The B Side of LTE

When Your "A Game" Just Isn't Good Enough

08/20/2012 | 20 pages
Price: $575.00

A look at the proposed features for 3GPP Release 12 and beyond

In June the 3GPP RAN Working Group held a workshop to discuss the future of LTE, starting with Release 12 and beyond. For the moment, all of the proposed features are still under consideration with our expectation that some of the initial decisions regarding the contents of Release 12 made at the forthcoming 3GPP RAN meeting in September. Nonetheless, it is still possible to take a peek at some of the proposed features, which we can separate into several distinct buckets.

• More effective use of a highly dense small cell network within a macro network
• Improvements and enhancements for previously-introduced features
• HSPA+ improvements, including closer coordination with LTE Higher frequencies and higher modulation schemes
• Tighter integration of LTE network optimization capabilities, including interference management, smartphone signaling and synergies with Wi-Fi
• Device to Device Discovery and Communication

Of all of these proposed features, there seems to be the most interest in small cells. Further, the widespread support for Dynamic TDD (as part of a small cell strategy) suggests that LTE-TDD isn’t just for breakfast any more.