Dual Connectivity – Practical Aspects

You may wonder why I’m writing about Dual Connectivity. After all, it comes from LTE in Rel-12, when we are currently within the Rel-16/17 timeframe. The reason for this is that the DC from LTE is treated as a baseline. The enhanced version is incorporated within 5G as one of the main features to allow the so-called Multi-RAT DC (MR-DC). If we look from a broader perspective, we have a multitude of use cases for DC, including LTE-DC, NR-DC, LTE-NR-DC, NR-LTE-DC, LWA. Therefore, this post aims at shedding light on the different aspects of DC, being the legacy feature, which can be extrapolated towards the current situation. 

LTE and 5G Differences: System Complexity

In this post we discuss the complexity that 5G brings and show some examples of this as compared to LTE including: naming in the 5GS architecture, dual connectivity options in 5G, parameters for L1, base station naming, spectrum aspects.