Tate LTE snag ue nr) ‘igure 21 Aecllliteof te evolved UNITS teresa aso sess neWoek, Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network ‘The evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) [8] is illustrated in Figure 23. The E-UTRAN handles the ralio communications between the mobile and tne evolved packet core and just has one component, the evolved Node B (ENB) Each NI is a base sation that contols the mobiles in one oF more ces. A mobile ccomminicates with jt one hase station and one cella time, 0 there ie no <9 ‘of the soft handover sate from UMTS. The hase station that is communicating with a mobile is known as is serving eNB. The eNB has two maix functions. Fiesty, the eNB sends radio transmissions tall fis mobiles on te downlink and reesives wansmissions from them On the uplink, wsing the aualoge ans digital signal processing Fane at interface. Secondly, the ENB control the lnw-level poration of all them signalling messages such as handover commands that relate to those radio transmissions. In cary~ ing out these functions, the eNB combines the earlier functions of the Node B and the radio network contol to reduce the latency that arises when the mobile exchanges Information with the network,Each base station is connected to the EPC by means of the $1 interface. It can also bbe connected to nearby base stations by the X2 interface, which is mainly used for sig ralling and packet forwarding during handover. The X2 interface is optional, in that the SS interface can also handle all the functions of X2, albeit inlirectly and more slowly, Usually, the S1 and X2 interfaces are not direct physical connections: instead, the infor- ‘mation is routed across an underlying IP hased transport network in the manner shown in Figure 1.4. The same issue will apply to the EPCs interfaces below. A home eNB (HeNB) is a base station that has boon purchased by a user to provide femtocell coverage within the home [9]. A home eNB Delongs wo a closed subscriber ‘group (CSG) and can only be accessed by mobiles with a USIM that also belongs to the closed subscriber group. From an architectural point of view, a home eNB can be connected directly tothe evolved packet core in the same way as any other base station, for can be connected by way of an intermediate device known as a home eNB gateway that collects the information from several home eNBs, Home eNBs only control one cell, ‘and do not support the X2 interface until Release 10, 2.14 Evolved Packet Core re 2.4 shows the main components of the evolved packet core {10, 11]. We have ‘already seen one component, the home subseribor server (HSS), which is central database {thal contains information about all the network operator's subscribers, This is one of the few components of LITE that has been earried forward from UMTS and GSM, The packet data network (PDN) gateway (P-GW) is the EPCs point of contact with the outside world. Through the SGi interface, each PDN gateway exchanges data with one ‘or more external devices or packel data networks, such as the network operator's Servers the internet or the IP mukimedia subsystem. Each packet data wewwork is Klentiied by an ‘access point name (APN) [12]. A network operator typically uses a handful of different APNS, for example one for its own servers and one for the intemet. Tate LTE signaling E-UTRAN sty Sai Fipire 24 Main componenis ofthe evolved packet