When, why and what

LTE System Testing comes in the picture after the Integration Test phase of the SDLC.
Once the Development has verified the build in the Unit Test and Integration Test
phase, the build will be released to the System Test Team for further testing. 

It is at this phase of the software where you cannot afford to leak any defects in the
application. The reason being the end user's experience will take a hit thereby bringing
a bad reputation to the product. This is applicable to each and every product; be it from
an automobile, health care, aviation, hospital, IT or THE TELECOM industry.

In the Access side of the network, the device under test (DUT) can be UE (User
Equipment) or eNB (Evolved NodeB). In the Core network the device under test can be
MME (Mobility Management Entity), S-GW (Serving Gateway)or P-GW (Packet
Gateway). 

To encounter this phase with any entity of the LTE domain a person should have a very
deep understanding of the technology along with a good knowledge on the design of the
application. With both these arms a person can be a good System test engineer.

The job allows you to look at all these equipments from a bird eye view. Of course, you
can only be a part of Access or Non access; but not both. 

In the coming posts, I will attempt to explain the LTE Technology; right starting from
very basic level so that it helps a person who is new to the Telecom domain and is
eager to learn the LTE Technology from System Test point of view. The information
shared in this blog is collected from 3GPP Specifications, Internet, books and
discussions.

UE switched ON
We all use handsets and the question we can ask ourselves are:

1. How does the Mobile phone (UE) knows about the Operator's signal presence in it's
vicinity?
2. How does the UE get the signal?
3. How does the signal indicator bar on the UE increases?
4. Since there are many service providers in the location then how come the UE logs
into a particular provider?
5. How the call is initiated and reaches the called party within few seconds?

The answer to the queries are explained below:

The base station -in LTE it is termed as eNB (Evolved NodeB)- is continuously
transmitting signal which contains certain information about the network. When the UE
is switched on it searches for this broadcast information and syncs itself with the
network. The actual parameters which are exchanged will be explained later but for an
initial entry to the field it is important to understand the technology from a layman's
point.

It is when the UE syncs with the eNB it starts to establish a connection so that other
entities in the network knows the presence of the UE. (click here to know the
sequence now)
Now, when the UE is in complete sync with the network it can start it's data exchange.
The term 'data exchange' means that it can be either/all voice, video, chat, messaging
and Internet browsing. 

The question is: If this is data exchange then what will be the term used before the data
exchange. Well, the answer is: It is signaling. 

So, we can say that there are two parts involved when an exchange of information
happens.

1. Control Plane (Signaling)

An user plane occurs only after the Control plane has played it part.

In the next post, I will provide the architecture of LTE technology.

(click here) to know the UE switch ON procedure in more detail.

LTE Architecture
 Architecture

 The S1-C, S6a, S11, S7 interfaces in the above diagram represents the Control
Plane signaling between the entities in LTE. 
 The S1-U, S5/S8, SGi interfaces in the above diagram represents the User Plane
between the entities in LTE.
UE: (User Equipment) (Mobile Phone, Data device, Laptop etc.)
 eNodeB:  (Evolved NodeB) RRM (Radio Resource Management) functions, selection
of MME, routing of user plane data to S-GW, IP header compression, encryption of user
data, scheduling and transmission of paging message.
MME: (Mobility Management Entity) NAS signaling and security, tracking area list
management, bearer management, DN GW and S-GW selection, handovers (intra- and
inter-LTE), authentication
HSS: (Home Subscriber Server) server which holds user records and is also
responsible for Authentication
S-GW: (Serving Gateway) The local mobility anchor point for inter-eNodeB handover;
downlink packet buffering and initiation of network-triggered service requests, lawful
interception, accounting on user and QCI granularity, UL/DL charging per UE
P-GW: (Packet Gateway) UE IP address allocation, packet filtering and PDN
connectivity, UL and DL service-level charging, gating and rate enforcement.
PCRF: (Policy Charging and Rules Function) Takes care of resource allocation to the
UE

The next post will describe the function in detail of each elements in the LTE
Architecture. One significant point to know about LTE is that it is all IP. The UE is
allocated an IP address by the Network Element (P-GW) and with this IP, it
communicates with the world.

Function of Network Element

eNB
 Interfaces with UE. The interface is known as Uu interface.
 Connects to MME with interface S1-MME or S1-C
 Connects to S-GW with interface S1-U
 Admission Control
 Scheduling
 Radio Resource Management
 Enforcement of negotiated UL QoS
 Cell Information Broadcast
 Ciphering/deciphering of user and Control Plane data
 Compression and decompression of DL/UL user plane packet headers

MME
  It is the main control node in the LTE access network.
 Connects to SGSN with interface S3 (provides Control plane function for Mobility
between LTE and 2G/3G)
 Connects to another MME with interface S10
 Connects to HSS with interface S6a
 Responsible for IDLE mode UE tracking and PAGING procedure including re-
transmissions.
 Authentication of user. This is achieved by interacting with HSS.
 NAS signaling terminates at the MME
 Generation and allocation of temporary ID's to UE
 Enforces UE roaming restrictions and also checks the authorization of UE to
camp on the service provider's PLMN 
 Handles the security key management and is the termination point in the access
network for ciphering and integrity protection for NAS signaling.
 Involves in bearer Activation/Deactivation
 Responsible for choosing S-GW for a UE during the Initial Attach and also during
the Intra LTE Handover which also involves the core network node relocation

 
Serving-GW
 Connects to P-GW with interface S5/S8
 Connects to SGSN with interface S3
 Acts as Mobility anchor for the User plane during Inter eNB handover
 Anchor for mobility between LTE and other 3GPP technologies
 For Idle state UE's, the S-GW terminates the DL data path and triggers paging
when DL data arrives for the UE.
 Manages and stores UE context (parameters of the IP bearer service, network's
internal routing information)
 Performs replication of the user traffic in case of lawful interception

 
PDN-GW
 Acts as the entry and exit point of Traffic for the UE
 Provides connectivity to the UE to external packet data networks
 UE can have more than one PDN-GW for accessing multiple PDN's
 Connects to PCRF with S7 interface
 Connects to IMS with Gx interface
 Performs policy enforcement
 Packet filtering with each user
 Charging support
 Packet screening and lawful interception
 Anchor for mobility between 3GPP and non 3GPP technologies(WiMax) and
3GPP2 (CDMA 1x and EVDO)