Basics of LTE + LTE Idle Mode

Siksha Bhatia
RJIL
Resource Structure for LTE Control Channels
• Time Domain Structure
In the time domain, the signal is structured in the following parts:
LTE Time Domain Structure
LTE Frequency Domain Structure
• Frequency Domain Structure
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) utilize a large number of subcarriers.
Each subcarrier is orthogonal to all other subcarriers. Subcarrier-spacing is equal to the
subcarrier bandwidth, which is 15 kHz.
• The smallest time domain unit is 1 OFDM symbol.
• The smallest Frequency domain unit is 1 sub carrier of 15KHz.
• 1 OFDM symbol and 1 subcarrier is called as a Resource element.
• 1 Resource Block (RB) = 1 slot in time domain and 12 subcarriers in frequency domain and has a duration
of 0.5msec
• 1 RB covers 84 Resource elements i.e. 7 OFDM symbols in time domain and 12 consecutive subcarriers in
frequency domain (180KHz).
• 1 SRB = 2 RB. Hence the smallest unit that will be granted to a user for data transmission. Hence the
smallest unit available granted to a user for data transmission is 0.5*2 = 1 msec in time domain and 12
sub-carriers in frequency domain.
LTE Channel Structure
Basic LTE Terminology
RSRP:
• RSRP (Reference Signal Receive Power) is the average power of Resource Elements (RE) that carry cell specific Reference Signals (RS) over
the entire bandwidth, so RSRP is only measured in the symbols carrying RS.
• RSRP is the average received power of a single RS resource element.
• UE measures the power of multiple resource elements used to transfer the reference signal but then takes an average of them
rather than summing them.
• Reporting range -44…-140 dBm
• Typically near a cell RSRP values tend to be closer to -70s while away from cell at cell edge it will typically range in -120s.
• Qrxlevmin parameter is based on RSRP (-128dBm)
RSRQ:
RSRQ - Reference Signal Received Quality: Quality considering also RSSI and the number of used Resource Blocks (N)
RSRQ = (N * RSRP) / RSSI measured over the same bandwidth.
RSRQ is a C/I type of measurement and it indicates the quality of the received reference signal. The RSRQ measurement provides additional
information when RSRP is not sufficient to make a reliable handover or cell reselection decision.

CQI:
CQI stands for Channel Quality Indicator. As the name suggests it is an indicator of how good or bad the DL communication link is. In
LTE CQI values range from 0 to 15 with 0 being the worst RF conditions and 15 being the best. How CQI is calculated is not clearly
defined but is actually decided by chipset maker. However we do know that certain factors are considered to calculate CQI
 Signal to Interference and Noise ratio (SINR)
 Signal to Nosie ratio (SNR)
High values of CQI will result in higher throughput. If your throughput is low check the average CQI at the cell or what the UE is reporting.
• CQI Mapping
Reasons for Poor Accessibility:
• Random access failures
• RA probes not sent with enough power
• Message 2 decode failure
• Message 3 decode failure
• RRC connection Failures
• Capacity- Connected users license exceeded, signaling congestion, MME Overload
• Poor RF (Poor RSRP)
• High Uplink Interference
• ERAB Connection failures
• Capacity- No of E-RAB licenses exceeded
• Poor RF
• High UL Interference
• S1 Connection Failure
• Check for issue at the MME

Reasons for Poor Retainability:

• HO failures
• Cell Downtime
• Poor RF
• High UL Interference
Reasons for Poor DL Throughput
Reasons for low Throughput:
DL Interference:
Low CQI (0 to 7 or 8)
MIMO Transmit Diversity (More Tx diversity than Spatial Multiplexing)

High BLER:
Typical BLER should be less than 10%. Anytime BLER exceeds 10%, the UE MCS will get adjusted (lowered) to compensate for the high BLER and
bring it down to below 10%.
High BLER could be due to poor RF, high interference

High Traffic:
One of the biggest reasons for low throughput is high traffic demand. As traffic increases BW is shared among those users. Each user gets a smaller
portion of the BW and throughput goes down
Check No Of RRC connections, No of ERAB connections, Average RRC users, licenses etc.

Scheduler Type:
LTE defines different scheduling types. Depending on the various scheduling algorithms throughput may be affected. Some of the scheduler types
are Round-Robin, Proportional Fair High, Proportional Fair medium, Proportional Fair Low, Maximum C/I etc.

Backhaul Capacity:
If backhaul is not properly configured or is congested throughput will be low.

Hardware issues
Antenna issues, VSWR issues, bad cabling, lossy cables, neighbor cells down, parameters not configured correctly etc. will all have and impact to
the DL throughput.
 LTE Idle Mode
(Introduction to System parameters)
LTE Idle Mode
• In idle mode, the User Equipment (UE) has no active connection to the RAN.
• The Idle Mode Support feature enables the UE in idle mode to access the network and be reached
from the network within acceptable delay.
• Keeping the UE in idle mode minimizes radio resource use in both the UE and the network and
can extend UE battery operation time.
• The UE behavior in idle mode includes the following tasks:
PLMN selection
Cell selection and reselection
Tracking Area (TA) update
LTE Idle Mode
• The idle mode process is described in the following stages:
1. The UE performs a PLMN selection when switched on, and for example, when a new PLMN is
found during lack of coverage. Manual PLMN selection is also possible. After PLMN selection,
the UE in idle mode may perform a background search for alternative PLMNs. If a higher priority
PLMN is found, a new PLMN selection can be performed.

2. When a PLMN is selected, the UE in idle mode performs cell selection and reselection based
on certain criteria. The objective is to find a suitable cell for camping. The procedure involves
ranking eligible cells, based on the received signal strength and quality, evaluated against
thresholds and other criteria defined in the network.

3. When a suitable cell is selected, the UE may register in the PLMN using attach procedures.

4. When attached, the UE performs new registration of its location, periodically at regular
intervals or when entering a tracking area where the current registration is not valid. Location
registration is performed in the Tracking Area Update procedure.

5. If the UE is rejected in the new location, a new PLMN selection may be required to find a
suitable cell.
Cell Selection Criterion
• Cell Selection Criterion: The cell selection criterion (the S criterion) is based on the measured
Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) level and Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) level in the
cell.
• The cell selection criteria fulfillment is based on Srxlev > 0 AND Squal > 0. If RSRQ based evaluation is
not supported, the cell selection criteria fulfillment is based on Srxlev > 0.
The cell selection criterion is fulfilled if:
Srxlev > 0 AND Squal > 0
where:
Srxlev = Qrxlevmeas - (Qrxlevmin + Qrxlevminoffset) -Pcompensation
Squal = Qqualmeas - (Qqualmin + Qqualminoffset)
• Qrxlevmeas Measured RSRP value in the cell (dBm)
• Qrxlevmin: Required minimum RSRP level in the cell (dBm)
• Qrxlevminoffset: Offset to Qrxlevmin taken into account in the Srxlev evaluation as a result of a
periodic search for a higher priority PLMN
• Pcompensation Compensation [max (PEMAX PUMAX, 0)] if the maximum power according to the UE
capability (PUMAX) is less than the maximum UE power to be used in the cell (PEMAX).
Cell Reselection Criterion: (Measurements only)
• The UE in idle mode measures the RSRP and the RSRQ levels of the E-UTRA cells on the current frequency
and any inter-frequency carriers and the signal levels of cells on any inter-RAT frequency. The results from
these measurements are used in the cell reselection evaluation process.
• The amount of measurements the UE performs may impact UE battery performance. A trade-off between
cell reselection and UE battery performance is required when setting configuration parameter values to
control these measurements.

 Intra-Frequency Cell Reselection Process:

• Measurements on intra-frequency cells are performed if Srxlev ≤ SIntraSearchP for the serving cell.
If Srxlev > SIntraSearchP the UE does not need to perform these measurements.

 Inter-Frequency Cell Reselection Process:

o Higher Priority
Measurements on E-UTRA cells on inter-frequency carriers and cells on inter-RAT frequencies with
higher cell reselection priority than the current frequency are always performed.

o Equal or Lower Cell Reselection Priority

Measurements on E-UTRA cells on inter-frequency carriers and cells on inter-RAT frequencies with
equal or lower cell reselection priority than the current frequency are performed if Srxlev ≤
SNonIntraSearchP or for the serving cell. If Srxlev > SNonIntraSearchP the UE does not need to
perform these measurements.
• Cell Reselection Criterion (Process):
• 2.4.4 Intra-Frequency and Equal Priority Cell Reselection
• When camped on an E-UTRA cell, the UE performs a ranking of neighbor E-UTRA cells on the same frequency and other frequencies with equal cell reselection
priority, taking into account the cells satisfying the cell selection criteria (Section 2.4.1 on page 6). The cell ranking is based on the RSRP measurement
quantities of the serving cell (Qmeas,s) and the neighbor cells (Qmeas,n).
• The UE applies the cell ranking criterion Rs on the serving cell and the cell ranking criterion Rn on the intra-frequency and equal priority cells:
Rs = Qmeas,s + Qhyst
Rn = Qmeas,n - QOffset
• Qhyst is a hysteresis value preventing too-frequent reselection back and forth between cells of nearly equal rank.

Inter- Frequecy and IRAT

 Higher priority Inter-Frequency neighbor
 If UE finds an interfrequency neighbor with cell reselection priority higher than current frequency on which UE is camping UE will attempt to
reselect to that frequency.
Srxlev (inter-Freq or IRAT Freq)> ThreshXHigh then UE attempts to reselect to that frequency

 Equal Priority Inter-Freq or IRAT neighbor

 If the UE finds an inter-frequency carrier with equal priority to the frequency where the UE is camping, the UE performs cell reselection much in
the same way as intra-frequency cell reselection.

 Lower Priority Inter-Frequency or IRAT neighbor

 If the Srxlev of the current serving cell falls below ThreshServingLow UE attempts to reselect a cell on a frequency with lower priority than the
current frequency.
 Then if UE finds a cell with Srxlev >ThreshXlow then UE will attempt reselection on the cell in that frequency