G C

N t

D C

Duplication G avoidance N D C C-plane signalling RR C contr ol contr ol contr ol contr ol contr ol t C U-plane information UuS boundary

PDC PDC P P BM C RL C RL C RL C

L 3 Radio Beare rs L2/PDC P L2/BM C L2/RL C Logical Channe ls L2/MA C Transp ort Channe L ls 1

RL C

RL C

RL C

RL C

RL C

MAC PH Y

The radio interface (Uu) is layered into three protocol layers: the physical layer (L1) the data link layer (L2) the network layer (L3).

The layer 1 supports all functions required for the transmission of bit streams on the
physical medium. It is also in charge of measurements function consisting in indicating to higher layers, for example, Frame Error Rate (FER), Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR), interference power, transmit power, It is basically composed of a layer 1 management entity, a transport channel entity, and a physical channel entity. is used to transmit information under the form of electrical signals corresponding to bits, between the network and the mobile user. This information can be voice, circuit or packet data, and network signaling. The UMTS layer 1 offers data transport services to higher layers. The access to these services is through the use of transport channels via the MAC sublayer.

These services are provided by radio links which are established by signaling procedures. These links are managed by the layer 1 management entity. One radio link is made of one or several transport channels, and one physical channel. The UMTS layer 1 is divided into two sublayers: the transport and the physical sublayers. All the processing (channel coding, interleaving, etc.) is done by the transport sublayer in order to provide different services and their associated QoS. The physical sublayer is responsible for the modulation, which corresponds to the association of bits (coming from the transport sublayer) to electrical signals that can be carried over the air interface. The spreading operation is also done by the physical sublayer. These sublayers are well described in chapters 6 and 7. These two parts of layer 1 are controlled by the layer 1 management (L1M) entity. It is made of several units located in each equipment, which exchange information through the use of control channels.

The layer 2 protocol is responsible for providing functions such as mapping,

ciphering, retransmission and segmentation. It is made of four sublayers: MAC (Medium Access Control), RLC (Radio Link Control), PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) and BMC (Broadcast/Multicast Control). The RLCs main function is the transfer of data from either the user or the control plane over the Radio interface. Two different transfer modes are used: transparent and nontransparent. In non-transparent mode, 2 sub-modes are used: acknowledged or unacknowledged. RLC provides services to upper layers: data transfer (transparent, acknowledged and unacknowledged modes), QoS setting: the retransmission protocol (for AM only) shall be configurable by layer 3 to provide different QoS, notification of unrecoverable errors: RLC notifies the upper layers of errors that cannot be resolved by RLC. The RLC functions are: mapping between higher layer PDUs and logical channels, ciphering: prevents unauthorized acquisition of data; performed in RLC layer for non-transparent RLC mode, segmentation/reassembly: this function performs segmentation/reassembly of variable-length higher layer PDUs into/from smaller RLC Payload Units. The RLC size is adjustable to the actual set of transport formats (decided when service is established). Concatenation and padding may also be used, error correction: done by retransmission (acknowledged data transfer mode only),

flow control: allows the RLC receiver to control the rate at which the peer RLC transmitting entity may send information. MAC services include: Data transfer: service providing unacknowledged transfer of MAC SDUs between peer MAC entities. Reallocation of radio resources and MAC parameters: reconfiguration of MAC functions such as change of identity of UE. Requested by the RRC layer. Reporting of measurements: local measurements such as traffic volume and quality indication are reported to the RRC layer. The functions accomplished by the MAC sublayer are listed above. Heres a quick explanation for some of them: Priority handling between the data flows of one UE: since UMTS is multimedia, a user may activate several services at the same time, having possibly different profiles (priority, QoS parameters...). Priority handling consists in setting the right transport format for a high bit rate service and for a low bit rate service. Priority handling between UEs: use for efficient spectrum resources utilization for bursty transfers on common and shared channels. Ciphering: to prevent unauthorized acquisition of data. Performed in the MAC layer for transparent RLC mode. Access Service Class (ACS) selection for RACH transmission: the RACH resources are divided between different ACSs in order to provide different priorities on a random access procedure. PDCP UMTS supports several network layer protocols providing protocol transparency for the users of the service. Using these protocols (and new ones) shall be possible without any changes to UTRAN protocols. In order to perform this requirement, the PDCP layer has been introduced. Then, functions related to transfer of packets from higher layers shall be carried out in a transparent way by the UTRAN network entities. PDCP shall also be responsible for implementing different kinds of optimization methods. The currently known methods are standardized IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) header compression algorithms. Algorithm types and their parameters are negotiated by RRC and indicated to PDCP. Header compression and decompression are specific for each network layer protocol type. In order to know which compression method is used, an identifier (PID: Packet Identifier) is inserted. Compression algorithms exist for TCP/IP, RTP/UDP/IP, Another function of PDCP is to provide numbering of PDUs. This is done if lossless SRNS relocation is required. To accomplish this function, each PDCP-SDUs (UL and DL) is buffered and numbered. Numbering is done after header compression. SDUs are kept until information of successful transmission of PDCP-PDU has been received from RLC. PDCP sequence number ranges from 0 to 65,535.

BMC (broadcast/multicast control protocol) The main function of BMC protocol are: Storage of cell broadcast message. the BMC in RNC stores the cell broadcast message received over the CBC-RNC interface for scheduled transmission. Traffic volume monitoring and radio resource request for CBS. On the UTRAN side, the BMC calculates the required transmission rate for the cell broadcast service based on the messages received over the CBC-RNC interface, and requests appropriate .CTCH/FACH resources from from RRC Scheduling of BMC message. The BMC receives scheduling information together with each cell broadcast message over the CBC-RNC interface. Based on this scheduling information, on the UTRAN side the BMC generates schedule message and schedules BMC message sequences accordingly. On the UE side ,the BMC evaluates the schedule messages and indicates scheduling parameters to RRC, which are used by RRC to configure the lower layers for CBS discontinuous reception. Transmission of BMC message to UE. The function transmits the BMC messages according to the schedule Delivery of cell broadcast messages to the upper layer. This UE function delivers the received non-corrupted cell broadcast messages to the upper layer

The layer 3 is split into 2 parts: the access stratum and the non access stratum.
The access stratum part is made of RRC (Radio Resource Control) entity and duplication avoidance entity. The non access stratum part is made of CC, MM parts. Note shown on the figure are connections between RRC and all the other protocol layers (RLC, MAC, PDCP, BMC and L1), which provide local inter-layer control services. The protocol layers are located in the UE and the peer entities are in the node B or the RNC.` The radio interface (Uu) is spitted into 2 plane, left is control plane ,right is user plane ,control plane transfer control massage such as signalling, measurement control. User plane transfer user data such as speech ,packet data etc. Many functions are managed by the RRC layer. Here is the list of the most important: Establishment, re-establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE and UTRAN: it includes an optional cell reselection, an admission control, and a layer 2 signaling link establishment. When a RNC is in charge of a specific connection towards a UE, it acts as the Serving RNC. Establishment, reconfiguration and release of Radio Bearers: a number of Radio Bearers can be established for a UE at the same time. These bearers are configured depending on the requested QoS. The RNC is also in charge of ensuring that the requested QoS can be met.

Assignment, reconfiguration and release of radio resources for the RRC connection: it handles the assignment of radio resources (e.g. codes, shared channels). RRC communicates with the UE to indicate new resources allocation when handovers are managed. Paging/Notification: it broadcasts paging information from network to UEs. Broadcasting of information provided by the non-access stratum (Core Network) or access Stratum. This corresponds to system information regularly repeated.The radio interface (Uu) is layered into three protocol layers: UE measurement reporting and control of the reporting: RRC indicates what to measure, when and how to report. Outer loop power control: controls setting of the target values. Control of ciphering: provides procedures for setting of ciphering. The RRC layer is defined in the 25.331 specification from 3GPP.