CS Fallback Issues

CSFB Signalling Flow - Simplified

UE

MME

eNodeB

MSC

RNC

1
RRC: Paging (cn-Domain CS)

S1AP: Paging

3
4

SGsAP: Paging Req

3
SGsAP: Service Reject

RRC: RRC Connection Request

MT Only
2

RRC: RRC Connection Setup

RRC: RRC Connection Setup Complete /

NAS: EXTENDED SERVICE REQUEST
S1AP: Initial UE Message/
NAS: EXTENDED SERVICE REQUEST

SGsAP: Service Request

S1AP: Initial Context Setup (w CS Fallback Indicator)

5 S1AP: Initial Context Setup Response

RRC: RRC Connection Release (Redirection Info)
S1AP: UE Context Release Request (cause Radio Network cs-fallback triggered)
S1AP: UE Context Release Command (cause Radio Network cs-fallback triggered)
S1AP: UE Context Release Complete

Acquire 3G cell & read SIBs

3G RRC Connection Establishment

NAS: CM SERVICE REQUEST or PAGING RESONSE

RAB and Call Setup

MT Only

CSFB Failure points

1.

MSC has to correctly identify the subscriber is SGs associated and Page the MME.

2.

MME may reject the page

3.
4.

MME stats show probably about 1% of SGs pages for CSFB are rejected by MME. Tek probes can
be used to try narrow these rejections down to root cause.

MME may page UE incorrectly due to MME Duplicate IMSI fault. T2 have a workaround
cleaning script running how effectively is this mitigating the fault?
UE may fail to respond to the LTE page for many reasons

5.
6.
7.
8.

We have seen cases where this association is not always correct which may prevent the page
ibeing correctly sent to the MME n the first place

For example, UE is busy doing TAC updates, moving from LTE to 3G or vica-versa, LTE RRC
congestion or poor RF especially in uplink at cell edge, paging congestion etc)
Early NTI testing saw cases where the MME sends a PS-Domain page instead of a CS-Domain
page so UE does not respond with correct message (responds with Service Request instead of
Extended Service Request, which means CSFB is not triggered) unlikely to still happen
Early NTI cases also saw cases where UE was busy transitioning from Idle to Connected Mode
right when the MME was paging the UE. UE did not read the page (an RRC Connected UE is
looking for CS Service Notification message, not paging for CSFB) and MME didnt appear to be
smart enough to recognise this state transition and send CS Service Notification). This would be
reasonably rare but I captured at least two examples during my testing so it does happen.

MME or eNB fail to correctly action the CSFB request (i.e. fail to initiate Redirection)
UE falls off LTE but fails to find a suitable 3G cell to make the call
UE falls back to 3G successfully, fails to respond to page (e.g. 3G RRC Congestion)
UE falls back successfully to 3G, responds to page but then actual Voice call fails to
setup for all the normal reasons of voice congestion.

CSFB Testing

Independent test house Anstel showed Optus CSFB call setup failure rate In
Sydney CSB and metro is higher than Telstra

Optus: 34 call setup failures

Telstra: 15 call setup failures

Initial E2E drive test of CSFB with Samsung Galaxy 3 shows the following
main categories for the voice call failures when the UE is already on LTE:
Failure Category

LTE MT

CSFB request not responded to by

network
UE doesnt receive the page

5
1

LTE MO
1 (4%)

9 (36%)

UE doesnt respond to the page

Modify EPS Bearer Reject

1 (4%)
9 (36%)

5 (20%)

Note: Percentages are the percentage of failures that are due to this cause, not the actual failure rate of the CSFB

In addition, over half of the MT call failures while the UE was classified as being on 3G
were in fact caused by the UE reselecting to LTE at the time the call was being made

Main issues

Over 50% of observed MT failures in Swissqual testing were seen to be

caused by the MT call (page) coming into the LTE UE when the UE was not in
a reachable state, because it had rejected the Modify EPS Bearer Request
procedure
1.
2.

3.
4.

5.

UE has returned from 3G to 4G and successfully

performed a Combined Tracking Area Update
MME initiates a Modify EPS Bearer Context
Request message to update the QOS
parameters from 3G to 4G (e.g. max bit rates)
UE rejects the request still unknown why
MME seems to wait 10s before reacting, and
then Detaches UE asking for it to re-attach why
take so long?
UE takes 10s to initiate new Attach again, why
so long?

UE is unreachable for paging during this

whole 20s period!!!!

Interesting Note
Telstra dont have this issue
as they dont even perform
this procedure question is
with Architect team to figure

CSFB Initiatives

Table below lists some of the initiatives we can undertake to improve various aspects
of CSFB performance
Config / Initiative

Separate redirection targets

from CSFB and coverage based
data redirections
Measurement Based redirection
(with multiple configured target
layers)
CSFB via PS HO

Deferred SIB Reading on 3G

Fast Return back to LTE

NSN

Huawei

Comments

Yes

No
(eRAN3.0)

Allows CSFB to U9 in poor U21 areas and when

U9 is not congested manual area engineer
optimisation

RL40

RL40

Yes

RU40

Yes

Can improve CSFB target layer selection, if

algorithms are intelligent enough (unknown)
Increases delay in call setup

Yes

Reduces CSFB delay, improves reliability of call

setup by reserving call resources in 3G
Requires CN support, most likely not fully
available

RAN14

Speeds redirection based CSFB by allowing UE

to access 3G cell without reading all SIBs (e.g.
skip SIB11)
Telstra are doing this today

RAN14

Allows RNC to redirect LTE capable UE straight

back to LTE when releasing the voice call
(redirection)
Risky with Ericsson and Huawei
implementation as no prior check on LTE
suitability is performed
Telstra are doing this today
Allows eNB to acquire 3G SIB info for target
cells and deliver to UE in RRC Release