Reducing the emergency call setup duration in UMTS

During a UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) call setup, one part of the signaling messages is sent on a DL (Downlink) 13.6 kbps and UL (Uplink) 13.6 kbps and another part is sent on DL3.4/UL3.4 kbps. The change of the signaling rate from 13.6 kbps to 3.4 kbps occurs after the RRC (Radio Resource Control) Radio Bearer Setup message. In this paper a new method, called ‘Delay of Activation Time Method’, is proposed. When applied, then most, if not all, of the messages that are exchanged during a call setup are sent on a signaling rate of DL13.6/UL13.6 kbps. It follows that the duration of the signaling messages affected by this method is four times shorter than in case of prior art. In this paper, the application of the proposed method, on an emergency call setup that triggers an A-GPS location procedure, is measured.