Release A Physical Layer Subtype

Last updated: July 23, 2008

This section is only applicable to the lab application and to a test application with the required feature license.

Description

In Active Cell operating mode and IS-856 Test operating mode, the Release A Physical Layer Subtype allows you to select the physical layer subtype protocol when the Protocol Rel is set to protocol release A (1xEV-DO-A) .

The protocol release A (1xEV-DO-A) supports both the new Subtype 2 physical layer and the original Subtype 0 physical layer as supported by the protocol release 0 (1xEV-DO). By default, the Release A Physical Layer Subtype is set to Subtype 2 physical layer for the protocol release A (1xEV-DO-A).

The Subtype 2 physical layer provides more functionality than the Subtype 0 physical layer. For details, see Key Enhancements in Subtype 2 Physical Layer Relative to Subtype 0 .

In Active Cell operating mode, the test set negotiates with the AT on the physical layer subtype during Session Negotiate State . As shown in the table below,

when a session is not open, the current physical layer subtype is always PLSub0 (subtype 0 physical layer).
when a session is successfully open, the specified physical layer subtype is configured for the session.
changing the physical layer subtype results in a session re-negotiation once a session is open.

The current physical layer subtype that the test set is emulating is displayed at the bottom area of the front panel display and can be queried with CALL:STATus:PROTocol:PLAYer? .

Determination of Current Physical Layer Subtype
Protocol Release	Connection State	Current Physical Layer Subtype
A (1xEV-DO-A)	Idle State (session not open)	Subtype 0
A (1xEV-DO-A)	Session Open or Connected	Depends on the setting of Release A Physical Layer Subtype
0 (1xEV-DO)	Does not matter	Subtype 0

The current physical layer subtype indirectly determines the associated application layer protocols and the MAC Layer protocols being configured in the test set, as shown below.

Current Physical Layer Subtype and Associated Protocols
Protocol Release	0 (1xEV-DO)	A (1xEV-DO-A)
Current Physical Layer Subtype	Subtype 0 (fixed)	Subtype 0	Subtype 2
Associated Physical Layer Protocol	Subtype 0 Physical Layer Protocol		Subtype 2 Physical Layer Protocol
Associated Application Protocol	TAP (FTAP/RTAP) (when Session Application Type is set to `Test Application` ) DPA ( Lab Application Only ) (when Session Application Type is set to `Default Packet Application` )		ETAP (FETAP/RETAP) (when Session Application Type is set to `Test Application` ) DPA ( Lab Application Only ) (when Session Application Type is set to `Default Packet Application` )
Associated MAC Layer Protocols	Default Access Channel MAC		Default Access Channel MAC (when Access Channel MAC Subtype is set to `Default` ) Enhanced Access Channel MAC (when Access Channel MAC Subtype is set to `Enhanced` )
	Default Control Channel MAC
	Subtype 1 Reverse Traffic Channel MAC		Subtype 3 Reverse Traffic Channel MAC
	Default Forward Traffic Channel MAC		Enhanced Forward Traffic Channel MAC

Key Enhancements in Subtype 2 Physical Layer Relative to Subtype 0

Forward Link

The Subtype 2 forward link physical layer has several modifications relative to the Subtype 0 physical layer:

Supporting variable and short physical layer packet size for the forward link at a given data rate (DRC value). Moreover, the forward link data rate can be from 4.8 kbps to 3072 kbps (Subtype 0: 38.4 kbps to 2457.6 kbps). See F-Traffic Format for details.
Supporting new forward ARQ channels (H-ARQ, L-ARQ and P-ARQ) used to acknowledge each received subpackets on the reverse traffic channel. For details, see Forward Channel Overview .
Supporting one-to-one correspondence with the MAC layer packet size and the physical layer packet size (in Subtype 0 physical layer, the MAC packet size is always fixed to 1024 bits and multiple MAC packets are required to fill up the large physical layer packets).
More available MAC indices (128 versus 64 in Subtype 0 Physical Layer). See MAC Index for details.

Reverse Link

The Subtype 2 reverse link physical layer is quite different from that of Subtype 0 physical layer:

Subtype 2 reverse traffic channel introduces two new channels (Auxiliary Pilot and DSC) in addition to the design changes of the existing subtype 0 channels (R-Pilot, RRI, R-ACK, and R-Data). For details, see Reverse Channel Overview .
Subtype 2 reverse data channel supports data rates from 4.8 kbps up to 1843.2 kbps (Subtype 0: 9.6 kbps to 153.6 kbps) and also uses five modulation schemes as opposed to the single scheme (BPSK) used in subtype 0 operation. See R-Data Pkt Size .
Subtype 2 reverse access channel supports data rates of 9.6 kbps, 19.2 kbps, and 38.4 kbps (Subtype 0: 9.6 kbps only). See Enhanced Access Rate .

Operating Considerations

If a session is open in Active Cell operating mode, changing the Release A Physical Layer Subtype results in a session re-negotiation. If a connection is open, changing the Release A Physical Layer Subtype results in the connection dropped with signaling. You will have to re-open the connection. For details, see Session Negotiate State .
The C.S0029-A specifies that the TAP operates with the Subtype 0 physical layer protocol and the ETAP operates with all of the Subtype 0, Subtype 1 and Subtype 2 physical layer protocols. However, the test set does not support Subtype 1 Physical Layer protocol and only supports TAP when current physical layer subtype is Subtype 0 and ETAP when current physical layer subtype is Subtype 2.
The test set currently supports Subtype 2 Physical Layer in IS-856 Test operating mode.
( Lab Application Only ) The test set currently supports Default Packet Application when Protocol Rel is A (1xEV-DO-A) and Release A Physical Layer Subtype is Subtype 2 .