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What is GTP-C in LTE?

Author

Sarah Cherry

Published Feb 13, 2026

What is GTP-C in LTE?

GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTP) is a group of IP-based communications protocols used to carry general packet radio service (GPRS) within GSM, UMTS and LTE networks. GTP-C is used within the GPRS core network for signaling between gateway GPRS support nodes (GGSN) and serving GPRS support nodes (SGSN).

What is GTP-C traffic?

GTP-C is used to signaling between the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) and the serving GPRS support node (SGSN), while the GTP-U tunnel is used to encapsulate and route the user plane traffic across multiple signaling interfaces.

What is the difference between GTP-C and GTP-U?

GTP-C supports transport of control packets in IPv4 format. GTP-U— Transports user data within the core GPRS network and between the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the core network. GTP-U supports IPv4 and IPv6 user data, but transport is IPv4.

What is LTE tunneling?

GPRS Tunneling protocol is an important IP/UDP based protocol used in GSM, UMTS and LTE core networks. It is used to encapsulate user data when passing through core network and also carries bearer specific signalling traffic between various core network entities.

What is a GTP proxy?

GTP Proxy overview. It is a network platform which handles mobile data traffic for 2G/3G and for 4G. GTP-C and GTP-U messages are analysed, and application and security rules are applied. Every session creates a context, thus rules analyse whole session flow.

Is GTP encrypted?

Because of the many vulnerabilities in the protocol’s specifications, GTP became a prime attack target. The protocol does not support encryption, so, among other pieces of sensitive information, international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), integrity session keys, and user data are sent in clear text.

What is GTP inspection?

GTP allows multiprotocol packets to be tunneled through the GPRS backbone between GSNs. GTP provides a tunnel control and management protocol that allows the SGSN to provide GPRS network access for a mobile station by creating, modifying, and deleting tunnels.

What is Palo Alto GTP?

Enabling GTP security on the Palo Alto Networks firewall allows you to statefully inspect, validate, filter, and perform security checks on GTPv2-C, GTPv1-C and GTP-U protocol messages. …

What is GTP echo?

echo-interval—Specifies the number of seconds that the gateway waits before resending a signaling-request message after a response to an echo request is received. The default is 60 seconds.

What is GTP prime?

GTP prime (GTP’) is a protocol for carrying charging data from the Charging Data Function (CDF) to the Charging Gateway Function (CGF). The protocol is used in the Ga interface. The GTP Prime Test Suite has been designed to act as malicious enpoint which sends exceptional requests/responses to the tested entity.

Does 5G use GTP?

GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) has been at the heart of providing seamless interconnection and is responsible for carrying traffic between roaming or home subscribers and key network interfaces in 4G, 5G non-standalone (NSA), 5G standalone (SA), and mobile edge compute architectures.

What is the minimum length of GTP header?

The GTP-U header is a variable length header whose minimum length is 8 bytes. There are three flags that are used to signal the presence of additional optional fields: the PN flag, the S flag and the E flag.

What is a GTP-C response?

When a network element such as PGW or GGSN accepts or rejects a GTP request, it sends a GTP-C response message that includes a cause value in the cause Information Element (IE) indicating whether the request is accepted or the reason for rejection. Logs display the cause value in the GTP cause field.

What are the different types of GTP messages?

GTP Message Type GTP Message Value Message Value Message Type Decimal Hexadecimal GTPv1 1 1 Echo Request GTPv1 2 2 Echo Response GTPv1 3 3 Version Not Supported

What is the GTP-C protocol used for in GPRS?

GTP-C is used within the GPRS core network for signaling between gateway GPRS support nodes (GGSN) and serving GPRS support nodes (SGSN). This allows the SGSN to activate a session on a user’s behalf ( PDP context activation), to deactivate the same session, to adjust quality of service parameters,…

What happens if the mandatory information element is missing in GTP?

The receiver of a GTP signalling Request message with a missing mandatory information element shall discard the request, should log the error, and shall send a Response with this cause code. All optional information elements that are incorrect in a GTP signaling message shall be treated as not present in the message.