3GPP LTE

News

lteTechnology Overview
UMTS Long Term Evolution (LTE) will ensure the competitiveness of UMTS for the next ten years and beyond and provide a high-data-rate, low-latency and packet-optimized system. LTE is also known as EUTRA (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access) and EUTRAN (Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network). Besides peak data rates of 100 Mbps in the downlink and 50 Mbps in the uplink, a significant increase in spectrum efficiency and capacity as well as a significant latency reduction are planned. Commercial aspects like costs for installing and operating the network also form part of the requirements.

Rohde & Schwarz was the first supplier on the market with test solutions for UMTS Long Term Evolution. Flexible and easy-to-use solutions for LTE signal generation and analysis enable the testing of RF and physical layer implementations. Furthermore, Rohde & Schwarz provides a unique solution for MIMO testing. The portfolio of test solutions will be continuously enhanced.

Deployment Scenario

EUTRAN can be deployed as a standalone network, but integration with existing UMTS and GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks is a major deployment scenario as well. Thus, mobility between the different technologies needs to be supported and handover procedures must be specified. Cost-efficient migration from the current UMTS infrastructure to LTE is an important requirement. Interworking with other 3GPP or non-3GPP technologies is also being considered in 3GPP.

LTE will benefit all applications with high data rate and low latency requirements. The main focus of LTE is the packet-switched domain, i.e. the provision of VoIP services is essential.

Key Parameters

3GPP LTE
Frequency Range Show / Hide
I)
UL: 1920 MHz - 1980 MHz
DL: 2110 MHz - 2170 MHz
II)
UL: 1850 MHz - 1910 MHz
DL: 1930 MHz - 1990 MHz
III)
UL: 1710 MHz - 1785 MHz
DL: 1805 MHz - 1880 MHz
IV)
UL: 1710 MHz - 1755 MHz
DL: 2110 MHz - 2155 MHz
V)
UL: 824 MHz - 849 MHz
DL: 869 MHz - 894 MHz
VI)
UL: 830 MHz - 840 MHz
DL: 875 MHz - 885 MHz
VII)
UL: 2500 MHz - 2570 MHz
DL: 2620 MHz - 2690 MHz
VIII)
UL: 880 MHz - 915 MHz
DL: 925 MHz - 960 MHz
IX)
UL: 1749.9 MHz - 1784.9 MHz
DL: 1844.9 MHz - 1879.9 MHz
X)
UL: 1710 MHz - 1770 MHz
DL: 2110 MHz - 2170 MHz
Modulation UL: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM
DL: QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM
Multiple Access OFDMA (DL) / SC-FDMA (UL)
Duplex (Uplink/Downlink) TDD / FDD
Channel Bandwidth scalable to 20 MHz
Peak Data Rate 172 Mbit/s (DL, 20 MHz, 2x2 MIMO)
86 Mbit/s (UL, 20 MHz)

Standardization

LTE is being specified in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project). Work on LTE started in December 2004 with a feasibility study which was finalized in 3GPP release 7. LTE core specifications will be part of 3GPP release 8. Standardization of LTE is still ongoing. The following link provides access to 3GPP specifications: http://www.3gpp.org