A Look into 5G Virtual/Open RAN - Part 5: Inter-gNB DU Handover

My last blog post discussed the intra-gNB-DU handover. Now it is time to look at inter-gNB-DU handover. This means: the target cell is located in the same gNB, but connected to a different gNB Distributed Unit (gNB-DU) than the source cell.

The figure below shows the message flow:

(Click on the image to enlarge)

As you can see it was not so easy to show all the messages in one flow chart and again I have simplified things a little bit. So it is not shown that NR RRC messages are transparently forwarded by the gNB-DU when sent to or received from the UE.

It should also be noted that between step 8 and 9 the UE performs a random access procedure on the radio interface that is also not shown.

Beside this the RRC measurement configuration and measurement report is identical with the same procedure in the intra-gNB-DU handover case (step 1+2)

However, due to the fact the target cell is connected to a different gNB-DU a new F1AP UE context must be established on the incoming F1-C leg (step 3+4). As in a new connection setup scenario the target gNB-DU provides all necessary lower layer parameters for the target cell radio link including a new c-RNTI.

Since we need also a new user plane transport tunnel to exchange payload on the F1-U interface between the target gNB-DU and the gNB-CU UP an E1AP Bearer Context Modification procedure is performed in step 5+6.

The following F1AP UE Context Modification Request is used to transmit the handover command (NR RRC Reconfiguration message with target cell parameters) towards the UE (step 7). In step 8 the F1AP UE Context Modification Response confirms that the handover command was forwarded to the UE.

After successful random access the UE sends NR RRC Reconfiguration Complete message on the new radio link (step 9) and this triggers the F1AP UE Context Release procedure on the outgoing F1-C leg.

Related Posts:

• A Look into 5G Virtual/Open RAN - Part 6: Inter-gNB CU Handover involving Xn
• 3G4G: Open RAN, OpenRAN and O-RAN

Visualisation of Intra-gNB Handover in an End-to-End Monitoring Tool

In my last blog post I described the message flow of an intra-gNB-DU handover.

Today I want show how such a handover can be visualized using a ladder diagram in an end-to-end passive monitoring tool. The tool shown in the figure below is the NETSCOUT nGenious Session Analyzer (nSA).

The data source is a cell trace feed according to 3GPP 32.421/32.423. Unfortunately F1AP and E1AP messages are missing in the trace so that we cannot distinguish if this is an intra- or inter-gNB DU handover.

(click to enlarge)

Nevertheless the tool offers the great advantage to find the handover procedure quickly within all the other messages of the trace. It also links the outgoing (source) and incoming (target) side in case that different feeds from different cells need to be combined.

For the NR RRC messages are send/received by the UE, but there is a good reason to show the icon "Cell" on top the ladder diagram. With this approach it is possible to spot immediately the changing cell location of the UE and NR RRC Reconfiguration procedure that is used to execute the handover. So the icon does not represent a cell, but an UE within a cell - and with a bit imagination you can recognize this in the icon graphic itself.

Selecting the handover message it is possible to open the Inline Decode tab and browse through the bits and bytes of NR RRC. As expected beside many other parameters the new UE Identity (new C-RNTI) to be used by the UE after arriving in the target cell is one of the most important information elements and confirms that this particular NR RRC Reconfiguration message is indeed the command for executing the intra-gNB handover.