This book guides you through the LTE, LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G from the perspective of practical aspects of air interface, RAN, Core Network and end-to-end data transfer. The practical approach is reflected by the angle of system design, link budget process, network planning, parameter configurations and optimizations together with the required tradeoffs. We also evaluate the different features’ impact on the overall system as it evolves from LTE to LTE-Advanced and then going further to LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G.
With this blogpost, we continue our discussion on the latest Study Items (SI) which are being worked on in 3GPP Rel-15[1,2]. We posted a similar article in April 2017 on our blog 3GPP Release-15: Further LTE Enhancements and 5G Normative Work Kick-off (do check it out if you haven’t already), and this post will add to the Work Items already discussed in the previous one and will present the latest studies on the LTE enhancements and 5G.
Originally, Self-Organizing Networks (SON) was added on top of the LTE system as a set of features to address use cases which were defined as early as within Rel-8 together with the first release of the LTE system. The use cases and accompanied SON features have been gradually enhanced and added as the standard evolves […]
This article presents the currently ongoing activities in the area of 5G research under the umbrella of Horizon-2020 EU-funded projects. It is the second part of the “research activities in Europe“, following the previous article focused on FP7 projects, namely Towards 5G – research activities in Europe (part 1 – FP7 projects). Overview of the 5G related Horizon-2020 […]
According to the latest 3GPP approach, “5G will be delivered” in two phases: Phase I (to be completed by H2 2018, within Rel-15), in which 5G RAT will be provided as an add-on tightly integrated with evolved-LTE; Phase II (to be completed by December 2019, within Rel-16), with 5G RAT provided as a full-blown “standalone” […]
With the recent hype on 5G, an interesting question could be raised, namely: will a mobile system finally become an alternative to fixed access? Can we really answer that question at this point? As of now, we cannot say for sure what 5G will become, since its still being discussed, the requirements specification is ongoing, and the actual […]
In this article I’m sharing a short overview of the LTE evolution, starting with its introduction within 3GPP Release 8 back in early 2009 up to LTE-Advanced Pro to be finalized in March 2016 within Release 13[1]. Timeline, main features and a maximum throughput calculation is provided for each of the LTE evolution steps. […]
Booming mobile data demand observed in cellular networks all over the world and forecasted by various studies (e.g. Cisco VNI[1]), driven by the increasingly growing availability of wide range of data-hungry mobile devices, is commonly considered as the main driver for mobile networks evolution Towards 5G. It’s not only the smartphones, tablets and/or phablets with […]
This time I’d like to sketch the current LTE mobile network architecture. After the basic introduction of nodes and interfaces in-between them I’ll underline the most important aspects in terms of network design. The design issues are discussed in the context of radio interface and the IP-based interfaces within RAN and CN. LTE network architecture […]
To start our journey towards the deep waters of radio networks and future mobile communications, I would like to move us back a couple of years, where we just entered the world of 4G with the introduction of LTE-Advanced. So if we imagine to be in 2011, the telecom trends back then looked like this… We are in […]