LTE MMS

This tutorial shows how to test MMS(Multimedia Messaging Service) with a commercial UE on Amari Callbox. If you are using the USIM card from Amarisoft, you don't need to change any settings in the default configuration (You just need to understand about the settings on default configuration) The setting change for this test would be mainly with UE side configuration setting.

Unlike SMS, MMS is designed to send / receive multimedia contents (e.g, image, video, audio files etc). Therefore, there need to be some underline packet channel used. As SMS message is sent / received encapsulated by another signaling protocol (e.g, NAS signaling message or IMS signaling message), MMS is sent / received encapsulated by other protocol called WAP (Wireless Application Protocol).

One important thing in terms of MMS configuration is that you need to know of the ip address of MMSC (MMS Center) and configure the IP in your UE (DUT) properly, whereas SMS does not require this kind of configuration.

Table of Contents

• LTE MMS
• Test Setup
• Key Configuration Parameters
• Configuration
• Perform the test
• MO MMS
• Log Analysis
• MO MMS
• Tips
• Capturing pcap file for MMS

Test Setup

Test setup for this tutorial is as shown below.  

• SIM Card used in this tutorial is the one delivered with the system as it is.
• If you want to change the configuration, The tutorial Configuration Guide would help

Key Configuration Parameters

Followings are important configuration parameters for this tutorial. You may click on the items for the descriptions from Amarisoft documents.

• impi
• impu
• domain
• mms_server_bind_addr

Configuration

I used the enb.default.cfg (LTE default configuration) as it is without changing any contents in it.

I also used the default configuration for mme (mme-ims.cfg) as shown below.  Since this test is to send / receive MMS via IMS, ims.cfg and ue_db-ims.cfg is important configurations. Unless your DUT(UE) requires any specific configuration, the default configuration (i.e, ims.default.cfg and ue_db-ims.cfg) would work.

In mme-ims.cfg file, you would notice that ue_db-ims.cfg is used as ue db.

In this tutorial, I am using Anritsu Test USIM. Remember tel number since these will be used for MMS. Remember tel number since these will be used for SMS. If you are using any other test USIM/ISIM, change the parameters accordingly. For SMS test, remember 'tel' numbers specified here since the numbers will be used to send MMS in this test.

Check out mms_server_bind_addr setting in ims.default.cfg and remember this. you should put this ip into MMSC setting on UE side.

I did following configuration on UE side. First make sure that UE has 'ims' APN configured. In most of UE, the 'internet' and 'ims' APN would be configured by default. But for some UE, you may need to manually configure 'ims' APN.  In addition, you may need to enable 'VoLTE' option because the UE may not initiate IMS registration if VoLTE is not turned on.

Since MME uses both IMS and Internet, you need to configure the details of both internet APN and ims APN as required for MMS testing.

Lst's look into internet APN first. You may pay attention to Name, APN, MMSC, APN type. Note that MMSC is set to http://192.168.3.1:1111/ (NOTE : This setting is based on the assumption that you are using the default mme.cfg . If you change the IP settings in PDN configuration, you need to change this IP accordingly)

Now look into ims APN. In this setting as well, You may pay attention to Name, APN, MMSC, APN type. Note that MMSC is set to http://192.168.3.1:1111/  and APN type is set to ims/mms.

Perform the test

You can do both MO(Mobile Originated) SMS and MT(Mobile Terminated) SMS with Amarisoft Callbox.

MO MMS

Start LTE service and check basic cell configuration. Any cell configuration is OK as long as it is LTE cell.

Power On UE and make it sure that UE get registerred.

Make it sure that UE is assigned with IMS pdn.

Following is indicating that UE is registered to IMS server. (NOTE : To test SMS over IMS, this is precodition for the test. If you don't see any users shown here, you cannot do MMS. So if you don't see any user here, troubleshoot IMS registration process first.)

Send MMS from UE and you will get the result as follows. In terms of mobile phone user interface, sending MMS is same as sending SMS. UE internally switch between SMS and MMS based on the content type. In this test, I sent an SMS with a picture. Then UE is using MMS protocol due to the attached picture.

Log Analysis

Enable logging for ENB, MME, IMS to keep track of all the details while MMS is being sent.

If you want to capture the entire IP packet, increase the Max size of IP and GTPU log in MME log property

In the same logic, increase the packet size of MMS in IMS log property.

This is not mandatory, but for easy analysis select GTPU,IMS,IP and RRC/NAS for display.

MO MMS

Assuming that UE is ready to send MMS over IMS (i.e, IMS registration is completed), send an MMS and check the log. You see a TCP is setup. This TCP is to post the contents of MMS over IP.

You can confirm the http POST in TCP packet.

Following down the TCP step by step, you can check on further details on MMS Data.

If you go down to the last part of the TCP sequence, you will see the text message that you typed in with the MMS contents.

Tips

Capturing pcap file for MMS

You can capture a pcap file for MMS as follows. (NOTE : You can check on the MMS traffic from WebGUI, but it would be easier to analyze the MMS traffic with pcap/wireshark than with WebGUI)

i) service lte restart

ii) run the command  :  (you may open up another terminal to run this. You may use a specific interface name like '-i tun1', but this may not capture the MMS traffic if UE IP and MMSC IP is not in the same subnet. so I used '-i any')

       # tcpdump -i any /tmp/mms.pcap  

iii) perform mms test

iv) Stop tcpdump

If you open the captured pcap file and filter http traffic only you would see the packets as follows.