Introducing quick sleeping using the broadcast channel for 3GPP LTE MTC

Abstract

The world is advancing towards Internet of Things (IoT) where various types of devices communicate and share data with each other. The communication between the devices are enabled and controlled through Machine Type Communications (MTC). MTC has a wide range of applications and forms an integral part of IoT. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardization body has recognized the potential for MTC and is currently working on standardizing the specifications and deployment of MTC services as part of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. The system requirements of these MTC devices are different from the regular devices using the LTE network. Many MTC devices are expected to be low cost, low data rate and delay tolerant. One of the challenges in MTC using 3GPP LTE is to reduce the power consumption of the User Equipment (UE) in order to prolong their battery life. The power consumption of a UE is directly proportional to its processing time. In this paper, we introduce quick sleeping to the current 3GPP LTE MTC framework. First, we compare the quick sleeping mechanism with the present Discontinuous Reception (DRX) mechanism for sleeping in LTE and show that there can be significant savings in the UE processing time if quick sleeping is adopted. Then we present different methods to incorporate quick sleeping into the Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) with minimal changes to the current LTE standard. The impact of these quick sleeping solutions on PBCH Block Error Rate (BLER) performance is also discussed.