TelecomStudy18

Ericsson Appoints Rima Qureshi Chief Strategy Officer

30th Apr 2014

Ericsson has appointed Rima Qureshi as new Chief Strategy Officer where she will also drive the company's mergers and acquisitions (M A) strategy and activities. In addition she will serve as Chairman of Business Unit Modems.

Rima Qureshi previously led the integration of the CDMA and LTE assets of the former Nortel Networks and ran the business unit CDMA Mobile Systems during 2010-2012.

She has been Senior Vice President and part of Ericsson's Executive Leadership Team since 2010.

Rima Qureshi said: "The industry is going through a rapid transformation and I could not think of a more exciting time period to lead Ericsson's Group strategy development. At the same time I am also looking forward to working closely with the team at Business Unit Modems to ensure we are successful based on the industry's most advanced LTE thin modem."

Rima Qureshi joined Ericsson in 1993, and prior to running Business Unit CDMA Mobile Systems, her career spanned leadership roles in R&D, sales, and Services, including managing Global Service Delivery Centers in Canada, the US, Mexico and Brazil.

Qureshi holds a Bachelor's degree in Information Systems and an MBA, both from McGill University in Montréal, Canada.

Nokia's Former CEO Paid More Than Expected for Microsoft Deal

1st-May2014

Nokia's former CEO and now head of Microsoft's mobile phone division Stephen Elop received a larger than expected pay off from the deal to sell the phones division.

He earned nearly a third more than the already locally controversial payout and took USD33.5 million from the deal.

Although payouts of that size are not unusual in corporate deals of this size in the USA, it raised protests in Finland where he Elop was seen as profiting from the demise of a local icon.

The main reason for the higher than expected payout was due to the rise in the value of Nokia shares following the announcement of the sale, recovering a little of the slump they experienced under Elop's leadership.

Nokia said that 70% of the pay-off was funded by Microsoft.

UMTS To LTE Reselection

LTE 2 reselection mechanisms are used in UMTS

Legacy Based:

This is ranking based system and it applies to intra-frequency, inter-frequency as well as for GSM reselection.

Priority Based:

This mechanism applies for cell reselection from WCDMA to LTE

Priority based method results into 2 different scenarios:

High Priority UMTS to Low Priority LTE

Low Priority UMTS to High Priority LTE

Both legacy based and priority based cell reselection can be active at the same time.

Reselection from Low Priority UMTS to High Priority LTE

If LTE frequency is of higher priority than the current frequency, measurements are always performed.

Measurement Condition:

The UE searches every layer of higher priority at every Thigher_priority_search = (60*Nlayers) seconds.

Nlayers is the total number of configured higher priority E-UTRA frequencies

Reselection Condition:

Cell reselection occurs if UE finds a cell with an Srxlev value greater than ThreshHigh.

Srxlev (target) > ThreshHigh

Reselection from High Priority UMTS to Low Priority LTE

Measurement Condition:

The UE only starts measurement for candidate LTE when following threshold is met.

Srxlev (serving) < SPrioritySearch1

Squal (serving) < SPrioritySearch2

Reselection Condition:

If Srx value of the serving cell falls below the threshServingLow value, UE attempts to reselect a cell on LTE. Cell reselection occurs if UE finds a cell with an Srxlev value greater than threshLow value for that frequency.

Srxlev (source) < ThreshServing

Low Srxlev (target) > ThreshLow

LTE Interfaces and Protocols

The main interfaces in LTE are Uu, S1-MME, X2, S1-U, S11 and S5.

LTE Uu: -

This is the air interface between UE and eNB. LTE layer 1 is dealt with later. RRC is the protocol that is used for communication between UE and eNB. Above RRC there is a NAS layer in UE. This NAS layer terminates at MME and eNB shall silently pass the NAS messages to MME.

LTE S1-MME: -

eNB and MME communicate using this IP interface. S1-AP is application layer interface. The transport protocols used here is SCTP. (Stream control transmission protocol)

LTE X2: -

This interface is used by a eNB to communicate to other eNB. This again is a IP interface with SCTP as transport. X2-AP is the application protocol used by eNB’s to communicate.

LTE S11: -

An IP interface between MME and SGW! GTPv2 is the protocols used at the application layer. GTPv2 runs on UDP transport. This interface must and should run GTPv2.

LTE S5: -

This is the interface between SGW and PGW. This again is an IP interface and has two variants. S5 can be a GTP interface or PMIP interface. PMIP variant is used to support non-trusted 3GPP network access.

LTE S1-U: -

User plane interface between eNB and SGW! GTP-U v1 is the application protocol that encapsulates the UE payload. GTP-U runs on UDP.

All the above IP interfaces can be of IPv4 or IPv6. Few interfaces can be of IPv4 and few can be of IPv6. From the specification side there are no restrictions.

LTE Idle Mode – Cell Reselection

After cell selection UE performs measurement and carry out cell reselection of new candidate cell. This is based on certain criterion. Reselection process involves 2 steps

1. Measurements Condition: Specifies when to start measuring neighboring cells. Once condition is met UE measures the RSRP level of the E-UTRA cells on the current frequency and any inter-frequency and inter-RAT frequency carriers.

2. Reselection Condition: Specifies reselection criteria for candidate cell. There are two different mechanisms for cell reselection:

Legacy Based

Priority Based

Cell reselection can be either Legacy or Priority based.

Legacy Based

This is classical Ranking based system and is applied to intra-frequency reselection.

• It is also applied to inter frequencies which are equally prioritized.

• UE applies cell ranking R criterion on serving cell and neighboring cell.

Priority Based

Priority values in the range [0..7] are used, where 0 indicates lowest priority and 7 indicates highest priority.

Priorities can be set for:

Inter Frequencies: Lower, Equal or Higher Priority

Inter-Rat Frequencies: Higher or Lower Priority

Equal priorities between different RATs are not supported

Idle Mode – Cell Reselection: Priority Based

CellReselectionPriority : Absolute reselection priority for E-UTRA or IRAT frequency

sNonIntraSearch : Threshold for inter and IRAT frequency

threshXLow : Threshold for Srx value of serving cell below which UE performs cell

reselection towards a lower priority cell.

threshXLow : Threshold for Srx value of target cell for cell reselection towards a

lower priority Inter or IRAT frequency.

tReselectionEutra : Cell reselection timer value for EUTRAN

tReselectionUtra : Cell reselection timer value for UTRAN