Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Donor eNB (DeNB) and Relay Node (RN)

Extracted from 3GPP 36.300:

The eNB hosts the following functions:
- Functions for Radio Resource Management: Radio Bearer Control, Radio Admission Control, Connection Mobility Control, Dynamic allocation of resources to UEs in both uplink and downlink (scheduling);
- IP header compression and encryption of user data stream;
- Selection of an MME at UE attachment when no routing to an MME can be determined from the information provided by the UE;
- Routing of User Plane data towards Serving Gateway;
- Scheduling and transmission of paging messages (originated from the MME);
- Scheduling and transmission of broadcast information (originated from the MME or O&M);
- Measurement and measurement reporting configuration for mobility and scheduling;
- Scheduling and transmission of PWS (which includes ETWS and CMAS) messages (originated from the MME);
- CSG handling;
- Transport level packet marking in the uplink.
The DeNB hosts the following functions in addition to the eNB functions:
- S1/X2 proxy functionality for supporting RNs;
- S11 termination and S-GW/P-GW functionality for supporting RNs.

E-UTRAN supports relaying by having a Relay Node (RN) wirelessly connect to an eNB serving the RN, called Donor eNB (DeNB), via a modified version of the E-UTRA radio interface, the modified version being called the Un interface. The RN supports the eNB functionality meaning it terminates the radio protocols of the E-UTRA radio interface, and the S1 and X2 interfaces. From a specification point of view, functionality defined for eNBs, e.g. RNL and TNL, also applies to RNs unless explicitly specified. RNs do not support NNSF. In addition to the eNB functionality, the RN also supports a subset of the UE functionality, e.g. physical layer, layer-2, RRC, and NAS functionality, in order to wirelessly connect to the DeNB.

The architecture for supporting RNs is shown in Figure 4.7.2-1. The RN terminates the S1, X2 and Un interfaces. The DeNB provides S1 and X2 proxy functionality between the RN and other network nodes (other eNBs, MMEs and S GWs). The S1 and X2 proxy functionality includes passing UE-dedicated S1 and X2 signalling messages as well as GTP data packets between the S1 and X2 interfaces associated with the RN and the S1 and X2 interfaces associated with other network nodes. Due to the proxy functionality, the DeNB appears as an MME (for S1-MME), an eNB (for X2) and an S-GW (for S1-U) to the RN.

For more details see - 3GPP TS 36.300 : Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall description; Stage 2 (Release 10)

Sunday, 23 October 2011

Femtocells for Low Energy Buildings

Exactly three years back I posted an article about 'Femtocells for Radiation Proofed Homes' and when I saw this presentation by Elisa, Finland, It just validated with the research what I had mentioned. With the government push for more low energy infrastructure and at the same time the new technologies using higher frequencies, this problem is going to keep getting worse. Untill ofcourse the coming of 'Wireless Friendly Buildings'.

Elisa's presentation as follows:

Saturday, 22 October 2011

Ericsson Video: Using LTE to broadcast Danish elections



Danes elected a new parliament September 15. As four teams from TV 2 moved between party headquarters, Parliament House and celebration sites, they used standard off-the-shelf LTE terminals to upload interviews to the tv-station, which in turn broadcast the content live to viewers on their channel.

The solution is provided by operator TDC, on the network supplied and managed by Ericsson.

Friday, 21 October 2011

'Internet Trends' and 'Mobile Internet Trends' by Mary Meeker

Came across this article from InformationWeek based on this presentation by Mary Meeker. Few points to note from the article:

Mobile: Mobile subscriber growth is continuing at a pace that matches the meteoric rise of Internet adoption, a rate that puts other technologies like TV to shame. Meeker cited 35% year-on-year mobile 3G subscriber growth and noted that smartphone shipments have surpassed feature phone shipments in the U.S. and Europe. She also highlighted the explosive growth of iPhone, iPad, and (particularly) Android.

User Interface: Interface matters. "Before Steve Jobs, computers were utilitarian tools for computation," said Meeker. "After Steve, computers became beautiful objects we could use in thousands of ways to aim to make life better." In the wake of the iPhone and the iPad, there's a revolution in the way we interact with computers, through touch and voice, while mobile. "We think the next big things are the things on the sides of your head," said Meeker. "Those would be your ears." She was referring to the innovation seen in voice recognition, sound creation and sharing, and audio interfaces like headphones recently.

America Leads In Mobile Innovation: Despite the general economic doldrums in the U.S., American companies are leading the way toward the mobile era. Made-in-the-USA smartphone operating systems--Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile--have gone from 5% market share in 2005 to 65% today. "The pace of innovation in Silicon Valley may be unprecedented," said Meeker.

Mobile Devices Are Empowering People: Some 85% of people in the world have access to the wireless grid, more than have access to electricity. Over 200 million farmers in India receive payments via mobile devices. Meeker pointed out how instrumental such devices have been during disasters like the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan. "When people look back at this era that we're living in now, they'll say this was the time people got empowered by mobile devices," said Meeker.

The video of her talk is embedded below:



Couple of presentations from her are embedded below:





Tuesday, 18 October 2011

HD Voice - Next step in the evolution of voice communication

Nearly 2 years back I blogged about Orange launching HD Voice via the use of AMR-WB (wideband) codecs. HD voice is already fully developed and standardized technology and has so far been deployed on 32 networks in almost as many countries.

People who have experienced HD voice say it feels like they are talking to a person in the same room. Operators derive 70 percent of their revenue from voice and voice-related services, and studies show that subscribers appreciate the personal nature of voice communication, saying it offers a familiar and emotional connection to another person.

HD voice is also a reaction to the competition faced by the operators from OTT players like Skype.

Below is an embed from the recent whitepaper by Ericsson:



For more information also see: