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Analysis of GPRS Radio Interface Throughput and Delay

Shikha Srivastava

Subrat Kar

Vaneeta Jindal

C-DOT

Dept. of Electrical Engineering

Dept. of Mathematics

New Delhi

IIT, New Delhi

IIT, New Delhi

shikha@cdotd.ernet.in

subrat@ee.iitd.ac.in

vaneetajindal@yahoo.co.in

Abstract

and the effect of various parameters on their performance.

We present an analysis of the delay and throughput encountered by uplink data in the General Packet Radio
Service (GPRS) radio interface. A model of Radio Link
Control (RLC) layer acknowledged mode of operation
is shown in order to evaluate RLC throughput and delay variation with various GPRS coding schemes, the frequency and delay of acknowledgements and the packet

It takes the latest GPRS specications into account and

covers the effect of additional retransmissions, frequency
of acknowledgements, delayed and lost acknowledgement messages on acknowledged mode RLC delay that
have not been considered in the above papers.

It also

models the Radio Channel Access delay as a DTMC in

order to derive the channel access delay.

length. A discrete-time Markov chain (DTMC) model of

the Channel access by MS is analyzed and the variation of

2. MAC Access Persistence Control model

the Channel Access Delay with the maximum attempts,

inter attempt time interval, number of mobile users, num-

There can be four radio priority classes {i

ber of backlogged users, radio priority, rate of incoming

Class

data and rate of retransmissions is evaluated.

cess persistence control parameters are broadcast by

has the highest priority.

= 1, 2, 3, 4}.

The following ac-

the network [4]:- (1) Access Control Class indicates

1. Introduction

whether MSs of a class (upto 15 classes) can access the

GPRS was initially designed for non real-time data trafc and was extended for real-time trafc.

GPRS has

four channel coding schemes called CS-1, CS-2, CS-3

and CS-4, having a different block error rate (bler) for a
given signal interference [1]. The overall packet transfer delay across the GPRS radio interface can be broken up into channel access delay, packet transmission delay, erroneous packets retransmission delay and acknowledgement signaling delay. The channel access delay is
the MAC Layer delay and the other delays constitute the
RLC delay.
In the literature, [1] addresses RLC downlink delay
and [2] RLC throughput and delay, both covering the effect of the four coding schemes, packet length and fading
characteristics. [3] presents a study of the performance of
RLC/MAC and LLC layers based on state transition probabilities when there are innite retransmissions. This paper deals with a detailed analysis of RLC and MAC layers

packet random access channel(PRACH). (2)

is the

maximum number of retransmissions allowed for each

Radio Priority Class.

M = {1, 2, 4, 7}.

(3)

P (i)

is the

access persistence level for each Radio Priority Class.

P (i) = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16}.

(4) S is the minimum number of time slots between
two successive Packet Channel Request (PCR) mes-

S = {12, 15, 20, 30, 41, 55, 76, 109, 163, 217}.

sages.

(5)

randomly

spreads

the

gap

between

T
{2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 25, 32, 50}.
two

successive

PCR

messages.

=
Data

arrives at the MS and it attempts uplink channel access.

It selects a random value R from a uniformly distributed
set

{0, 1, ..., 14, 15}.

If

R P (i),

MS accesses the

PRACH. The MS sends PCR message on the PRACH

and starts a 5 sec timer at the rst attempt. MS accesses
the channel until it gets a response for the PCR message
or the maximum number of attempts are over or the 5
sec timer expires. The MS retries channel access after
a number of TDMA frames whose value is selected

q
1

q
2

q
3

q
4

5
p

6
p

uniformly from {S, S

of
q

M = 7.

+ 1, ..., S + T 1}.

Let the value

The MS can be modeled as a DTMC with two

absorbing states [5, 6], as given in Fig. 1. The number

of transmission attempts denotes the state of the MS.
The state S denotes successful access and state F denotes

Figure 1: DTMC showing Transmission State at MS

failure of the channel access process and are absorbing

states.

is the probability of successful access.

is the

probability of unsuccessful access. The MS moves from

The state transitions of the MS as shown in Fig. 1 can

any of the states 1 to 8 to the state S with probability p. If

be captured in the state transition probability matrix [5, 6]

the MS faces channel access failure, it moves to the next

solving which gives the steady state probabilities pg of

higher state with probability q . In state 8, all attempts are

MS for being in a particular state g .

over and the MS moves to state F with probability q in

case of access failure.

E(Tch ) =

3. MAC Delay

mediate, the packet call arrival at the mobile is a Poisson

process and all mobiles belong to the same radio priority

Nm be the total MSs, Nb the number of backlogged MSs, h the probability with which each of the Ni
idle MSs transmits independently in a slot, b the corresponding probability for backlogged MSs, I(Ni , Nb ) be
the probability that Ni idle MSs attempt to transmit in a
slot when there are Nb backlogged MSs, B(Ni , Nb ) be
the corresponding probability for backlogged MSs, d the
class.. Let

random variable representing the number of data packets

arriving at the MS, d the Poisson distributed data arrival
rate at the MS in packets/ms,

the number of packets,

Pd the probability that the idle MS has data to transfer,

r the maximum rate of retransmissions by a backlogged
MS [7], Tts is the duration of one timeslot in ms, Pr
be the probability that the backlogged MS transmits, Pa
the probability that the MS accesses the channel, P in the
number of possible P (i) values, P (i)max the maximum
P (i) value and Tch the channel access delay.
p(d = J)

Pa

p(r = Y )

In GPRS,

Pc (t),

Jd d
e
J!
P (i)max P (i) + 1
P in
(1 p(d = 0))Pa
1
Tts (S + T 1)
Yr r
e
Y!
(1 p(r = 0))Pa

(1)

We assume the following: (a) The channel is a slowly

fading channel TU3 [2]. (b) MS uses a single timeslot
and no multiplexing of simultaneous data transmission
from several MSs on the same timeslot. (c) There is no
congestion and blocking or dropping of packets. (d) Acknowledgements are sent with CS-1 Coding Scheme, and
constitute a Poisson Process. We consider the MS actions
during an uplink data transfer [4, 10]. The MS sends data
blocks in the allocated uplink PDCHs. It maintains an
Acknowledge State Array having the status of each block
sent - PEND ACK, ACKED or NACKED. The MS rst
sends all blocks marked as NACKED, then it transmits
new blocks. It starts timer T3198 for each block transmitted and marks the state as PEND ACK in its Acknowledge State Array. If the send window size is still not full,
it retransmits blocks starting with the oldest blocks with
state PEND ACK. If the send window is still not full all
PEND ACK blocks that have been transmitted once, are
resent. The BSC sends a Uplink Ack/Nack (UAN) message to the MS with acknowledgement for each block received, within BS CV MAX block periods whose value
can vary from 1 to 15 [4]. If the MS receives an ACK for
a block, it marks the block as ACKED in its Acknowl-

(2)
(3)

edge State Array. It marks a block NACKED only when

the timer T3198 times out.

5. RLC Delay

(4)

240
13 ms [1].
length be the length of the packet to be trans-

The time taken to transmit one RLC block is

(5)
(6)

the capture probability [8] determines

Let packet
mitted,

be the corresponding number of RLC blocks

to be transmitted and

data correctly even if more than one MS transmits in the

same slot due to the greater power level of the said MS.
The probability of successful channel access,p, is given
by [5, 9]

The

38
=
+
=

B(t, Nb )

be the value of BS CV MAX

packet length
block length

(11)

block length is 22 bytes for CS1, 32 bytes for CS2,

52 bytes for CS4. The retransmis-

bytes for CS3,

I(1, Nb )B(0, Nb ) + I(0, Nb )B(1, Nb )

sion delay occurs when a block fails to reach the net-

5
X

work due to channel interference or the acknowledge-

t=2

I(t, Nb )

blocks.

the packet success rate. It is the probability of receiving

(10)

4. RLC Layer Modeling

The model assumes that the random access channel is

pre-assigned, the response for channel allocation is im-

S + ... + (S + T 1) X
gpg
(S + T 1) S + 1 g=1

Pc (t)

t
X

I(t, Nb )B(t z, Nb )

(7)

(Ni h)t (Ni h)

e
t!
(Nb b)t (Nb b)
e
t!

ment for that block fails to reach the MS. MS makes

additional retransmissions when it repeats the old blocks

z=0
(8)

with state PEND ACK. In an

n block acknowledgement

period, when additional retransmissions are over, sometimes the MS has to wait for ack period completion be-

(9)

fore retransmitting, adding to the delay. This is the addi-

tional wait delay. In addition, there is an acknowledgement processing and transmission delay [1]. In case of

Case 2 :

< Xu < n ,

be the block error rate, b1 the

n + E[B(2X1 n)] + E[R(n X1 )]

a
X
+
E[D(Xu )]
(18)

n + j RLC block trans the rate at which acknowledgements are received, P [A(j) = k] the probability that j blocks are re-

n
Case 3 : X
2
In the rst transmission cycle, 2X new blocks are trans-

delayed acknowledgement, some RLC blocks are retrans-

n
2

mitted, only those that are sent before receiving the ac-

bler

knowledgement. Let

bler

for CS-1,

t1

missions,

transmitted before the delayed acknowledgement comes ,

E[A] is the average number of blocks by which acknowledgement is delayed after an n block cycle, m the maximum number of such blocks, P [B(n) = i] the probability of i retransmissions due to block errors in an n
block cycle and E[B(n)] the average number of retransmissions in every n block cycle. The probability of receiving k acks in time t1 is
P [A(j) = k]

E[A]

P [B(n) = i]
P [B(n) = n]

et1 (t1 )k
k!
m
X
sP [A(s) = 1]

mitted.

n
X

Ttx

Tadl rtx

Tack

T (p)

(19)
(20)

where

Tone ack ,

240
x ms
13
240
f ms
13

(21)
(22)

x+f
ms
n
Tch + Ttx + Tadl rtx + Tack

(Tone ack + E[A])

(23)
(24)

the time taken for processing and send-

ing of an UAN message is 30 ms [1] and

T (p)

the total

packet transmission delay.

iP [B(n) = i] blocks

(16)

6. Throughput

i=1

P [R(n) = i]

E[R(Xu )]

n 2Xu

(13)

i=1

a
X

Based on the above, the delays are obtained as

(12)

bler)ni (1 b(14)
1)
bler (1 b1 )
n
X
b1
(ni )bleri (1 bler)ni (15)

2X1 + E[R(2X1 )] +

u=3

s=1
(ni )bleri (1
n

=
=

E[B(n)]

u=3

the time for

additional

The throughput [2] is the ratio of the total number of

retransmissions due to block errors in an n block cycle

blocks to the total time taken for the successful transmis-

Similarly,
and

E[R(n)]

the probability of

the average number of additional retrans-

missions in every

sion of the packet.

block cycle, can be derived. How-

E[T hroughput] =

ever, in case of additional retransmissions the probability

2
of packet failure becomes bler . Let Xu be the total numth
ber of blocks remaining to be transmitted at the u
transmissions of blocks are completed, x the total number of
ment wait when new blocks transmission is over, a is the
transmission cycle when no packets are left, D(Xu ) can
be

B(Xu ) or R(Xu ) depending on the value of Xu , Ttx

the total transmission and retransmission delay, Tadl rtx

the additional wait delay, Tack the total acknowledgement
signaling delay,

T (p)

the total packet transmission RLC

delay. In the rst transmission cycle,

X1 = X .

transmitted for Case 1, 2.

new blocks are

For all transmission

cycles, the number of blocks retransmitted are calculated

as follows until all blocks are sent.
Case 1 :

Xu n
=

n {1 +
+

(X1 n) + E[B(n)]
}
n E[B(n)]

a
X
u=z+1

E[D(Xu )]

(25)

7. Numerical Results

mission cycle, z the number of cycles in which rst transtransmissions cycles, f the delay added by acknowledge-

packet length
T (p)

In case of MAC delay it is seen that E(V

) increases as S

and T increase. Its minimum value is 7 ms and maximum

h of successful channel acd , rate of incoming data. As the P (i) value increases, Pa decreases
and h decreases gradually. h increases gradually as d
and Pa increase. Retransmission rate r decreases with
increase in S, T values and the probability of successful
access for a backlogged user, b increases with increase in
Pa and increases with increase in r . The effect of b and
h on the value of p can be seen in Fig 2. From Fig. 2(a)
for Pa = 1, Nb = 9 as h increases, p increases gradually
and then decreases for a particular value of b. p increases
with increase in b. p is not 1.0 which shows that access
failure can occur. When h = 1, p is not high, showing
value is

154 ms.

Probability

cess by an idle user depends on Pa and on

that even though idle user denitely accesses the chan(17)

nel, success is not guaranteed. When Nb increases,

creases for h

p in= 1. Fig. 2(b) shows the number of attempts

S = 12, Pa = 1.0, Nm = 25, Nb = 9, M=7

600

b=0.027
b=0.039
b=0.053
b=0.078
b=0.096
b=0.124

0.1
0.001

E(T),access delay(ms)

p, prob of successful channel access

S = 12, Pa = 1.0, Nm = 25, Nb = 9

1

0.01
0.1
h, prob of access by idle user

E(V)=21.06
E(V)=15.86
E(V)=12.4
E(V)=9.52
E(V)=8.36
E(V)=7.21

500
400
300
200
100
0
0.01

0.1
p, prob of successful channel access

(a)

(a)

S = 12, Pa = 1.0, Nm = 25, Nb = 9

S = 12,Pa = 0.0625
E(T),access delay(ms)

E(v), No. of attempts

600

10
b=0.027
b=0.039
b=0.053
b=0.078
b=0.096
b=0.124

1
0.001

0.01
0.1
h, prob of access by idle user

E(V)=21.06
E(V)=15.86
E(V)=12.4
E(V)=9.52
E(V)=8.36
E(V)=7.21

500
400
300
200
100
0
0.01

0.1
p, prob of successful channel access
(b)

(b)

Figure 2: (a) Variation of

with

b, h

for

Pa = 1.0

S = 12, Pa = 0.0625, Nm = 25, Nb = 9

(b)

E(v) no of attempts with b, h

for the same

b, h

values. As

E(T),access delay(ms)

Variation of

falls, number of attempts

increase and as it peaks, number of attempts fall. As Pa

b, h decrease and p increases. p also deNm and Nb . For Pa = 1.0, h = 0.0002 and
b = 0.124, p increases gradually with Nb and then falls
gradually after peaking. p decreases as Nm increases. As
p increases, initially E(T ) remains constant, it then decreases as in Fig 3(a) for S = 12, Pa = 1 and Fig 3(b)
for S = 12, Pa = 0.0625. As seen in Fig 3(c) the decrease in M or maximum retransmissions decreases the
total access delay E(T ). It also decreases the probability
decreases, both
pends on

of channel access success.

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0.01

E(V)=21.06
E(V)=15.86
E(V)=12.4
E(V)=9.52
E(V)=8.36
E(V)=7.21

0.1
p, prob of successful channel access
(c)

E(T ) access delay with p, E(V )

M = 7, Pa = 1.0 (b) M = 7, Pa = 0.0625 and
(c) M = 2, Pa = 0.0625
Figure 3: Variation of
for (a)

In the case of RLC delay it is seen that for the same

bler increases, the retransmissions

Tack and Tadl rtx increase. This can be

packet length, as the

shown in Fig 4(b) for CS-1, the overall transmission de-

n.
bler, the delay is
lesser for high values of n but for high bler (greater than
0.2), the delay is greater for larger n. As n increases,
Tack decreases, as there are fewer group of RLC blocks
to be acknowledged and Ttx remains constant for values
till bler = 0.02, then it increases. The relation between
bler and Signal Interference ratio, SIR has been taken

lay increases as the delay in the arrival of the acknowl-

from [2] for a TU3 scenario. As seen in Fig. 5, through-

edgement increases. The effect increases as the bler in-

put for high values of

increase, the Ttx ,

seen in Fig. 4(a) for a packet size of 1600 bytes. Coding scheme, CS-1 has the maximum delay while coding
scheme CS-4 has the minimum delay. The delay due to
additional retransmissions is very less due to the fact that
the probability of such packets reaching successfully is
high as they are repeated once during transmission. As

It can be seen that for low values of

bler,

and low

SIR

is low.

At

increases

high SIR, Coding scheme CS-4 has the highest through-

value as shown in

put and CS-1 the lowest. Whereas at low SIR, Coding

creases. With increase in packet length,

with packet length for the same

T (p)

Fig. 4(c). Fig. 4(d) shows the variation of T (p) with

scheme CS-1 has the highest throughput and CS-4 the

packet length = 1600 bytes, n = 15, mean ack delay = 4 blocks

6
CS-1
CS-2
CS-3
CS-4

lowest. When the packet length increases the throughput

bler where retransmissions are almost nil upto

bler = 0.02 (CS-1), the effect of a decrease in n is a
decrease in throughput. But for higher values of bler ,
throughput increases as n decreases.
range of

5
Tp, Total packet transmission delay (sec)

is initially higher but decreases with high bler . For the

8. Conclusion
0
1e-05

0.0001

0.001
0.01
b, block error rate

The PRACH channel access delay depends on a number

of parameters but the most important ones are the prob-

and

packet length = 1600 bytes,n = 15,CS-1

ability of successful channel access and the inter-attempt

delay.

0.1

(a)

(time slots between two successive at-

tempts) affect the average inter attempt delay and rate of

retransmissions. Rate of retransmissions is higher than

rate of incoming data for low values of

S, T .

In such

a case, probability of access and success is higher for a

backlogged user.

The probability of successful access

for idle user is high only when number of backlogged

users is less. In order to keep the channel access delay

bler=0.0025
bler=0.25

low, primarily the value of S should be small. However,

even with the largest values of
lay comes out to be

M = 2.

S,

0
0

the inter attempt de-

150 ms and would be reasonable for

successful channel access. Capture effect increases it. It,

in turn, affects the average number of attempts and thus,
the delay.

CS-1, n = 15, mean ack delay = 4 blocks

The RLC delay depends mainly on the packet length,

0
1e-05

the block error rate, the frequency of acknowledgements,

0.0001

0.001
0.01
b, block error rate

scheme used. It is the highest for CS-1 and lowest for

packet length = 2000 bytes, CS-1

The transmission delay increases with the increase in the

time of arrival of acknowledgements.

Retransmissions

begin, delaying the sending of new blocks in each transmission cycle. Throughput is the highest for CS-1 at low

SIR

bler) showing that it is most robust against

SIR (low bler), throughput is the highCS-4, as the block length is larger and protec-

(high

n=10
n=30
n=90
6
Tp, Total packet transmission delay (sec)

mitting remaining blocks, speeds up the transfer process.

0
0.01

errors. At high
est for

tion from errors lesser. Throughput increases with packet

length at low

bler,

and falls at high

bler.

At high

bler,

throughput increases as frequency of acknowledgement

decreases.

0.1
b, block error rate

(d)

Figure 4: Variation of T (p) total packet transmission delay with bler and (a) various coding schemes (b) various
acknowledgement delays (c) various packet lengths (d)
various values of n

9. Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Dr. S.Dharmaraja, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT, Delhi

CS-4, at low bler . As the frequency of acknowledgement

rises for higher block error rates. The process of retrans-

0.1

(c)

delay of acknowledgements and varies with the coding

increases, the delay falls for low block error rates, but

l=100 bytes
l=500 bytes
l=1000 bytes
l=1600 bytes
Tp, Total packet transmission delay (sec)

sions and probability of access all affect the probability of

to be struck between the delay and the probability of sucbacklogged users, rate of incoming data and retransmis-

(b)

While choosing the M value a compromise has

cess in access. The number of mobile users, number of

3
4
mean acknowledgement delay (blocks)

for his valuable feedback and help.

[10] P. J. A. Gutierrez, J. Wigard, and P. N. Ander-

packet length = 1600 bytes, n = 15, mean ack delay = 4 blocks

2500

sen, Performance of Link Adapation in GPRS Networks, in IEEE Trans. on Veh. Technol.

Throughput, bytes per sec

2000

2000, pp. 492,499.

1500

1000

500
CS-1
CS-2
CS-3
CS-4
0
0

10

15
20
SIR, Signal Interference Ratio in dB

25

30

35

Figure 5: Variation of throughput with SIR for packet

length = 1600 bytes and n = 15

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of the General Packet Radio Service for GSM, in
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:

http:/eeweb.poly.edu/dgoodman/icc04gprs.pdf,

whitepapers.zdnet.co.uk, whitepapers.silicon.com.
[3] K. Premkumar and A. Chockalingam,

Perfor-

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a GPRS Protocol Stack, in IEEE Trans. on Veh.
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IEEE, September 2004,

pp. 1531,1546.
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Packet

Radio

Service

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Control/Medium

Access

protocol

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(GSM

munications

Standards

Control

(RLC/MAC)

European

Institute

(GPRS);

Radio Link
Telecom-

(ETSI),

avail-

able:http://www.etsi.org/.
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Wiley Eastern

Ltd., New Delhi, India, 1994.

[7] D. Raychaudhuri and K. Joseph,

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IEEE, Jan 1990, pp. 117,122.

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IEEE,