, Low
Low Speed

Courtesy: Feng Qian

CELL_DCH Dedicated, High
High Speed
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Example in Detail: RRC State Machine
for a Large Commercial 3G Network

DCH Tail: 5 sec

Promo Delay: 2 Sec FACH Tail: 12 sec
Tail Time
Waiting inactivity timers to expire
DCH: High Power State (high throughput and power consumption)
FACH: Low Power State (low throughput and power consumption)
IDLE: No radio resource allocated Courtesy: Feng Qian
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Example in Detail: Pandora Music

Problem: High resource overhead of periodic audience measurements (every 1

min)
Recommendation: Delay transfers and batch them with delay-sensitive transfers

Courtesy: Feng Qian

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Why Power Consumptions of RRC States
so different?
IDLE: procedures based on reception rather
than transmission
Reception of System Information messages
Cell selection registration (requires RRC connection
establishment)
Reception of paging messages with a DRX cycle
(may trigger RRC connection establishment)
Location and routing area updates (requires RRC
connection establishment)
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UMTS RRC State Machine (Contd)

CELL_FACH: need to continuously receive

(search for UE identity in messages on FACH),
data can be sent by RNC any time
Can transfer small data
UE and network resource required low
Cell re-selections when a UE moves
Inter-system and inter-frequency handoff possible
Can receive paging messages without a DRX cycle
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UMTS RRC State Machine (Contd)

CELL_DCH: need to continuously receive, and

sent whenever there is data
Possible to transfer large quantities of uplink and
downlink data
UE and network resource requirement is relatively
high
Soft handover possible for dedicated channels and
Inter-system and inter-frequency handover possible
Paging messages without a DRX cycle are used for
paging purposes
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LTE vs UMTS (3G): Architecture

Functional changes compared to the current UMTS
Architecture
PGW PDN GateWay
GGSN Serving GateWay
SGW

SGSN (not user plane MME Mobility Management Entity

functions)

RNC
PGW/SGW
Deployed according to traffic
demand
Node B eNodeB Only 2 user plane nodes (non-
roaming case)

RNC functions moved to Control plane/user plane split for

eNodeB. better scalability
No central radio controller node MME control plane only
OFDM radio, no soft handover Typically centralized and pooled
Operator demand to simplify
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Physical Layer: UMTS

Simultaneous meetings in different rooms
(FDMA)

Simultaneous
meetings in the
same room at
different times
(TDMA)

Multiple meetings in the

same room at the same time
(CDMA)

Courtesy: Harish Vishwanath

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Physical Layer: UMTS (Contd)

Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
Use of orthogonal codes to separate different
transmissions
Each symbol or bit is transmitted as a larger number of
bits using the user specific code Spreading
Spread spectrum technology
The bandwidth occupied by the signal is much
larger than the information transmission rate
Example: 9.6 Kbps voice is transmitted over 1.25
MHz of bandwidth, a bandwidth expansion of
~100 Courtesy: Harish Vishwanath
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Physical Layer: LTE

T large compared to Orthogonal Frequency Division
1
channel delay Multiple Access (OFDM)
spread
T Closely spaced sub-carriers without guard
band
Each sub-carrier undergoes (narrow
band) flat fading
- Simplified receiver processing
Frequency
Frequency or multi-user diversity through
Narrow Band (~10 Khz) coding or scheduling across sub-carriers
Wide Band (~ Mhz) Dynamic power allocation across sub-
carriers allows for interference mitigation
Sub-carriers remain orthogonal under
across cells
multipath propagation
Orthogonal multiple access
Courtesy: Harish Vishwanath
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Physical Layer: LTE (Reverse link OFDM)

User 1 Users are carrier
synchronized to the base
Differential delay between
users signals at the base
need to be small compared W
to symbol duration
User 2
Efficient use of spectrum by multiple
users
Sub-carriers transmitted by different
users are orthogonal at the receiver
- No intra-cell interference
User 3
CDMA uplink is non-orthogonal
since synchronization requirement is
~ 1/W and so difficult to achieve

Courtesy: Harish Vishwanath

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Typical Multiplexing in OFDMA

Each color represents a user
Each user is assigned a
frequency-time tile which
consists of pilot sub-carriers and
data sub-carriers
Block hopping of each users tile
for frequency diversity

Typical pilot ratio: 4.8 % (1/21)

for LTE for 1 Tx antenna and
9.5% for 2 Tx antennas
Time
Pilot sub-carriers
Courtesy: Harish Vishwanath
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LTE vs UMTS (3G): Physical Layer

UMTS has CELL_FACH

Uplink un-synchronized
Base station separates random access transmissions and
scheduled transmissions using CDMA codes
LTE does not have CELL_FACH
Uplink needs synchronization
Random access transmissions will interfere with
scheduled transmissions
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Conclusions
LTE promises hundreds of Mbps and 10s msec
latency
Mobile apps need to be cellular friendly, e.g. avoid
periodic small packets, use push notification
services
Roaming and inter-technology handoff not covered
Challenges
P-GW central point of control, bad for content
distribution, and scalable policy enforcement
Mobile video will be more than half of the traffic
Needs lots of spectrum (spectrum crunch)