When You Power On Your Phone PDF

WHAT HAPPENS
WHEN YOU
ON YOUR POWER
PHONE?
From the trainer
5 Strategic Steps to know
of more than About LTE Attach Procedure
2500+
technical
professionals,
Control Plane
engineers and Concept
executives from
companies such as
User Plane
Concept
System Level Procedure

of UE Attach
AZAR TAUFIQUE
I left this page blank,
because Less is More
Preface
I decided to write this tutorial, as I have been getting a lot of requests over email
about the LTE attach procedure/ LTE Call Flow procedure. Before writing about it
I decided to search Google about the same and not to my surprise, I found results
as follows.
Not that, I didn't want to explain LTE call flow procedure. All the results above on
Google explain about the signaling procedure, how and what happens when a
phone is powered on for LTE attach. The messages and signaling procedures are
standardized, Yes and I get this same question from dozens of people, countries
apart. I was curious to know what's going. Reading between the lines, I
understood, the question. What you really are asking is this, “Azar tell me, what
happens when I power on the phone, what nodes are involved, who does what
and why?”
If you are passed the phase of attached procedure, based on your understanding
and experience of working on LTE. THEN this module is not for you, so click the
delete button and carry on with so many other things waiting for your attention
elsewhere in your life
If you are still reading this, keep in mind I have broken down the whole attach
procedure at the fundamental level so that you can understand the strategy, how a
mobile/ smart phone gets attached to the network.
Once you understand the strategy behind it, you can refer to all sorts of signaling
and call flow diagrams available to enhance your understanding. Replace the
strategy with the actual signaling flow and messages about what's going on, so on
and so forth.
I will explain it in 5 simple steps.

Ready
Let's jump right in!
TECHTRAINED
Learn Technology in 10 minutes All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com 1
Who are you?
I am
Azar Taufique
I contribute articles related to

LTE, which you can under
stand in 10 minutes or less.
Send your questions at
azar@techntrained.com.
I am
Capt. Long Term
Evolution
I provide guidance to all question

heads advancing into my standard
for wireless communication of
high-speed data for mobile phones
and data terminals.
I was created on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network
technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using a different
radio interface together with core network improvements
2 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

TECHTRAINED
Learn Technology in 10 minutes
Main Players
There are five nodes involved in attach procedure including your phone. I am
explaining their main function in 1 or 2 lines at this point.
UE
User Equipment (phone)
eNode B
Base Station (commonly referred as tower) It will be responsible for wireless part
of the communication between eNodeB and phone
Mobility Management Entity (MME)

Major node in core network responsible for attach procedure and facilitate in
authentication and security procedure
Serving Gateway (SGW)

Think of it as a local router which will forward data traffic and / or messages from
PGW towards to MME and eNodeB respectively.
Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW)

Responsible for connection with rest of the world (Internet, IP network etc.)
and allocating IP address
Before you dive into Attach procedure. Familiarize yourself with the
Control Plane and User Plane
Concept by watching the short videos
TECHTRAINED
Control Plane Architecture
There are two things to notice here. At the bottom level, you can see each of the node,
your smart phone, base station, MME, SGW and PGW. On top you can see the protocol
stack for each of the node. As the title says Control Plane, it means during control
plane procedure, these protocols and their operation will run on each of these nodes.

TECHTRAINED
Step 1:
When you power on your phone, it will search for PCI value of the cell and become RRC
connected. Yes, I am not explaining (15+) steps on air interface procedure, as how a UE
finds PCI and becomes RRC connected at this point. I am keeping the discussion at system
level for this module and will discuss air interface some other time.
Can I access
No,
don't even
Facebook now?
think about it.
The main take away here is once UE becomes RRC connected to the eNodeB. It does
not mean that you are done with registration. There are four more steps to go beyond this.
TECHTRAINED
Step 2:
In second step, eNodeB, forwards the attach request from the UE to MME
No, wait, let

Can I check MME verifies your
WatsApp messages phone identity and
now? authentication
Mainly MME will perform. Authentication and security procedure to verify the UE identity.
It will assign GUTI value to the UE.

TECHTRAINED
Step 3:
After MME has verified user's uthenticity and allocation of GUTI. MME will forward
request to SGW to allocate an IP address (as LTE is an all IP network) for the UE.
I want to tweet about

STEP 3. Are you from generation Z
Can I check or grew up with an iPad in hand?
my Twitter Now? Can't you wait for a
couple hundred milliseconds
more without connection?
TECHTRAINED
Step 4:
SGW will forward IP allocation request to PGW. One of the jobs of PGW is to allocate an
IP address, therefore when SGW gets a request from MME for IP address. This request
will be forwarded to PGW. PGW will allocate an IP address for the UE.
Can I check an Stop asking

important email this question
using my phone until next page
right now?
?

TECHTRAINED
Step 5:
In this step, IP address is allocated for the UE as seen from PGW towards the UE.
The nodes and protocols involved in the procedure are shown with arrows as shown
in the picture above.
You can start

making your data
request through
your phone now.
It's been so long;
I have lost my
attention span.
This all was so boring.
!
TECHTRAINED
USER PLANE
Once the Control Plane is established, then the User plane concept exists. It is shown
here what nodes are involved and how data will be received by your phone.
Whenever you type anything on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or tweet etc.
User plane nodes and protocols will be operated.

The protocol stacks shown here above each node, are the ones used in user plane.

TECHTRAINED
USER PLANE STEP 1:
When you will run some application or type something on your browser APP.
UE will send a request to the eNodeB. The protocols involved in this case for user
plane are shown in the diagram above.
TECHTRAINED
USER PLANE STEP 2:
The request will be forwarded from eNodeB towards SGW, in order to fetch the
data requested by you (user). Again the protocols stack involved are shown here.

TECHTRAINED
USER PLANE STEP 3:
In this step, once the request is received by PGW. Data starts flowing from PGW toward
TECHTRAINED
Concluding Remarks
Once the UE is connected, you can start receiving data coming from Internet,
directly to your phone. Once you are familiar with this attach procedure and high
level function of each of the node. It can facilitate you with rest of the signaling
procedures and attach procedures. You can keep this diagram and concept in mind.
Refer back to it, whenever you want to get system level information on LTE Call
Flow and/ or Attach Procedure.

TECHTRAINED
ACRONYMS:
PCI = Physical Cell Identity

RRC = Radio Resource Control
GTP = GRPS Tunneling Protocol
GTP-C = GPRS Tunneling Protocol for Control Plane
GPT-U = GPRS Tunneling Protocol for User Plane
MAC = Medium Access Control
PGW = Packet Data Network Gateway
SGW = Serving Gateway
MME = Mobility Management Entity
PDCP = Packet Data Convergence Protocol
IP = Internet Protocol
UDP = User Datagram Protocol
RLC = Radio Link Control
EPS = Evolved Packet System
e-RAB = e- Radio Access Bearer
GUTI = Globally Unique Temporary Identifier
TECHTRAINED
Got any questions,
Email me at azar@techtrained.com
I check every email

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WHAT HAPPENS

System Level Procedure

I will explain it in 5 simple steps.

I contribute articles related to

I provide guidance to all question

2 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

Mobility Management Entity (MME)

Serving Gateway (SGW)

Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW)

4 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

No, wait, let

6 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

I want to tweet about

Can I check an Stop asking

8 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

You can start

User plane nodes and protocols will be operated.

10 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

12 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

14 All Rights Reserved www.TechTrained.com

PCI = Physical Cell Identity

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