LTE MAC Layer Interview Questions

& Answers
Que 1. What is Full Form of Mac Layer?, Out of 3 Layers [L1,L2,L3], where it lies?
Ans. Mac Layer stands for (Medium Access Control Layer), Out of 3 Layer it present in L2
Layer of lte.

Physical layer called L1 Layer, Mac, RLC, and PDCP called L2 Layer, RRC and NAS called L3
Layer in LTE.

Que 2. What is the Main function of MAC Layer in LTE?Ans The following functions are
supported by MAC sub-layer?
Ans here are the some main functions of mac layer are defined.

Ø mapping between logical channels and transport channels;

Ø multiplexing of MAC SDUs from one or different logical channels onto transport blocks (TB)
to be delivered to the physical layer on transport channels;
Ø de-multiplexing of MAC SDUs from one or different logical channels from transport blocks
(TB) delivered from the physical layer on transport channels;

Ø scheduling information reporting;

Ø error correction through HARQ;

Ø priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling;

Ø priority handling between logical channels of one UE;

Ø Logical Channel prioritization;

Ø Transport format selection.

Que 3. How do you know how many RAPIDs are there and length of the RAR?
Ans When RAR message received and we try to decode them we check E=1 means there is
1 more sub-header is present, E=1 show only next sub-header presence, Until E=0 means
this is last sub-header present in received RAR message, Each E [E=1,E=0] Carry’s each UE
preamble Relevant information, So we can easily find out how many RAPID’s are present in
RAR message and it’s Length.

Que 4. How UE Mac know that the received message is RAR?

Ans There is Two options

1. UE’s Physical layer inform UE’s Mac layer that this message is received in PDSCH against
RA-RANTI,

2. A parameter include in received message header “Message Type”.

Que 5. How many times UE1 tries to re-transmit Preamble if its preamble information is
not present in received RAR Msg?
Ans If [UE does not receive a matching Random Access response (RAR) in ra-
ResponseWindowSize (12ms), (hence UE considers RACH attempt as failed) and
PREAMBLE_TRANSMISSION_COUNTER (n) is less than PREAMBLE_TRANS_MAX (n20)]

Then [UE retransmits the Preamble given in the PDCCH Order ].

Que 6. What are the timers value of receiving RAR Message?

Ans.

Que 7. What is name of RNTI's in which preamble sent and RAR Received?
Ans. UE continue read PDCCH Channel in which Random Access Preamble are broadcasted
by eNb in every sub-frame, So UE generate own preamble against RA-RNTI
[Random Access-Radio Network Temporary Identifier], After transmit preamble it’s
continue read PDCCH Channel, And RAR is Sent by eNb T-C-RNTI [Temporary-Cell-RNTI].
Que 8. What is contention resolution identity? What UE get information after receiving CRI?
Ans. Contention Resolution Identity [CRI], is also another name RRC Connection Setup,
Sent by eNb to UE, after receive RRC Connection request trigger by UE. After receiving this
message [CRI], UE change their state from Idle to Connected State, and connect to
network.

Que 9. What is the difference between MAC Transport Block and Physical Layer generated
Code-word?
Ans. The output comes out from MAC Layer is called Transport Block [TB], and the output
comes out from Physical Layer is called Code-Word.

Transport Block carries data which is stored in RLC buffer, the size is varies as per
resource available in eNb MAC.

But in Code-Word also carries lots of information like:- (1) information of data received
from mac layer, (2) CRC to be added, (3) Codded bits to be added and (4) additional
padding added.

Que 10. How to determine Transport Block size?

Ans. UE in E-UTRA RRC_CONNECTED state

[ UE got PDCCH receives DCI format 1 indicating Resource Allocation Type 0, a resource
block assignment correspondent to NPRB physical resource blocks and a modulation and
coding scheme IMCS]

[ UE decodes the received transport block of size correspondent to the

read NPRB and IMCS and forwards it to higher layers ]

Resource Allocation RBG Size vs. Downlink System Bandwidth

System Bandwidth RBG Size

NDLRB (P)

≤10 1

11 – 26 2

27 – 63 3

64 – 110 4

In resource allocations of type 0, resource block assignment information includes a bitmap

indicating the resource block groups (RBGs) that are allocated to the scheduled UE where
a RBG is a set of consecutive physical resource blocks (PRBs). Resource block group size (P)
is a function of the system bandwidth as shown in Table 7.1.6.1-1. The total number of
RBGs (NRBG) for downlink system bandwidth of NDLRB PRBs is given
by NRBG=[NDLRB/P] where [NDLRB/P] of the RBGs are of size P and if NDLRBMODP>0 then one of the
RBGs is of size NDLRB-P.[NDLRB/P]

MCS Index Modulation Order TBS Index

IMCS

QM ITBS

0 2 0

1 2 1

2 2 2

3 2 3

4 2 4

5 2 5

6 2 6

7 2 7

8 2 8

9 2 9

10 4 9

11 4 10

12 4 11

13 4 12

14 4 13

15 4 14

16 4 15
17 6 15

18 6 16

19 6 17

20 6 18

21 6 19

22 6 20

23 6 21

24 6 22

25 6 23

26 6 24

27 6 25

28 6 26

29 2

30 4 reserved

31 6

NPRB
S
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0 16 32 56 88 120 152 176 208 224 256

1 24 56 88 144 176 208 224 256 328 344

2 32 72 144 176 208 256 296 328 376 424

3 40 104 176 208 256 328 392 440 504 568

4 56 120 208 256 328 408 488 552 632 696

5 72 144 224 328 424 504 600 680 776 872

6 32 176 256 392 504 600 712 808 936 103

8 2

7 10 224 328 472 584 712 840 968 109 122

4 6 4

8 12 256 392 536 680 808 968 109 125 138

0 6 6 4

9 13 296 456 616 776 936 109 125 141 154

6 6 6 6 4

1 14 328 504 680 872 103 122 138 154 173

0 4 2 4 4 4 6

1 17 376 584 776 100 119 138 160 180 202

1 6 0 2 4 8 0 4

1 20 440 680 904 112 135 160 180 202 228

2 8 8 2 8 0 4 0

1 22 488 744 100 125 154 180 202 228 253

3 4 0 6 4 0 4 0 6

1 25 552 840 112 141 173 199 228 260 285

4 6 8 6 6 2 0 0 6

1 28 600 904 122 154 180 215 247 272 311

5 0 4 4 0 2 2 8 2

1 32 632 968 128 160 192 228 260 298 324

6 8 8 8 8 0 0 4 0

1 33 696 106 141 180 215 253 285 324 362

7 6 4 6 0 2 6 6 0 4

1 37 776 116 154 199 234 279 311 362 400

8 6 0 4 2 4 2 2 4 8
1 40 840 128 173 215 260 298 349 388 426
9 8 8 6 2 0 4 6 0 4

2 44 904 138 186 234 279 324 375 413 458

0 0 4 4 4 2 0 2 6 4

2 48 100 148 199 247 298 349 400 458 496

1 8 0 0 2 2 4 6 8 4 8

2 52 106 160 215 266 324 375 426 477 535

2 0 4 8 2 4 0 2 4 6 2

2 55 112 173 228 285 349 400 458 516 573

3 2 8 6 0 6 6 8 4 0 6

2 58 119 180 240 298 362 426 496 554 599

4 4 2 0 8 4 4 4 8 4 2

2 61 125 186 253 311 375 439 516 573 620

5 6 6 4 6 2 2 2 0 6 0

2 71 148 221 298 375 439 516 599 671 748

6 2 0 6 4 2 2 0 2 2 0

NPRB

1 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

0
1

0 279 285 285 285 298 298 298 298 298 311
2 6 6 6 4 4 4 4 4 2

1 375 375 375 375 388 388 388 400 400 400
2 2 2 2 0 0 0 8 8 8

2 458 458 458 458 477 477 477 477 496 496
4 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 8 8

3 599 599 599 599 620 620 620 620 645 645
 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 6 6

4 722 722 748 748 748 748 773 773 773 799
4 4 0 0 0 0 6 6 6 2

5 876 914 914 914 914 952 952 952 952 952
0 4 4 4 4 8 8 8 8 8

6 106 106 106 106 110 110 110 114 114 114
80 80 80 80 64 64 64 48 48 48

7 122 125 125 125 129 129 129 129 135 135
16 76 76 76 60 60 60 60 36 36

8 141 141 146 146 146 146 152 152 152 152
12 12 88 88 88 88 64 64 64 64

9 158 164 164 164 164 169 169 169 169 175
40 16 16 16 16 92 92 92 92 68

1 175 183 183 183 183 183 190 190 190 190
0 68 36 36 36 36 36 80 80 80 80

1 206 206 206 213 213 213 213 221 221 221
1 16 16 16 84 84 84 84 52 52 52

1 229 236 236 236 236 244 244 244 244 254
2 20 88 88 88 88 96 96 96 96 56

1 264 264 264 264 273 273 273 273 283 283
3 16 16 16 16 76 76 76 76 36 36

1 292 292 292 292 305 305 305 305 317 317
4 96 96 96 96 76 76 76 76 04 04

1 305 317 317 317 317 328 328 328 340 340
5 76 04 04 04 04 56 56 56 08 08

1 328 328 340 340 340 340 351 351 351 351
6 56 56 08 08 08 08 60 60 60 60

1 366 366 366 378 378 378 392 392 392 392
7 96 96 96 88 88 88 32 32 32 32

1 405 405 405 405 423 423 423 423 438 438
8 76 76 76 76 68 68 68 68 16 16

1 438 438 438 453 453 453 468 468 468 468
9 16 16 16 52 52 52 88 88 88 88

2 468 468 489 489 489 489 489 510 510 510
0 88 88 36 36 36 36 36 24 24 24

2 510 510 510 527 527 527 527 550 550 550
1 24 24 24 52 52 52 52 56 56 56

2 550 550 550 573 573 573 573 592 592 592
2 56 56 56 36 36 36 36 56 56 56

2 573 592 592 592 592 616 616 616 616 637
3 36 56 56 56 56 64 64 64 64 76

2 616 616 637 637 637 637 665 665 665 665
4 64 64 76 76 76 76 92 92 92 92

2 637 637 665 665 665 665 688 688 688 711
5 76 76 92 92 92 92 08 08 08 12

2 753 753 753 753 753 753 753 753 753 753
6 76 76 76 76 76 76 76 76 76 76
Ans11: MAC is layer 2 protocol deals with Many Logical channels and control elements
shown in below mentioned diagram.

FIG : MAC PROTOCOL DIAGRAM

Que12:- If Mac Pulling Data from 4 Logical Channel and make a Transport Block [TB], then
How many Sub-Header we have?
Ans12:- If padding space is available than there are 6 sub header present shown below
otherwise 5 sub headers present.
Que13:- Why Timing Advance not dealing by Physical layer in Transmission?
Ans13:-Timing advance is not dealing with physical layer because physical layer only deals
with transmission of transport block not to make TB but MAC layer is the one who deals
with making of transport block that’s why Timing advance is work under MAC-C.

Que14:- What is delta Value? Why delta value use in Mac Layer?
Ans14:-This is one of the values used for generating and mapping PUCCH and DMRS
PUCCH, the max value is calculated by the system BW, Cyclic prefix, N_RB(2), N_CS(1) and
delta shift.

Que15:- What is Truncated BSR?

Ans15:-when UE transmit a Mac Pdu and the numbers of padding bits is > the size of a
short bsr + it's sub-header but smaller than a size of a long BSR + it's sub-header and the
UE has available data for transmission from more than 1 LCG in the TTI where the bsr is
transmitted then ue report a truncated BSR of the LCG with highest priority logical
channel with data available for transmission.

Ques16:- UE in connected state, Now UE Required Uplink Resource to transmit data after a
long time [Long DRX], So UE will do?
Ans16:-If UE have a data to send than UE again redo Random access procedure for getting
uplink resources.
Que17:- In Connected State does UE send MSG3 [RRC Connection Request? if yes Which
RNTI's against?
Ans17:-Yes UE will send MSG3(RRC CONNECTION REQ) reservation against C-RNTI.

Que18:- What is DRX and DRX active period? What channels does it monitor in active
period?
Ans18:-DRX is Discontinuous Reception used for UE to not continuously read the PDCCH
channel. Here Active DRX mode meant to continuously listening to PDDCH channel to
know weather the resource allocated to it or not.

Que19:- What is MAC-ContentionResolutionTimer – What is the start and end activity?

Ans19:-Its a Timer which tells that to UE that how much time to wait for a CRI, If its a not
back in a time limit than UE consider that its MSG3 transmission is failed so UE again send
the msg3. Its start at the time of sending MSG3 and End at the time of UE get CRI from eNB.

Ques20:- In Logical Channel Prioritization, what is PBR, GBR and BSD?

Ans20:-GBR-Its a Guaranteed bit delivery which means to promising for delivery IP packets
guaranteed. Its unit is in kbps.

BSD: Its a Bucket size duration, nothing but a duration of size and its unit is in ms.

PBR: Its a Prioritized bit rate, nothing but a bit size and its unit is in kb.

Formula GBR=(PBR*1000)

BSD

21. What is HARQ RTT Timer?

Ans:It is HARQ Round Trip Timer means a timer which is a min amount of subframe
duration from the time new transmission is received and before the UE can except a re
transmission of the same packet.

22. What is msg3 buffer?

Ans: At the time of sending msg3 which is nothing but a RRC connection request at the
time of initial attach than the msg3 need to stored in a HARQ buffer which is called as a
msg3 buffer.
Here msg3 always stored in a HARQ buffer.

23. What is PRACH Resource Index?

Ans: Its a common channel and used for just a resource index with the help of it we will
able be determine and identify in freq domain which resource ue can use for PRACH
transmission.
 PRACH RESOURCE INDEX TABLE

24. What is ra-PRACH-MaskIndex?

Ans: PRACH mask index identifies which PRACH resources the UE is allowed to use for its
access attempt as shown in below table. More specifically, the mask defines that in which
PRACH within a frame, UE can transmit a Random Access Preamble.
 PRACH MASK INDEX TABLE

25. What are the Logical Channels carried through HARQ?

Ans: CCCH, DCCH and DTCH logical channels.

26. What are the Logical Channels NOT carried through HARQ?
Ans: PCCH And BCCH logical channels

27. What are the Physical Channels Terminate at MAC/Physical boundary and are
irrelevant to the upper layers?
Ans: All the pure physical channels are terminate like PSS, SSS, PCFICH,PHICH,RS,PBCH
etc.

28. What are the Logical channels through which PBCH is carried through?
Ans : Through BCCH channel.

29. What are the Logical Channels Carried by UL-SCH and DL-SCH?
Ans: DLSCH- BCCH,CCCH,DCCH and DTCH.
ULSCH-CCCH,DCCH and DTCH.

30. What Logical channels are carried by PDCCH and PUCCH Physical Channels?
Ans. Logically there is no Direct connectivity of these channel to logical Channels. But they
carry information of PDSCH (which carry DLSCH info) and PUSCH (carry ULSCH info).

31. Which entities and situations and when UE initiate RA Procedure? List them.
Ans: UE MAC and eNB MAC are the entities who are responsible for generating the RA
procedure.The situation are as follows:
(a) At the time of When UE need to change its state to Idle to Connected state.
(b) At the time of Handover.
(c) At the Time of UE first Power ON procedure.
(d) At UE attach Procedure
(e) At the time of RRC Reconfiguration established.

32. When is your Temporary C-RNTI gets converted to C-RNTI? How many bits is it?
Ans: When UE get a RRC connection Setup msg form eNB, than UE convert its state from
IDLE to Connected than its RNTI also converted from T-CRNTI to C-RNTI and next msg
which is RRC connection setup complete will be using C-RNTI.
Both T-CRNTI and C-RNTI are of 16 Bits.

33. How many RA Preambles are there? Why some of them are reserved by eNB?
Ans There are 64(0-63) RA preambles which is 6 bits. Some of them are reserve for Non-
Contention Based RA Procedure which is used by eNB when UE is already in registered
mode.

34. What is the RA-Preamble-Group A and B? What is the difference?

Ans: RA Preamble Group A and Group B comes in a Category of Contention Based Rap and
remaining preambles comes in a NON Contention Based RA Preamble.

For Example:- Contention Based Group A (0-30)

Contention Based Group B (31-50)

And remaining comes in Non-Contention Based (51-63),

**Note: An operator above uses the preambles in groups A, B and NCB according to their
radio conditions.

=> Difference between them are as follows:

Sno Non Contention
. Contention Based Based

It is Generated by
1 UE It is generated by eNB

2 Having 4 msgs Having only 3 msgs

Possibility of No Possibility of
3 Collision collision
 35. While UE trying RA, if paging & Reserved-preamble comes from eNB, will UE
abandon the current RA and restart?
Ans: No

36. RA-RNTI = 1+t_id+10*f_id. Explain what is t_id and f_id and their possible value
range?
Ans: Here t_id is the index of the first the subframe of the PRACH which range is from (0 <≤
t_id <10), and f_id is the index of the PRACH within that subframe in ascending order of
frequency domain which range is (0≤ f_id< 6).

37. What are the types of RAR?

Ans: RAR are of two types (i) Contention Based and (ii) NON contention Based. Refer to Ans
No. 34.

38. How do you know how many RAPIDs are there and length of the RAR?
Ans: Refer Ans No. 3

39. What is Back-off indicator? What is the UE action on receiving this?

Ans: Back-off Indicator is indirectly way to telling to UE by eNB that currently I don’t have
Radio Resource to you due to certain reason So UE have to wait for certain amount of time
as mentioned is a RAP header and it is of 4 bits in size. After receiving this US have to wait
for RR and redo RAP.

40. What is RAR window?

Ans: RAR window size is a timer used by UE at the time when UE send the preamble to eNB
and getting back RAR from eNB, till this time RAR must be received otherwise RAP
consider as unsuccessful.

41. If UE receives the RAR but not contention resolution message, within what
time/mechanism it will retransmit?
Ans:There is a T1 timer.

42. What are the parameters/info you get from eNB in the RAR?
Ans: RAR info carries:

(a) Preamble Id

(b) PUSCH PRB

(c) TA Value
(d) T-CRNTI

43. What is relationship between HARQ Entity and HARQ Process. What is the maximum
entity and processes allowed in each UE?
Ans: HARQ Entity is a whole mechanism inside its all the HARQ processes and Multiplexing
and De multiplexing occurs. Below is the diagram:

There are only 1 HARQ Entity and min 8 HARQ process are present

44. Why there is a dedicated MAC process for BCH?

Ans: Refer 3GPP 36.321specification

45. What is the maximum time a UE will backoff, before retransmitting the RA?
Ans: Its available in MAC header and BI is 4 bits in size shown bel:
 E T R R BI

Back-off indicator shown below

46. What is TTI bundling? How many TTI’s can be bundled together?
Ans: This is a method in which UE transmit the PUSCH in multiple subframes in a row (4
subframes according to specification). We can say UE transmit a PUSCH in a 'BUNDLED
TTI'. Max 4 TTI’s can be bundled together.

47. How much is Bj incremented each TTI and what is its maximum value in MAC?
Ans: Bucket size duration is the duration till a logical channel buffer the upper layer data
based on Prioritized Bit Rate of logical channel. Total buffer capacity that is calculate on
the based on PBR * BSD. Here Variable Bj is used to avoid starvation because of prioritized
logical channel.
Each time when UE MAC receives uplink grant to send data, it collects the data based on
priorities of each logical channels while considering the value of associated variable Bj. If
value of Bj is greater than zero then higher priority LCID can send data and reduce the
value of Bj accordingly. If value of Bj is negative for higher priority LCID then data for other
lower priority LCIDs would be scheduled.
48. Rewrite the channels/data in the priority order which MAC considers – CCCH, any
other LoCH, BSR, PHR,BSR with padding.
Ans: Refer 3GPP 36.321. MAC specification

49. What is SPS? Explain SPS?

Ans: SPS - Semi-Persistent Scheduling

In LTE SPS feature is designed to reduce the control channel overhead for Voice over IP
based services. Since VoLTE requires radio resource allocation at regular interval to
support large number of VoIP calls there is huge overhead on control signalling.
VoIP periodically generates the small size packets at short and regular intervals. To avoid
lot of DL assignment and UL grant, SPS feature significantly reduces heavy load on PDCCH
by doing minimum DL assignment and UL grant. SPS allocates the radio resources for a
long period of time.

50. In what are the scenario RACH is triggered?

Ans: In order to Attach and Synchronised with the network RACH procedure is used, or we
can say RACH is indirectly way to getting the UL resources for sending RRC connection
request msg.

51. What is RACH Procedure?

Ans: In order to Attach and Synchronised with the network RACH procedure is used, or we
can say RACH is indirectly way to getting the UL resources for sending RRC connection
request msg. RACH is a process which is configuration given by EUTRAN to UE so that UE
select the Preamble and its Power related configurations.

52. What is SR? What is the use of SR?

Ans: SR is Scheduling Request used to asking for UL resources when there is insufficient
UL resources for sending even Preamble, or we can say if there is less UL resources for
sending preamble than at that time we used SR. SR is a 1 bit in size.

53. What is MAC CE?

Ans:MAC CE is a Mac control Element which is MAC self procedures containing many
Control procedure shown below:
MAC DL Control Element

MAC UL Control Element