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Newsletter: GL Releases UMTS Protocol Analyzer

Welcome to the July issue of GL Communications' Newsletter providing information and insight into our latest product, UMTS Protocol Analyzer.

UMTS, or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, is the third generation (3G) in mobile network evolution and successor to the current 2G GSM network. It offers significantly higher speed for wireless access through wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA). The enhanced access will allow voice, video, and internet services to converge at the handset. Advanced services such as global roaming will also become standard.The UMTS architecture, consists of many interfaces and protocols, some similar to GSM / GPRS systems and others quite new such as ATM for transport. A few of these interfaces are depicted in the diagram below.


GL's UMTS Protocol Analyzer is designed to capture and analyze various UMTS protocols and perform various measurements enabling the user to troubleshoot a complex 3G network. The tool allows the end user to monitor, capture, decode and collect essential information across various interfaces i.e. IuB, IuR, IuCS and IuPS. Simultaneous handling of ATM based AAL2 and AAL5 virtual channels with reassembly, assists in fault diagnosis and troubleshooting UMTS network elements. The supported protocols include various control plane protocols (NBAP, RANAP, and more), user plane protocols (Iu-UP, Iub-FP and more), and NAS protocols (CC/MM/SM/SMS/GMM) along with the UTRAN specific protocols. Please refer to UMTS Protocol Analyzer web link for further details.


Some main features of UMTS protocol analyzer are listed below:

Supported Protocols

  • ATM Layer: B-ISDN ATM Layer Specification, ITU-T Rec. I.361
  • AAL5: B-ISDN ATM Adaptation Layer Specification: Type 5 AAL, ITU-T Rec. I.363.5
  • AAL2: B-ISDN ATM Adaptation Layer Specification: Type 2 AAL, ITU-T Recommendation I.363.2
  • SSCS: AAL Type 2 Service Specific Convergence Sublayer for Narrow-band Services, ITU-T Rec. I.366.2
  • SSSAR: Segmentation and Reassembly Service Specific Convergence Sublayer for AAL Type 2, ITU-T Rec. I.366.1
  • NBAP (Node B Application Part): 3GPP TS 25.433 V6.3.0 (2004-09)
  • RANAP (Radio Access Network Application Part): 3GPP TS 25.413 V6.3.0 (2004-09)
  • ALCAP (Access link control application part): Q.2630.1 and Q.2630.2
  • Iu-UP (Iu User Plane): 3GPP TS 25.415 V6.1.0 (2004-09)
  • Iu-FP (Iu Framing Protocol): 3GPP TS 25.427 V6.0.0 (2003-12) and 3GPP TS 25.435 V6.1.0 (2004-4)

Analysis Features

  • Compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista Operating Systems with user friendly GUIs.
  • Works with GL's field proven Ultra E1 or T1 internal cards or Laptop E1 or T1 external units. Other interfaces also available soon.
  • Analysis in real-time as well as offline.
  • Supports ATM as the transport layer; captures, reassembles and decodes AAL-2 and AAL-5 frames from ATM cells according to user-defined VPI/VCI.
  • Supports unscrambling of ATM cells using SDH X^43+1 Scrambling Algorithm.
  • Supports CRC verification for AAL5 packet data.
  • Provides call trace capability over IuCS and IuPS interfaces.
  • Allows exporting detailed information to an ASCII file based on a comprehensive filter criterion.
  • Allows exporting summary information to a comma-delimited file for subsequent import into a database or spreadsheet.
  • Supports statistics display based on frame count, byte count, frames/sec, bytes/sec, and so on, for the entire capture data.

Network Surveillance

Call records and message trace can be monitored remotely and centrally using NetSurveyor™.

Central monitoring features include:

  • Ability to view CDR and Message Trace data in real-time from anywhere in the world using the Internet
  • Ability to sort and filter protocol data.

An application note has been provided describing NetSurveyor™ and a live demo at the following links: Network Surveillance and Live Demo.


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