4.3.11 E-UTRAN Sharing Function

23.4013GPPGeneral Packet Radio Service (GPRS) enhancements for Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) accessRelease 18TS

E‑UTRAN Sharing is an agreement between operators and shall be transparent to the user. This implies that an E‑UTRAN UE needs to be able to discriminate between core network operators available in a shared radio access network and that these operators can be handled in the same way as operators in non-shared networks. E‑UTRAN terminals support E‑UTRAN Sharing.

An E‑UTRAN Sharing architecture allows different core network operators to connect to a shared radio access network. The operators do not only share the radio network elements, but may also share the radio resources themselves. In addition to this shared radio access network the operators may or may not have additional dedicated radio access networks, like for example, 3G or 2G radio access networks. For E‑UTRAN both Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) configuration and Gateway Core Network (GWCN) configuration as defined in TS 23.251 [24] are supported over the S1 reference point. E‑UTRAN terminals shall support shared networks and hence, only functions for "Supporting UEs" in TS 23.251 [24] applies for E‑UTRAN Sharing.

E‑UTRAN Radio Access Network Sharing functions is further described in TS 36.300 [5].

In networks that support network sharing as defined in TS 23.251 [24], for a UE in state ECM-CONNECTED, the Handover Restriction List provided by the core-network to the radio access network is also used to inform the radio access network about the Selected PLMN and equivalent PLMNs as defined in TS 36.413 [36].