5.7 Inband Rate Control

23.1533GPPOut of band transcoder controlRelease 17Stage 2TS

Inband rate control shall only allow the RNCs to set the maximum codec mode (maximum bitrate) from the set of codec modes that have been negotiated out of band. This procedure is called Maximum Rate Control. The final maximum mode selected results from a rate control request from one side and the maximum rate supported at the receiving side; the lower rate of these is selected. This is known as Distributed Rate Decision. In TrFO maximum rate control shall be supported through the Iu Framing protocol and through transit networks supporting compressed voice. The maximum rate control procedures are further defined within the Iu Framing protocol [4].

When the MSC requests for a RAB to be assigned, it shall always define 1 speech mode SDU (lowest rate), and DTX SDU as non-rate controllable. Other SDU formats for higher rates shall be defined as rate controllable. The first subflow combination in the IuUP initialisation shall be treated as an initial maximum rate control. Where a node is in TrFO break (e.g. the terminating MGW) this initial maximum rate control received at a given MGW/IuUP termination shall be signalled to the other TrFO link using the IuUP Rate Control PDU unless the IuUP Initialisation frame is to be sent on to the next link as in RFCI Value Correction (see clause 5.4.3).

At SRNS relocation the new RNC shall send a rate control frame at Relocation Detect indicating its current maximum rate, it will receive in the acknowledgement the current maximum rate from the far end. This procedure is called Immediate Rate Control. Again the distributed rate decision means both RNCs will operate within a common limit.