Soft & Softer Handover In UMTS System

Prashant Panigrahi June 16, 2011 5 Comments

What are soft and softer handover in 3G UMTS mobile system?
Handovers are an important part of every cellular communication system. They are
used for providing mobility in cellular architectures. In UMTS systems different
handover types have been introduced to cope also with other requirements as load
control, coverage provisioning and offering quality of services.
Handover aims to provide continuity of mobile services to a user traveling over cell
boundaries in a cellular infrastructure. For a user having an ongoing communication
and crossing the cell edge, it is more favorable to use the radio resources in the new
cell also called the target cell because the signal strength perceived in the old
cell worsens as the user penetrates the target cell.

The whole process of tearing down the existing connection in the current cell and
establishing a new connection in the appropriate cell is called handover. The
ability of a cellular network to perform efficient handovers is crucial to offer
attractive services as real-time applications or streaming media as planned in third
generation networks.
Especially in WCDMA two special types of handovers have been introduced; soft and
softer handovers, allowing a mobile user to use 2 separate air interface channels
when being in the overlapping area of two adjacent sectors.
Soft & Softer handovers are similar in techniques but there are some differences in
both the techniques.
Softer Handover

Softer handover is the situation where one base station receives two user signals
from two adjacent sectors it serves. In the case of softer handover the base station
receives 2 separated signals through multi-path propagation. Due to reflections on
buildings or natural barriers the signal sent from the mobile stations reaches the
base station from two different sectors.

The signals received during softer handover are treated similarly as multi-path
signals. In the uplink direction the signals received at the base station are routed to
the same rake receiver and then combined following the maximum ratio combining
technique. In the downlink direction the situation is slightly different as the base
station uses different scrambling codes to separate the different sectors it serves.
So it is necessary for the different fingers of the rake receiver in the mobile terminal
to apply the appropriate de-spreading code on the signals received from the
different sectors before combining them together.
Soft Handover

In the case of soft handover the mobile station is in the overlapping cell coverage
area of two sectors belonging to different base stations.
In downlink direction the signals received from the two different base stations are
combined using MRC Rake processing in the mobile station.

In the uplink direction the received signals can no longer be combined in the base
station but are routed to the RNC. The combining follows a different principle; in the
RNC the two signals are compared on a frame-by-frame basis and the best
candidate is selected after each interleaving period; i.e. every 10, 20, 40 or 80ms.
As the outer loop power control algorithm measures the SNR of received uplink
signals at a rate between 10 and 100Hz, this information is used to select the frame
with the best quality during the soft handover.
The Soft Handover procedure is composed of a number of single functions:

Measurements

Filtering of Measurements

Reporting of Measurement results

The Soft Handover Algorithm

Execution of Handover

Soft Handover Algorithm

Soft handover in practice is a complex technique. The following example will
describe soft handover for best case scenario.

Before describing the above scenario we need to know three important terms.
Active Set
User information is sent all the cell belongs to Active Set. In FDD, the cells in the
active set are involved in soft handover. In TDD the active set always comprises one
cell only. The UE shall only consider active set cells included in the variable
CELL_INFO_LIST for measurement; i.e. active set cells not included in the
CELL_INFO_LIST shall not be considered in any event evaluation and measurement
reporting.
Monitored Set

Cells, which are not included in the active set, but are included in the
CELL_INFO_LIST belong to the monitored set.
Detected Set
Cells detected by the UE, which are neither in the CELL_INFO_LIST nor in the active
set belong to the detected set. Reporting of measurements of the detected set is
only applicable to intra-frequency measurements made by UEs in CELL_DCH state.
The above scenario can be devided into three different parts.
Radio Link Addition (Event 1A)
Event 1A is triggered when a primary CPICH enters the reporting range. This means
when a cell is strong enough to enter into Active Set.
Radio Link Deletion (Event 1B)
Event 1B is triggered when a primary CPICH leaves the reporting range. This
happens when a cell in active set become weak and needs to be removed from
Active Set.
Combined Radio Link Addition & Deletion (Event 1C)
Event 1C is triggered when a non-active primary CPICH becomes better than an
active primary CPICH. When this event is triggered a primary CPICH is removed from
the Active Set and a new stronger cell is added into Active Set.
You can get information on other events in another article.
Soft Handover Algorithm Flow Diagram

Further Studies

Why no Soft Handover in LTE

Prashant Panigrahi

May 23, 2014 2 Comments

When LTE system was developed one of the big technical feature from UMTS Soft/Softer handover was missing from
the architecture. There are many specific reasons why LTE dropped altogether soft handover (connect-before-break)
from the system design.
Before discussing about why LTE skipped soft handover and only implemented hard handover, lets check the basic
concept of soft/softer handover.

Soft handover concept

Soft handover or connect-before-break handover is a category of handover procedure where radio links are added or
removed in such a fashion that there is always one radio link connected to the UE.
All the radio links connected to the UE at a particular time are part of the ACTIVE SET and the number can vary from
1 to 8. This means at least one and maximum of 8 radio links are connected to the UE.
Soft handover is a part of WCDMA system which is basically same in concept as in CDMA systems.
In the case of soft handover the mobile station is in the overlapping cell coverage area of two sectors belonging to
different base stations. In downlink direction signals received from different base stations are combined at the rake
receiver of the UE. In the uplink the scrambled signals from different base stations for a particular UE are compared
frame-by-frame basis at the RNC and the best candidate is selected after each interleaving period; i.e. every 10, 20,
40 or 80ms.

UMTS Soft Handover Architecture

Soft and softer handovers are only possible when UE is in connected state with dedicated channel (DCH).

Even with HSDSCH (High-Speed Downlink Shared Channel) there is no soft handover in UMTS. In cased HSDPA
communication there is only hard handover which is break before connect. Means UE is never connected to more
than one radio link at a time and when UE goes out of coverage of a particular cell that radio link is teared down
before adding the better radio link.

Requirements for soft handover and what is missing in LTE

Lets discuss why LTE does not have soft handover as in WCDMA and CDMA systems. Though there are various
reasons, I documented here three causes why soft handover was omitted from LTE.

Adjacent Cell Frequency Reuse

Soft handover is possible in CDMA because adjacent cells can operate on the same frequencies as long as they use
different scrambling codes. So, a UE can listen to two different cells by decoding the received signals twice, using a
scrambling code from each cell on each for each decoded signal. This allows a UE to communicate with both cells
during handover, making it a soft handover.
LTE is based on OFDMA, which is fundamentally a frequency division method. This means that a UE has to actually
resync to a different set of frequency subcarriers when it hands over between cells, removing the possibility for soft
handover. In fact, when a handover is beginning, an LTE UE has to go into a compressed mode where it listens to its
current cell for part of the time and searches for a new cell the rest of the time. With modern radio technology, this
retuning can happen fast enough to make the inter-frequency retuning much more seamless than it was in older
technologies like GSM, obviating the need for soft handover.

Flat Architecture
LTE has flat architecture which means theres no central node controller like the BSC or RNC. Therefore theres no
need to sum up multiple active signals like you would say for in cdma. Another reason being, theres no need for
power control in LTE because of its orthogonal modulation scheme, theres no self interference (like in cdma) so no
worries about Rx diversity gain and therefore SHO can be dropped.

Orthogonality in LTE
Cell-edge reception (which was at the core of Soft HO design in WCDMA) issue is not quite applicable in LTE
networks because of orthogonality in both uplink and downlink. Therefore soft handover can be dropped from the
LTE system.

Conclusion
Though LTE does not have soft or softer handover it still maintains seamless mobility using hard handover. In LTE
there are three different types of handover can be possible

Intra-LTE Handover: In this case source and target cells are part of the same LTE network.

Inter-LTE Handover: Handover happens towards other LTE nodes. (Inter-MME and Inter-SGW)

Inter-RAT Handover: Handover between different radio technologies. For example handover from LTE
to WCDMA.

More details on Intra-LTE handover

Intra-LTE (Intra-MME/SGW) handover using the X2 interface

Intra-LTE Handover Using the S1 Interface

Voice Over LTE VoLTE Signalling Call Flow

Prashant Panigrahi

January 25, 2013 2 Comments

Voice over LTE VoLTE is the technology to provide voice and video services over LTE all PS network. As LTE is a
complete PS network VoLTE need to use IMS in EPS core to handle voice and video related services. Apart from IMS,
VoLTE enabled UE (User Equipment) use MME (Mobility Management Entity) to authenticate a UE prior to entering
the EPC. MME need to communicate with HSS which in turn communicate with AAA server for authentication,
authorization and accounting purposes.
After authentication procedure is over a control signalling is used to create a default bearer to internet. MME then
select the appropriate SGW (Serving Gateway) to connect to eNodeB.

SIP is the most important protocol in VoLTE communication. It is in charge of all signalling required to setup,
manage and terminate the session. UDP (User Datagram Protocol ) protocol is used for transmission of actual VoLTE
user data packets.

This LTE video tutorial describes:

Authentication of UE in VoLTE call

How control signalling is used to create default bearer in VoLTE

How default internet bearer is established

Control signalling to create default IMS bearer.

Default IMS bearer establishment.

IMS registration via SIP

Notify change of state

Actual VoLTE call data packet transmission on UDP

VoLTE Signalling Call Flow Video Tutorial