Section: 8.2 Information Element Format 8.2.1 General
Content: Figure 8.2-1 depicts the format of an information element. Figure 8.2-1: Information Element Format An IE has the following mandatory fields: - Type field: This field indicates the type of Information Element. The valid values of the IE type are defined in clause 8.1. - Length: This field contains the length of the information element excluding the first four octets, which are common for all information elements (Type, Length and the contents of octet 4) and is denoted "n" in Figure 8.2-1. For all the length fields, bit 8 of the lowest numbered octet is the most significant bit and bit 1 of the highest numbered octet is the least significant bit. - Instance: This field shall be used to differentiate amongst different parameters in one specific message which use the same information element type (see also clause 6.1.3 "Information Element Instance"). An IE is said to be TLIV (Type, Length, Instance, Value) encoded.