Cell Broadcast Service (CBS)

PWS Public Warning System in 3GPP

•Earthquakeand Tsunami Warning System ETWS (Rel-8)
•CommercialMobile Alert System CMAS (Rel-9)
•EU-Alertrequirements are being studied (Rel-11)

Cell Broadcast Service (CBS)

You can test a mobile station's ability to receive Cell Broadcast messages using the Cell Broadcast Service capability in the test setadcast Service (CBS) Overview
The Cell Broadcast Service in the test set allows you to send cell broadcast messages to the mobile station that are transmitted at a defined repetition interval (seeCell Broadcast Setup - General for more information). This allows the mobile station to receive the message even if entering the cell after the first transmission. The cell broadcast messages can be from one to fifteen pages in length, and are transmitted by the test set until the cell broadcast service is disabled or the state of the message(s) being transmitted is set to OFF.
The test set can enable up to three different messages to be transmitted each Repetition Period using the Cell Broadcast Service. The repetition period can potentially be set smaller than the time it takes to transmit all enabled messages, so priority is given to the messages in the following order (from high to low): message 1, message 2, then message 3. If there is not enough space to transmit the enabled messages, the test set either truncates the lowest priority messages or does not send them.
There are several message parameters that the test set allows you to set. It is important that you configure your mobile station to receive cell broadcast messages. This is done by enabling reception of messages in your mobile station and specifying the message parameters that it can receive, and set the parameters according to the type of cell broadcast message your mobile station is allow to receive. Cell broadcast messages are not acknowledged by the mobile station.
In addition to the pre-defined text strings, you can specify a custom text string and custom data to be sent in a cell broadcast message. See Cell Broadcast Messages -Content for more information on configuring the contents of the cell broadcast message.
WCDMA Cell Broadcast Messaging
The Cell Broadcast messages are transmitted by the Broadcast and Multicast Control (BMC) protocol layer over the CTCH (Common Traffic Channel) logical channel. The messages are sent using DRX (Discontinuous Reception) on the CTCH, and the CBS Schedule message states which fragments of CBS messages will be sent in specific frames. The MAC layer multiplexes the CTCH onto the FACH transport channel with the CCCH (Common Control Channel) logical channel. The FACH is then multiplexed onto the S-CCPCH (Secondary Common Control Physical Channel) with the PCH (Paging Channel) transport channel, which also uses DRX to transmit in particular frames. The test set gives priority to the PCH over the FACH. Thus, it is possible that CBS data might not be transmitted in the intended slot because the slot contains PCH data instead. If this occurs, the CBS data is sent in the subsequent slot, and the CBS data for the subsequent slot is discarded by the test set.

The BMC is responsible for the handling, scheduling and transmission of CBS messages. Its purpose is to allow the UE to selectively receive messages using Discontinuous Reception (DRX), by broadcasting a CBS Schedule Message in addition to the CBS message. The CBS schedule message contains information about subsequent CBS messages, including the timing of each transmission in the next schedule period. Each schedule period consists of transmission blocks called Common Traffic Channel Block Sets (CTCH-BS), and contains information about the subsequent scheduling period. The number of blocks in the scheduling period is limited by the 8-bit "Length of CBS Scheduling Period"; the value range being 1 to 256. Additionally, the CBS Schedule Message contains an 8-bit field "Offset to Begin CTCH-BS Index", ranging from 1 to 255, which points to the starting block of the next CBS Schedule period.
The CTCH is defined by 3GPP TS 25.301 as a point to multipoint unidirectional channel for the transfer of dedicated user information for all or a group of specified UEs. For CBS, the MAC layer multiplexes the CTCH onto the FACH with a fixed transport block size and TTI, where TTI is the transmission time interval that the FACH carries the CTCH. The TTI for the FACH is fixed at 10 ms in the test set, and can therefore transmit data 100 times a second. The actual TTI intervals in the FACH to be utilized by the CTCH are determined by the CTCH Allocation Period and the CBS Frame Offset parameter settings.
For example, in the figure below the CTCH Allocation period is 6, the CTCH Frame Offset is 2, and the number of radio frames in the TTI of the FACH that are used for the CTCH is 1.
The block size of the FACH is fixed in the test set so that 20 octets of data are available for each CTCH interval. Some of this space is used up for RLC headers. The formula to determine the number of blocks needed to carry a message of size X octets is: Number of Blocks = (X+20)/19 . The repetition period and allocation period both affect the bandwidth of CBS messages. If there is space to transmit only a portion of a message, the test set will truncate the message where possible and lower priority messages are not sent.