E-UTRA

E-UTRA is the air interface of 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term
Evolution (LTE) upgrade path for mobile networks. It is an acronym for Evolved Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access, also referred to as
the 3GPP work item on the Long Term Evolution (LTE)[1] also known as the Evolved Universal
Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) in early drafts of the 3GPP LTE specification.[1] E-UTRAN is
the initialism of Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network and is the combination of E-
UTRA, user equipment (UE), and E-UTRAN Node B or Evolved Node B (EnodeB).
It is a radio access network (RAN) which is referred to under the name EUTRAN standard meant to
be a replacement of the UMTS and HSDPA/HSUPA technologies specified in 3GPP releases 5 and
beyond. Unlike HSPA, LTE's E-UTRA is an entirely new air interface system, unrelated to and
incompatible with W-CDMA. It provides higher data rates, lower latency and is optimized for packet
data. It uses OFDMA radio-access for the downlink and SC-FDMA on the uplink. Trials started in
2008.
Features
EUTRAN has the following features:

 Peak download rates of 299.6 Mbit/s for 4×4 antennas, and 150.8 Mbit/s for 2×2 antennas with
20 MHz of spectrum. LTE Advanced supports 8×8 antenna configurations with peak download
rates of 2,998.6 Mbit/s in an aggregated 100 MHz channel.[2]
 Peak upload rates of 75.4 Mbit/s for a 20 MHz channel in the LTE standard, with up to
1,497.8 Mbit/s in an LTE Advanced 100 MHz carrier.[2]
 Low data transfer latencies (sub-5 ms latency for small IP packets in optimal conditions), lower
latencies for handover and connection setup time.
 Support for terminals moving at up to 350 km/h or 500 km/h depending on the frequency band.
 Support for both FDD and TDD duplexes as well as half-duplex FDD with the same radio access
technology
 Support for all frequency bands currently used by IMT systems by ITU-R.
 Flexible bandwidth: 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz and 20 MHz are standardized. By
comparison, W-CDMA uses fixed size 5 MHz chunks of spectrum.
 Increased spectral efficiency at 2–5 times more than in 3GPP (HSPA) release 6
 Support of cell sizes from tens of meters of radius (femto and picocells) up to over 100 km
radius macrocells
 Simplified architecture: The network side of EUTRAN is composed only by the enodeBs
 Support for inter-operation with other systems (e.g., GSM/EDGE, UMTS, CDMA2000, WiMAX,
etc.)
 Packet switched radio interface.

Rationale for E-UTRA

Although UMTS, with HSDPA and HSUPA and their evolution, deliver high data transfer rates,
wireless data usage is expected to continue increasing significantly over the next few years due to
the increased offering and demand of services and content on-the-move and the continued reduction
of costs for the final user. This increase is expected to require not only faster networks and radio
interfaces but also higher cost-efficiency than what is possible by the evolution of the current
standards. Thus the 3GPP consortium set the requirements for a new radio interface (EUTRAN) and
core network evolution (System Architecture Evolution SAE) that would fulfill this need.
These improvements in performance allow wireless operators to offer quadruple play services -
voice, high-speed interactive applications including large data transfer and feature-rich IPTV with full
mobility.
Starting with the 3GPP Release 8, E-UTRA is designed to provide a single evolution path for
the GSM/EDGE, UMTS/HSPA, CDMA2000/EV-DO and TD-SCDMA radio interfaces, providing
increases in data speeds, and spectral efficiency, and allowing the provision of more functionality.

Architecture[edit]
EUTRAN consists only of enodeBs on the network side. The enodeB performs tasks similar to those
performed by the nodeBs and RNC (radio network controller) together in UTRAN. The aim of this
simplification is to reduce the latency of all radio interface operations. eNodeBs are connected to
each other via the X2 interface, and they connect to the packet switched (PS) core network via the
S1 interface.[3]
UTRAN protocol stack[edit]

EUTRAN protocol stack

The EUTRAN protocol stack consist of:[3]

 Physical layer:[4] Carries all information from the MAC transport channels over the air interface.
Takes care of the link adaptation (AMC), power control, cell search (for initial synchronization
and handover purposes) and other measurements (inside the LTE system and between
systems) for the RRC layer.
 MAC:[5] The MAC sublayer offers a set of logical channels to the RLC sublayer that
it multiplexes into the physical layer transport channels. It also manages the HARQ error
correction, handles the prioritization of the logical channels for the same UE and the dynamic
scheduling between UEs, etc..
 RLC:[6] It transports the PDCP's PDUs. It can work in 3 different modes depending on the
reliability provided. Depending on this mode it can provide: ARQ error correction,
segmentation/concatenation of PDUs, reordering for in-sequence delivery, duplicate detection,
etc...
 PDCP:[7] For the RRC layer it provides transport of its data with ciphering and integrity protection.
And for the IP layer transport of the IP packets, with ROHC header compression, ciphering, and
depending on the RLC mode in-sequence delivery, duplicate detection and retransmission of its
own SDUs during handover.
 RRC:[8] Between others it takes care of: the broadcast system information related to the access
stratum and transport of the non-access stratum (NAS) messages, paging, establishment and
release of the RRC connection, security key management, handover, UE measurements related
to inter-system (inter-RAT) mobility, QoS, etc..
Interfacing layers to the EUTRAN protocol stack:

 NAS:[9] Protocol between the UE and the MME on the network side (outside of EUTRAN).
Between others performs authentication of the UE, security control and generates part of the
paging messages.
 IP

Physical layer (L1) design[edit]

E-UTRA uses orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), multiple-input multiple-
output (MIMO) antenna technology depending on the terminal category and can use as
well beamforming for the downlink to support more users, higher data rates and lower processing
power required on each handset.[10]
In the uplink LTE uses both OFDMA and a precoded version of OFDM called Single-Carrier
Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) depending on the channel. This is to compensate
for a drawback with normal OFDM, which has a very high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). High
PAPR requires more expensive and inefficient power amplifiers with high requirements on linearity,
which increases the cost of the terminal and drains the battery faster. For the uplink, in release 8 and
9 multi user MIMO / Spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is supported; release 10 introduces
also SU-MIMO.
In both OFDM and SC-FDMA transmission modes a cyclic prefix is appended to the transmitted
symbols. Two different lengths of the cyclic prefix are available to support different channel
spreads due to the cell size and propagation environment. These are a normal cyclic prefix of 4.7 µs,
and an extended cyclic prefix of 16.6µs.

LTE Resource Block in time and frequency domains: 12 subcarriers, 0.5 ms timeslot (normal cyclic prefix).

LTE supports both Frequency-division duplex (FDD) and Time-division duplex (TDD) modes. While
FDD makes use of paired spectra for UL and DL transmission separated by a duplex frequency gap,
TDD splits one frequency carrier into alternating time periods for transmission from the base station
to the terminal and vice versa. Both modes have their own frame structure within LTE and these are
aligned with each other meaning that similar hardware can be used in the base stations and
terminals to allow for economy of scale. The TDD mode in LTE is aligned with TD-SCDMA as well
allowing for coexistence. Single chipsets are available which support both TDD-LTE and FDD-LTE
operating modes.
The LTE transmission is structured in the time domain in radio frames. Each of these radio frames is
10 ms long and consists of 10 sub frames of 1 ms each. For non-MBMS subframes,
the OFDMA sub-carrier spacing in the frequency domain is 15 kHz. Twelve of these sub-carriers
together allocated during a 0.5 ms timeslot are called a resource block.[11] A LTE terminal can be
allocated, in the downlink or uplink, a minimum of 2 resources blocks during 1 subframe (1 ms).[12]
All L1 transport data is encoded using turbo coding and a contention-free quadratic permutation
polynomial (QPP) turbo code internal interleaver.[13] L1 HARQ with 8 (FDD) or up to 15 (TDD)
processes is used for the downlink and up to 8 processes for the UL

EUTRAN physical channels and signals[edit]

Downlink (DL)[edit]
In the downlink there are several physical channels:[14]

 The Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) carries between others the downlink
allocation information, uplink allocation grants for the terminal/UE.
 The Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH) used to signal CFI (control format
indicator).
 The Physical Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH) used to carry the acknowledges from the
uplink transmissions.
 The Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) is used for L1 transport data transmission.
Supported modulation formats on the PDSCH are QPSK, 16QAM and 64QAM.
 The Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) is used for broadcast transmission using a Single
Frequency Network
 The Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) is used to broadcast the basic system information
within the cell
And the following signals:

 The synchronization signals (PSS and SSS) are meant for the UE to discover the LTE cell and
do the initial synchronization.
 The reference signals (cell specific, MBSFN, and UE specific) are used by the UE to estimate
the DL channel.
 Positioning reference signals (PRS), added in release 9, meant to be used by the UE
for OTDOA positioning (a type of multilateration)
Uplink (UL)[edit]
In the uplink there are three physical channels:

 Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) is used for initial access and when the UE losses
its uplink synchronization,[15]
 Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) carries the L1 UL transport data together with control
information. Supported modulation formats on the PUSCH are QPSK, 16QAMand depending on
 the user equipment category 64QAM. PUSCH is the only channel, which because of its greater
BW, uses SC-FDMA
 Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) carries control information. Note that the Uplink
control information consists only on DL acknowledges as well as CQI related reports as all the
UL coding and allocation parameters are known by the network side and signaled to the UE in
the PDCCH.
And the following signals:

 Reference signals (RS) used by the enodeB to estimate the uplink channel to decode the
terminal uplink transmission.
 Sounding reference signals (SRS) used by the enodeB to estimate the uplink channel conditions
for each user to decide the best uplink scheduling.

User Equipment (UE) categories[edit]

3GPP Release 8 defines five LTE user equipment categories depending on maximum peak data
rate and MIMO capabilities support. With 3GPP Release 10, which is referred to as LTE Advanced,
three new categories have been introduced, and four more with 3GPP Release 11.

Max. L1 Max. L1
User Max. number
datarate datarate
equipment of DL MIMO 3GPP Release
Downlink Uplink
Category layers
(Mbit/s) (Mbit/s)

NB1 0.68 1 1.0

Rel 13

M1 1.0 1 1.0

0 1.0 1 1.0 Rel 12

1 10.3 1 5.2

2 51.0 2 25.5

Rel 8

3 102.0 2 51.0

4 150.8 2 51.0
 Max. L1 Max. L1
User Max. number
datarate datarate
equipment of DL MIMO 3GPP Release
Downlink Uplink
Category layers
(Mbit/s) (Mbit/s)

5 299.6 4 75.4

6 301.5 2 or 4 51.0

7 301.5 2 or 4 102.0 Rel 10

8 2,998.6 8 1,497.8

9 452.2 2 or 4 51.0

10 452.2 2 or 4 102.0

Rel 11

11 603.0 2 or 4 51.0

12 603.0 2 or 4 102.0

13 391.7 2 or 4 150.8

14 3,917 8 9,585

Rel 12

15 750 2 or 4 226

16 979 2 or 4 n/a

17 25,065 8 n/a Rel 13

 Max. L1 Max. L1
User Max. number
datarate datarate
equipment of DL MIMO 3GPP Release
Downlink Uplink
Category layers
(Mbit/s) (Mbit/s)

18 1174 2 or 4 or 8 n/a

19 1566 2 or 4 or 8 n/a

Note: Maximum datarates shown are for 20 MHz of channel bandwidth. Categories 6 and above
include datarates from combining multiple 20 MHz channels. Maximum datarates will be lower if less
bandwidth is utilized.
Note: These are L1 transport data rates not including the different protocol layers overhead.
Depending on cell BW, cell load, network configuration, the performance of the UE used,
propagation conditions, etc. practical data rates will vary.
Note: The 3.0 Gbit/s / 1.5 Gbit/s data rate specified as Category 8 is near the peak aggregate data
rate for a base station sector. A more realistic maximum data rate for a single user is 1.2 Gbit/s
(downlink) and 600 Mbit/s (uplink).[16] Nokia Siemens Networks has demonstrated downlink speeds
of 1.4 Gbit/s using 100 MHz of aggregated spectrum.[17]

E-UTRAN Architecture
In order to meet the requirements for LTE networks, the evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) architecture
has been improved dramatically from the 3G/3.5G radio access network (UTRAN). While legacy
networks employed a hierarchical architecture, E-UTRAN uses a flat architecture. The functions of
the eNB in E-UTRAN systems include not only base station (NodeB) functions to terminate the radio
interface but also the functions of the Radio Network Controller (RNC) to manage radio resources.
According to 3GPP TR 25.912, E-UTRAN is described as follows:
“The evolved UTRAN consists of eNBs, providing the evolved UTRAN U-plane and C-plane protocol
terminations towards the UE. The eNBs are interconnected with each other by means of the X2
interface. It is assumed that there always exist an X2 interface between the eNBs that need to
communicate with each other, e.g., for support of handover of UEs in LTE_ACTIVE. The eNBs are
also connected by means of the S1 interface to the EPC (Evolved Packet Core). The S1 interface
supports a many-to-many relation between aGWs and eNBs.”
 Figure 1 : E-UTRAN Architecture

LTE Protocol Stacks

The figures below diagram the key protocol stacks on Uu, S1, and X2 interfaces for both C-plane
and U-plane messaging.

Figure 1 : C-plane Protocol Stack: Uu (UE/eNB) and S1-C (eNB/MME)

Figure 2 : C-plane Protocol Stack: X2-C (eNB/eNB)

 Figure 3 : U-plane Protocol Stack: Uu (UE/eNB) and S1-U (eNB/S-GW)

Figure 4 : U-plane Protocol Stack: X2-U (eNB/eNB)

Physical Interface

3GPP describes LTE radio access technology is described as follows:

The multiple access scheme for the LTE physical layer is based on Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiple Access (OFDMA) with a Cyclic Prefix (CP) in the downlink and a Single Carrier Frequency
Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) with CP in the uplink.
OFDMA is particularly suited for frequency selective channel and high data rate. It transforms a
wideband frequency selective channel into a set of parallel flat fading narrowband channels, thanks
to the CP. This ideally allows the receiver to perform a low complexity equalization process in the
frequency domain, i.e., 1 tap scalar equalization.
The baseband signal representing a downlink physical channel is defined in terms of the following
steps, as shown in Figure 1:
 Scrambling of coded bits in each of the code words to be transmitted on a physical channel
 Modulation of scrambled bits to generate complex-valued modulation symbols
 Mapping of the complex-valued modulation symbols onto one or several transmission layers
 Precoding of the complex-valued modulation symbols on each layer for transmission on the
antenna ports
 Mapping of complex-valued modulation symbols for each antenna port to resource elements
 Generation of complex-valued time-domain OFDM signal for each antenna port
Figure 1 : Overview of Downlink Physical Channel Processing.

The baseband signal representing the physical uplink shared channel is defined in terms of the
following steps, as shown in Figure 2:

 Scrambling
 Modulation of scrambled bits to generate complex-valued symbols
 Transform precoding to generate complex-valued symbols
 Mapping of complex-valued symbols to resource elements
 Generation of complex-valued time-domain SC-FDMA signal for each antenna port
Figure 2 : Overview of Uplink Physical Channel Processing.
OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access)

One of the key elements of LTE is the use of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) as
the signal bearer, as well as OFDM’s associated access schemes, OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiple Access) and SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access).

OFDM is used in a number of other of systems from WLAN and WiMAX to broadcast technologies
including DVB and DAB. OFDM has many advantages including its robustness in the face of
multipath fading and interference. Although it may appear to be a particularly complicated form of
modulation, it is in fact well suited to digital signal processing techniques. In view of its advantages,
the use of ODFM and the associated access technologies, OFDMA and SC-FDMA are natural
choices for the new LTE cellular standard.

OFDM is a form of transmission that uses a large number of closely spaced carriers that are
modulated with low rate data. Normally these signals would be expected to interfere with each other,
but by making the signals orthogonal to each another there is no mutual interference. This is
achieved by having the carrier spacing equal to the reciprocal of the symbol period. This means that
when the signals are demodulated they will have a whole number of cycles in the symbol period and
their contribution will sum to zero - in other words there is no interference contribution. The data to
be transmitted is split across all the carriers and this means that by using error correction
techniques, if some of the carriers are lost due to multi-path effects, then the data can be
reconstructed. Additionally, having data carried at a low rate across all the carriers means that the
effects of reflections and inter-symbol interference can be overcome. It also means that single
frequency networks, where all transmitters can transmit on the same channel, can be implemented.

Figure 1 : LTE OFDMA Carriers

MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output)

MIMO is increasingly being used to provide improved levels of efficiency in many high data rate
technologies including Wi-Fi and other wireless and cellular technologies. Essentially MIMO,
employs multiple antennas on the receiver and transmitter to utilize the multi-path effects that always
exist to transmit additional data, rather than causing interference.

The schemes employed in LTE again vary slightly between the uplink and downlink. The reason for
this is to keep the cost of terminals low. There are far more terminals than base stations and as a
result terminal pricing is a far more sensitive process.

For the downlink, a configuration of two transmit antennas at the base station and two receive
antennas on the mobile terminal is used as baseline, although configurations with four antennas are
also being considered.

The uplink from the mobile terminal to the base station employs a scheme called MU-MIMO (Multi-
User MIMO). Using this, even though the base station requires multiple antennas, the mobiles (UEs)
only need to have one transmit antenna and this considerably reduces the cost of the mobile. In
operation, multiple mobile terminals may transmit simultaneously on the same channel or channels,
but they do not cause interference to each other because mutually orthogonal pilot patterns are
used. This technique is also referred to as spatial domain multiple access (SDMA).
Figure 1 : 2 x 2 MIMO Channel Matrix

Physical Channel Structure

The following list describes LTE downlink physical channels and physical signals. Downlink physical
channels carry layer 2 information but downlink physical signals are only used by the physical layer.

Downlink physical channels:

 Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH)
o Carries the DL-SCH and PCH. DL-SCH contains actual user data.
 Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)
o Informs the UE about the resource allocation of PCH and DL-SCH, and HARQ
information related to DL-SCH. Carries the uplink scheduling grant.
 Physical HARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH)
o Carries ACK/NACKs in response to uplink transmissions.
 Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH)
o Informs the UE about the number of OFDM symbols used for the PDCCHs;
Transmitted in every subframe.
 Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH)
o The coded BCH transport block is mapped to four subframes within a 40 ms interval.
Downlink physical signals:
 Reference Signal
 Synchronization Signal (P-SS and S-SS)
The figure below shows the structure of the downlink physical channel and downlink physical
signals.

Figure 1 : Downlink Physical Channel Structure

Uplink physical channels and uplink physical signals are as follows. Uplink physical channels carries
layer 2 information but uplink physical signals are only used by the physical layer.

Uplink physical channels:

 Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH)
o Carries the UL-SCH, ACK/NACK and CQI. UL-SCH contains actual user data.
 Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)
o Carries ACK/NACKs in response to downlink transmission. Carries CQI (Channel
Quality Indicator) report and SR (Scheduling Request).
 Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH)
o Carries random access preamble.
Uplink physical signals:
 Demodulation Reference Signal (UL-RS), associated with transmission of PUSCH and
PUCCH.
 Sounding Reference Signal (SRS), not associated with transmission of PUSCH and
PUCCH.
The uplink physical channel and physical signal structure is shown below.
 Figure 2 : Uplink Physical Channel Structure

Layer 2

Transport Channels

Downlink transport channels:

 Broadcast Channel (BCH)characterized by:
o Fixed, pre-defined transport format
o Requirement to be broadcast in the entire coverage area of the cell.
 Downlink Shared Channel (DL-SCH)characterized by:
o Support for HARQ
o Support for dynamic link adaptation by varying the modulation, coding and transmit
power
o Possibility to be broadcast in the entire cell
o Possibility to use beamforming
o Support for both dynamic and semi-static resource allocation
o Support for UE discontinuous reception (DRX) to enable UE power saving.
 Paging Channel (PCH)characterized by:
o Support for UE discontinuous reception (DRX) to enable UE power saving (DRX
cycle is indicated by the network to the UE)
o Requirement to be broadcast in the entire coverage area of the cell
o Mapped to physical resources which can be used dynamically also for traffic or other
control channels.
 Multicast Channel (MCH) (from Release 9)characterized by:
o Requirement to be broadcast in the entire coverage area of the cell
o Support for MBSFN combining of MBMS transmission on multiple cells
o Support for semi-static resource allocation e.g., with a time frame of a long cyclic
prefix.
Uplink transport channels:
 Uplink Shared Channel (UL-SCH)characterized by:
o Possibility to use beamforming (likely no impact on specifications)
o Support for dynamic link adaptation by varying the transmit power and potentially
modulation and coding
o Support for HARQ
o Support for both dynamic and semi-static resource allocation.
 Random Access Channel(s) (RACH)characterized by:
o Limited control information
o Collision risk

Layer 2 Structure

As defined by 3GPP, LTE Layer 2 structure consists of PDCP/RLC/MAC layers. Transport channels
are located between the physical layer and MAC layer. MAC multiplexes RLC links and manages
scheduling and priority handling via logical channels. The diagrams below show the structure for the
downlink and uplink of Layer 2.

Figure 1 : Layer 2 Downlink Structure

Figure 2 : Layer 2 Uplink Structure
Logical Channels
In 3GPP specifications, several types of data transfer services are offered by MAC. Each logical
channel type is defined by the type of information that it transfers.

Logical channels can be classified into two general groups:

 Control channels (for transferring control plane information)

 Traffic channels (for transferring user plane information)
Control Channels:Control channels are used for the transfer of control plane information only. The
control channels offered by MAC are:
 Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH)
o A downlink channel for broadcasting system control information.
 Paging Control Channel (PCCH)
o A downlink channel that transfers paging information and system information change
notifications. This channel is used for paging when the network does not know the location cell of the
UE.
 Common Control Channel (CCCH)
o Channel for transmitting control information between UEs and network. This channel
is used for UEs having no RRC connection with the network.
 Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH)
o A point-to-point bi-directional channel that transmits dedicated control information
between a UE and the network. Used by UEs having an RRC connection.
Traffic Channels:Traffic channels are used for the transfer of user plane information only. The
traffic channels offered by MAC are:
 Dedicated Traffic Channel (DTCH)
o A point-to-point channel, dedicated to one UE, for the transfer of user information. A
DTCH can exist in both uplink and downlink.
 Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH) (from Release 9)
o A point-to-multipoint downlink channel for transmitting traffic data from the network to
the UE. This channel is only used by UEs that receive MBMS.

The figures below depict the mapping between logical channels, transport channels and physical
channels for downlink and uplink:

Figure 1 : Downlink Channel Mapping

 Figure 2 : Uplink Channel Mapping

RRC Protocol
According to 3GPP TS 36.331, the RRC protocol includes the following main functions:
 Broadcast of system information:
o NAS common information
o Information applicable for UEs in RRC_IDLE, e.g., cell (re-)selection parameters,
neighboring cell information and information (also) applicable for UEs in RRC_CONNECTED, e.g.,
common channel configuration information.
o ETWS notification
 RRC connection control:
o Paging
o Establishment/modification/release of RRC connection, including
assignment/modification of UE identity (C-RNTI), establishment/ modification/ release of SRB1 and
SRB2, access class barring
o Initial security activation, i.e., initial configuration of AS integrity protection (SRBs)
and AS ciphering (SRBs, DRBs)
o RRC connection mobility including intra-frequency and inter-frequency handover,
associated security handling, i.e., key/ algorithm change, specification of RRC context information
transferred between network nodes
o Establishment/ modification/ release of RBs carrying user data (DRBs)
o Radio configuration control including assignment/ modification of ARQ configuration,
HARQ configuration, DRX configuration
o QoS control including assignment/ modification of semi-persistent scheduling (SPS)
configuration information for DL and UL, assignment/ modification of parameters for UL rate control
in the UE, i.e., allocation of a priority and a prioritized bit rate (PBR) for each RB
o Recovery from radio link failure
 Inter-RAT mobility including security activation, transfer of RRC context information
 Measurement configuration and reporting:
o Establishment/modification/release of measurements (e.g., intra-frequency, inter-
frequency and inter- RAT measurements)
o Setup and release of measurement gaps
o Measurement reporting
o Other functions including transfer of dedicated NAS information and non-3GPP
dedicated information, transfer of UE radio access capability information, support for E-UTRAN
sharing (multiple PLMN identities)
o Generic protocol error handling
o Support of self-configuration and self-optimization
NOTE: Random access is specified entirely in the MAC including initial transmission power
estimation.

Figure 1 : RRC States (from 3GPP TS 36.331)

Signaling Radio Bearers (SRB) are defined as Radio bearers that are used only to transmit RRC and
NAS messages. SRB’s are classified into three types:

Signaling Radio Bearer 0 (SRB0): RRC message using CCCH logical channel.
Signaling Radio Bearer 1 (SRB1): is for transmitting NAS messages over DCCH logical channel.
Signaling Radio Bearer 2 (SRB2): is for high priority RRC messages. Transmitted over DCCH logical
channel.

What is the LTE eNodeB?

One of the biggest differences between LTE networks and legacy 3G mobile communication
systems is the base station. In 3G systems, there is an intelligent and centralizing node like the RNC
(Radio Network Controller), and it needs to control all the radio resources and mobility over multiple
NodeBs (3G base stations) underneath it in a hieratical radio access network (Figure 1). All NodeBs
need to do is behave exactly according to commands from the RNC sent over the Iub interface. In
LTE, on the other hand, eNBs (evolved NodeBs) as base stations have to manage radio resource
and mobility in the cell and sector to optimize all the UE’s communication in a flat radio network
structure (Figure 2). Therefore, the performance of an LTE eNB depends on its radio resource
management algorithm and its implementation.
Figure 1 : 3G Radio Access Network (UTRAN) Architecture

Figure 2 : E-UTRAN Architecture