Unit II

Fundamentals
of Cellular and
LTE Technology

Mr. P.S. Desai

CO Mapping , Reference Book
#CO2: Analyse the fundamentals of cellular systems.

Book Name:
AN INTRODUCTION TO LTE
LTE, LTE-ADVANCED, SAE, VoLTE AND 4G MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS
Second Edition
Christopher Cox
Director, Chris Cox Communications Ltd, UK

Online Link:
https://pce-fet.com/common/library/books/50/2784_[Christopher_Cox]_
An_Introduction_to_LTE_LTE,_LTE(b-ok.org).pdf
Unit II: Fundamentals of Cellular and LTE
Technology
1. Cellular System
2. Hexagonal geometry Cell and Frequency Reuse
3. LTE Long Term Evolution (LTE) Technology fundamentals
4. LTE Architecture
5. LTE features
6. LTE communication protocol:
6.1. Protocol model
6.2 Air Interface Transport Protocols
6.3 Fixed Network Transport Protocols
6.4 User Plane Protocols
6.5 Signalling Protocols
Cellular System
Units of cellular system
1. Mobile Unit
2. Cell site
3. Mobile Telephone Switching Office
4. Connections
 Hexagonal geometry Cell
Cell: A group of radio channels is allocated a separate circular base station to be used
within a small geographic area called cell.
Reasons for Selecting the Hexagonal Shape
1. Hexagon allows easy and manageable analysis of a cellular
system.
2. In circular pattern, adjacent circles can have gaps in between or
can create overlapping regions.
3. Hexagon closely approximates the circular radiation pattern in
an omni-directional base station antenna.
4. If hexagonal geometry is used then only few number of cells can
cover a geographic region. The hexagon is close to a circular
radiation pattern that can result from an omni directional base
station antenna and if there is free space propagation.
Arrangement of hexagonal cells to provide greater coverage
without creating ambiguous returns
Concept of Frequency Reuse
1. The base stations in adjacent cells are assigned
channel groups that contain completely different
channels than the neighbouring cells.
2. The antennas located on base station are designed
to obtain the required coverage for a specific cell.
3. If the coverage area is limited to within boundaries
of the cell then the same group of channels can cover
different cells that are separated from each other by
large distances.
4. The design method of selecting and allocating
channel groups for all cellular base stations within a
system is called as frequency reuse or frequency
Cell Reuse or Frequency Reuse planning.
The Need for LTE( Long Term Evolution)

1. The growth of mobile data

2. Capacity of the mobile telecommunication system
3. Increasing the system capacity
4. Additional motivations behind LTE
LTE Architecture
LTE Specifications (Features)
Sr. No. Parameter Specification

1. Switching method Packet switching for both voice

and data.

2. Duplexing FDD/TDD

3. Channel bandwidth 1 MHz, 3 MHz, 4 MHz,

5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz,
20 MHz

4. Peak data rate For uplink - 75 Mbps

For downlink - 300 Mbps
 Sr. Parameter Specification
No.

LTE Specifications 5. Peak spectrum efficiency

(bps/Hz)
For uplink - 3.75
(64 QAM SISO)
For downlink - 15
(4X4 MIMO)

6. Access technology used Uplink - SC-FDMA

Downlink - OFDMA

7. Modulation QPSK, 16 QAM, 64 QAM

8. Spectrum Licensed 2000 band

9. Mobility Full 3GPP mobility with target

upto 350 km/h

10. Frequency reuse Flexible

11. Frame duration 10ms

12. Transmission time interval 1ms

13. Use of MIMO yes

Communication Protocols
The protocol stack has two planes.

● Protocols in the user plane handle data that are of interest to the user, while protocols in
the control plane handle signalling messages that are only of interest to the network
elements themselves.

The protocol stack also has two main layers.

● The upper layer manipulates information in a way that is specific to LTE, while the lower
layer transports information from one point to another. There are no universal names for
these layers, but in the E-UTRAN they are known as the radio network layer and
transport network layer respectively.
High-level protocol architecture of LTE

High-level protocol architecture of LTE Relationship between the access stratum and the
non-access stratum on the air interface
Air Interface Transport Protocols
The air interface if known as Uu interface. It lies between
base station and mobile.

1. Physical layer :
● It contains digital and analog signal processing
functions which are used to send and receive
information between the mobile and base station.
2. Data link layer
● Three protocols namely MAC (Medium Access Control),
RLC (Radio Link Control) and PDCP (Packet Data
Convergence Protocol) makes up layer 2 of OSI model
which is data link layer.
Fixed Network Transport Protocols
● The interfaces in the fixed network use standard IETF
transport protocols, which are shown in Figure.
● Each interface is routed across the underlying transport
network, so it uses protocols from layers 1 to 4 of the OSI
model.
● At the bottom of the stack, the transport network can
use any suitable protocols for layers 1 and 2, such as
Ethernet, often supported by another protocol known as
multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)

Transport protocols used on the air interface

 Fixed Network Transport Protocols
● There is a transport layer protocol across the
interface between each individual pair of network
elements. Three transport protocols are used.
● The user datagram protocol (UDP) just sends data
packets from one network element to another,
while the transmission control protocol (TCP)
re-transmits packets if they arrive incorrectly.
● The stream control transmission protocol
(SCTP)is based on TCP, but includes extra features
that make it more suitable for the delivery of
signalling messages.

Transport protocols used by the fixed network

 User Plane Protocols

User plane protocols used by LTE

User Plane Protocols
● The LTE user plane contains mechanisms to forward data correctly between themobile and the
PDN gateway, and to respond quickly to changes in the mobile’s location.
● These mechanisms are implemented by the user plane protocols shown in fig .
● Most of the user plane interfaces use a 3GPP protocol known as the GPRS tunnelling protocol
user part (GTP-U) .
● To be precise, LTE uses version 1 of the protocol, denoted GTPv1-U, along with the 2G and 3G
packet switched domains from Release 99.
● Earlier 2G networks used version 0, which is denoted GTPv0-U.
● Between the serving gateway and the PDN gateway, the S5/S8 user plane has an alternative
implementation. This is based on a standard IETF protocol known as generic routing
encapsulation (GRE) .
Signaling Protocol

Signalling protocols used

by LTE
Signaling Protocol
● LTE uses a large number of signalling protocols, which are shown in Figure. On the air interface, the
base station controls a mobile’s radio communications by means of signalling messages that are
written using the radio resource control (RRC) protocol .
● In the radio access network, an MME controls the base stations within its pool area using the S1
application protocol (S1-AP) , while two base stations can communicate using the X2 application
protocol (X2-AP) .
● At the same time, the MME controls amobile’s high-level behaviour using two protocols that lie in
the air interface’s non-access stratum .
● These protocols are EPS session management (ESM), which controls the data streams through which
a mobile communicates with the outside world, and EPS mobility management (EMM), which
handles internal bookkeeping within the EPC.
● The network transports EMM and ESM messages by embedding them into lower-level RRC and
S1-AP messages and then by using the transport mechanisms of the Uu and S1 interfaces.
Reference Book..
AN INTRODUCTION TO LTE
LTE, LTE-ADVANCED, SAE, VoLTE
AND 4G MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS
Second Edition
Christopher Cox
Director, Chris Cox Communications Ltd, UK

Online Link:
https://pce-fet.com/common/library/books/50/2784_[Christop
her_Cox]_An_Introduction_to_LTE_LTE,_LTE(b-ok.org).pdf
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