Fast Dormancy (UMTS state switching on

the air interface)

Fast Dormancy is a relatively recent technology that is aimed at saving battery life on
your phone as well as reducing congestion on mobile networks. Essentially when your
phone stops submitting data, it waits for a message from the mobile network telling it to
close the connection. On some phones you might notice this is when the H or H+ symbol
becomes a or ! symbol. Essentially its a fast way of making the mobile data
connection become dormant, thus saving battery. "any recent devices, including the
#amsung !ala$y #%%% support Fast Dormancy and in general that is a good thing.&
Traditional Fast Dormancy
'his technology was introduced to ! ("'# to save the current consumption of the
device by switching between different mobile device activities states on the air interface.
)hen transferring data, the mobile is in cell*D+H state and uses the high speed channels
to transmit and receive data.
'he (E sends a #ignalling +onnection ,elease %ndication -#+,%. message to ,/+
without %E 0#+,% +ause1. 2y doing this the (E re3uests a release of signalling
connections and move to +ell*%dle state. 'hen network puts the connection in idle state
in which the physical connection is removed while the %4 address is kept.
)hile the handsets in idle state then there is a delay up to 5.6s to establish a channel to do
data e$change. 2ut in cell*4+H the downlink does not have to be observed continuously,
only the paging channel must be checked every now and then to make sure incoming
connections can be established. #o this state is efficient as staying in idle state and the
signalling connections stays in place. 7nd the delay to establish a channel to do data
e$change is only 8.9s.
Release 8 Fast Dormancy
'he (E sends a #+,% message with %E 0#+,% +ause : 4# data session end1 to ,/+, on
reception of this message ,/+ use inactivity timer to make inactivity decisions. 'he (E
starts the inactivity timer -'5. soon as it realised that there is no active data on the
phone and no user inactivity. %f the inactivity timer sends from ,/+ is set to 8 -'5;8.,
then the handset can send the #+,% message with the cause immediately.
%nstead of <ust releasing the signalling connection when it desires the mobile has to wait
for the e$piration of a network configured timer -'5., the after the timer e$pires the
(E sends an #+,% message with a new parameter 0(E re3uests 4# data session end1
then the network the D,= cycle length in use is e3ual to or longer than the shorter +/
domain specific D,= cycle length for the 4# domain and +# domain.