Wireless Network

IP Network Protocol Analysis

5G Protocol Analyzer

GL's 5G Protocol Analyzer is capable of capturing, decoding, and performing various test measurements across various interfaces such as N1N2, N4, N8, N12, N13 interfaces of the 5G network.

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5G Network Protocol Analyzer

Overview

5G is a fifth-generation mobile technology for cellular networks. 5G covers three main verticals namely, Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), and Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) to support a wide variety of use cases such as Smart cities, AR/VR, self-driving cars, IoT etc.

GL’s PacketScan™ 5G protocol analyzer supports monitoring of 5G networks. It captures, segregates, monitors, and collects statistics on all calls over N1/N2, N4, N8, N12 and N13 interfaces of the 5G network. GL's 5G Protocol Analyzer is an optional module (PKV112) available within PacketScan™ on purchase of additional licensing.

Main Features

  • Capture, Decode, and Analysis of Calls in 5G Network
  • Supported protocols - Non-Access Stratum (NAS), Next Generation Application Protocol (NGAP), Packet Forwarding Control Protocol (PFCP), XnAP, SCTP, UDP, TCP, and IP
  • Following interfaces are supported in Packet Data Analyzer:
    • N1 N2 Interface - gNodeB (also called Next Generation RAN), and AMF (Access and Mobility Management Function) nodes
    • N4 Interface - Session Management Function (SMF) and User Plane Function (UPF) elements
    • N8 Interface - Unified Data Management (UDM) and Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)
    • N12 Interface - Authentication Server Function (AUSF) and Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)
    • N13 Interface - Authentication Server Function (AUSF) and User Data Management (UDM)
  • Interested calls can be saved to PCAP (Wireshark® format) and in HDL (GL Proprietary format)
  • Packet Data Analyzer feature in Packetscan™ provide a complete call flow of a 5G session
  • Advanced filtering and search based on any user selected protocol fields
  • Any protocol field can be added to the summary view, filtering, and search features providing users more flexibility to monitor required protocol fields
  • Trigger intelligent actions based on signaling and traffic conditions
  • Displays Summary, Detail, Hex dump, Statistics, and Call Detail Views
  • Hex dump View displays the frame information in HEX and ASCII format, the contents of this view can also be copied to clipboard
  • Statistics View displays statistics based on frame count, byte count, frames/sec, bytes/sec etc. for the entire capture data
  • Call Detail View displays called/ calling number, released calls, call status, and more
  • Provides a consolidated interface for all the important settings required in the analyzer. All the configuration settings done in any of these options can be saved to a file, loaded from a configuration file

Protocol Stack

N1N2 Protocol Stack

N1N2 Protocol Stack

N4 Protocol Stack

N4 Protocol Stack

N8 Protocol Stack

N8 Protocol Stack

N12 Protocol Stack

N12 Protocol Stack

N13 Protocol Stack

N13 Protocol Stack


Supported Protocols Standard / Specification
System Architecture for the 5G 3GPP TS 23.501
NG Application Protocol (NGAP) 3GPP TS 38.413
Non-Access-Stratum (NAS) 3GPP TS 24.501
GPRS Tunneling Protocol for User Plane (GTP-U) 3GPP TS 29.281
NR and NG-RAN Overall Description 3GPP TS 28.300
Packet Forwarding Control Protocol (PFCP) 3GPP TS 29.244
UDP IETF RFC 768
IPv4 IETF RFC 791 [5]
IPv6 IETF RFC 2460 [6]
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) IETF RFC 8259
HTTP/2 IETF RFC 7231
IETF RFC 7540/RFC 7541
TLS IETF RFC 8446
TCP IETF RFC 793

Monitoring 5G Networks

GL's PacketScan™ protocol analyzer provides options to analyze set of Network Functions (NFs) and service based interfaces over 5G to monitor live signaling and traffic on the following interfaces.

  • N1N2 - gNodeB (gNB), and Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)
  • N4 - Session Management Function (SMF) and User Plane Function (UPF)
  • N8 - Unified Data Management (UDM) and Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)
  • N12: Authentication Server Function (AUSF) and Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF)
  • N13: Authentication Server Function (AUSF) and User Data Management (UDM)

Key Features

  • NGAP and NAS protocol monitoring
  • Supports monitoring of VoNR (Voice) calls
  • Provides VoNR call statistics such as caller, callee, MOS scores, discarded packets and voice storage
  • Provides a complete call flow of a 5G session
  • Supports both real-time and offline analysis
  • Services use REST APIs based on HTTP and JSON data format
  • QoS requests for greater or lesser bandwidth
  • Supports services as Voice Quality, Data Retention, Lawful Interception, Fraud Detection

The below screenshot illustrates 5G call (NGAP Layer) decoded in Packetscan™ analyzer.

NGAP Layer Decode View

NGAP Layer Decode View


5G N1N2 Call Analysis in Packet Data Analyzer (PDA)

The below 5G N1N2 call graph shows the decode of the selected message.

5G N1N2 PDA Call Graph

5G N1N2 PDA Call Graph

Resources

Item Description
PKV112 5G Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV113 Offline 5G Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™ and NetSurveyorWeb™)
Item Description
PKV100 PacketScan™ - (Online and Offline)
PKV101 PacketScan™ - Offline
PKV110 IMS Protocol Decodes (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV107 LTE (Long Term Evolution) Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV108 Offline LTE (Long Term Evolution) Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV105 SIGTRAN (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV106 Offline SIGTRAN Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV103 IP Based GSM and UMTS Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV109 Offline IP Based GSM and UMTS Analyzer (Optional with PacketScan™)
PKV104 FaxScan™ for SIP and Fax over IP (T.38)
Related Hardware for IP
PKV120 PacketScan™ HD w/4 x 1GigE
PKV120p PacketScan HD™ w/4 x 1GigE - Portable
PKV122 PacketScan™ HD w/2 x 10GigE
PKV121 PacketScan™ FB - (Offline Analyzer)
PKV122p PacketScan HD™ w/2 x 10 GigE - Portable
PKV123 PacketRecorder HD™ & PacketRePlay HD™
PKV124 PacketScan HD™ w/40/100 GigE
PKV124P PacketScan HD™ w/40/100 GigE - Portable
PXE100 PacketExpert™ 1G - Dual Port
PXE112 PacketExpert™ 12 Port
PXE124 PacketExpert™ 24 Port
PXG100 PacketExpert™ 10G/1G
PXX100 PacketExpert™ 40G/100G
PXE105
PXG105
PacketExpert™ Wire speed Record /Playback - 1G
PacketExpert™ Wirespeed Record / Playback 10G/1G
PXX105 PacketExpert™ Wirespeed Record / Playback 40/100G
PXE107
PXG107
PacketBroker™ - 1G
PacketBroker™ - 10G/1G
PXX107 PacketExpert™ - PacketBroker™ - 40G/100G
Web Based Monitoring Applications
PKV170 NetsurveyorWeb™ (Perpetual License, Unlimited Users/Nodes)
– Includes Oracle 11g Standard Edition One and Standard Server-Grade Computing Platform
PKV169 NetsurveyorWeb™ Lite
- Probe Level WebServer, PacketScan™, and Oracle 11g Express Edition;