LTE Standards Will Form Foundation for 5G

BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - September 14, 2015) - Today, 4G Americas released an executive summary titled, Inside 3GPP Release 13: Understanding the Standards for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced Enhancements. This condensed document provides an overview of the key features for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced enhancements found in 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 13 (Rel-13). The executive summary is ideal for journalists, analysts, regulators and others who seek a shortened version of major technical features of HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced.

"It may seem as if the tide is rising quickly with the amount of discussion around 5G; however, this is all within a normal cycle of development for the mobile industry's technology standards," observed Teck Hu, Senior Standards Manager at Alcatel-Lucent, and co-leader of the Release 13 Executive Summary working group. "With seven billion connections using 3GPP standards today, the roadmap for future development of LTE mobile broadband will assure a firm footing for the next generation."

As featured in the white paper, the focus of Rel-13 standards for LTE-Advanced includes:

• Active Antenna Systems (AAS), including elevation beamforming enhancements and Self-Organizing Network (SON) aspects for AAS
• Enhanced signaling to support inter-site Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission and Reception (CoMP)
• Carrier Aggregation (CA) enhancements to support up to 32 component carriers
• Dual Connectivity (DC) enhancements to better support multi-vendor deployments with improved traffic steering
• Improvements in Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing
• Enhancements to Machine Type Communication (MTC)
• Enhancements to Proximity Services (ProSe)
• Licensed Assisted Access for LTE (LAA-LTE), in which LTE can be deployed in unlicensed spectrum
• LTE Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Aggregation (LWA) where the data bearer can be served by the LTE radio link and/or Wi-Fi through LTE-WLAN aggregation
• Downlink Multi-User Superposition Transmission (MUST) for transmission of more than one data layer to multiple users without time, frequency or spatial separation

HSPA+: enhancements are also addressed further in Rel-13, including:

• Support for dual band Uplink (UL) Carrier Aggregation
• Enhancements for reducing control channel overhead

Other network-related services are also summarized in the paper, including:

• Introduction of Wi-Fi integration enhancements to support Network-Based IP Flow Mobility (NBIFOM) and harmonize the support of voice and video services over Wi-Fi
• Enhancements to support Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) over LTE, Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (MBMS) enhancements and group based enhancements (GROUPE) for public safety
• Optimizing performance for MTC services by defining a Dedicated Core (DECOR) and Monitoring Enhancement (MONTE)
• User Plane Congestion Management (UPCON) features which enable the identification of cells and users in congested situations so that policy decisions can be used to mitigate congestion
• Application Specific Congestion Control for Data Communication (ACDC) to manage access attempts on a per application basis
• Architecture Enhancements for Service Capability Exposure (AESE) to expose valuable information to third party application providers

Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications at 4G Americas noted, "As work on 3GPP Rel-13 continues to develop the standards for HSPA+ and LTE/LTE-Advanced, simultaneous discussion on future network requirements and recommendations for the next generation of 5G technologies has begun. Groups such as 4G Americas are contributing to the discussion and are liaising with other organizations such as NGMN Alliance, 3GPP, 5G PPP, ITU, CITEL, ATIS, Small Cell Forum and others. It is expected that discussions in the 3GPP working groups will turn to 5G standardization in Rel-14."

The executive summary, Inside 3GPP Release 13: Understanding the Standards for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced Enhancements, written collaboratively by members of 4G Americas, is available for free download at www.4gamericas.org. More detailed explanations of 3GPP Rel-13 are provided in the 4G Americas white paper, Mobile Broadband Evolution Towards 5G: Rel-12 & Rel-13 and Beyond.

About 4G Americas: Unifying the Americas Through Mobile Broadband Technology
4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of the LTE mobile broadband technology and its evolution beyond to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas. 4G Americas, the voice of 5G for the Americas, is invested in leading 5G development for the Americas and maintaining the current global innovation lead in North America with LTE technology. 4G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. More information is available at www.4gamericas.org. Follow our news on Twitter at @4GAmericas and Facebook at www.facebook.com/4gamericas.

4G Americas' Board of Governors members include: Alcatel-Lucent, América Móvil, AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Entel, Ericsson, HP, Intel, Mitel, Nokia, Qualcomm, Sprint, T-Mobile US, Inc. and Telefónica.