3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE)

Qualcomm Incorporated January 2008

3GPP Long-Term Evolution

Table of Contents

[1] Executive Summary ......................................................................... 1 [2] LTE Leverages New and Wider Spectrum ...................................... 2 [3] LTE Complements HSPA+ .............................................................. 3 [4] LTE Performance Overview............................................................. 4 4.1 High-Capacity Mobile Broadband............................................ 5 4.2 High Voice Capacity through VoIP .......................................... 6 4.3 High User Data Rates for Better User Experience.................. 7 [5] LTE Key Design Features................................................................ 8 5.1 OFDMA on the DL and SC-FDMA on the UL.......................... 9 5.2 Advanced Antenna Techniques .............................................. 9 5.3 Enhanced Interference Control for Cell-Edge Performance.......................................................................... 11 5.4 Single-Frequency Network Multicast Services ...................... 12 5.5 All-IP Packet-Optimized Network Architecture ...................... 13 [6] Backward Interoperability and Leverage from a Large 3G Ecosystem ..................................................................................... 14 [7] Conclusion ..................................................................................... 16 [8] Glossary ......................................................................................... 17

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[1] Executive Summary

Wireless operators are experiencing tremendous growth in demand for mobile data services. This increased demand stems from the success of HSPA mobile broadband technology, which provides high data rates and improved user experience for all data services. HSPA+ (3GPP Releases 7 and 8) will further improve the performance of existing networks, and help meet the mobile-data demand in the future. 3GPP is defining Long-Term Evolution (LTE), which allows UMTS operators to use new and wider spectrum (up to 20 MHz), and builds on HSPAs successcomplementing HSPA networks with higher data rates, lower latency and higher capacity, to provide an enhanced broadband experience in high-data-demand and densely populated urban areas. Wireless industry is rapidly moving toward the convergence of communications, computing and consumer platforms, as well as converged services across fixed and wireless networks. Users desire services like voice, music, picture/video sharing, and social interactions anytime and anywhere, with a similar experience regardless of location. Mobile broadband is in the center of this convergence, enabling consumer and corporate users to enjoy higher data rates and the broadband experience in all environments, using converged devices. LTE will support a variety of devicesdesktop modems, mobile phones, laptops, ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs)and new generation of consumer electronics with embedded modems. LTE allows operators to economically and effectively address all these market segments. LTE is a leading OFDMA-based, wireless mobile broadband technology supported by a new Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network. Designed from the ground up to provide interoperability and service continuity with existing UMTS networks, LTE will allow UMTS operators to capitalize on their investments in UMTS/HSPA(+) and roll out LTE networks in phases. It offers high spectral efficiency, low latency and high peak data rates (277 Mbps in the DL, 75 Mbps in the UL), and leverages HSPA/LTE multimode devices. LTE incorporates advanced antenna techniques like MIMO, SDMA and beamforming, among many others.

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[2] LTE Leverages New and Wider Spectrum

LTE leverages new and wider spectrum, up to 20 MHz, to provide a capacity boost in high-demand areas, and complements the existing HSPA and HSPA+ deployments. OFDMA technology provides increasingly higher capacity for wider bandwidthsmaking LTE best suited for bandwidths of 10 to 20 MHz. At the same time, LTE is flexible enough to be deployed in any bandwidth combination, which makes it suitable for spectrum resources of various sizes. LTE deployments in smaller bandwidths have lower spectral efficiency due to the relatively higher overheads for control and signaling. In a typical 5 MHz system deployment, HSPA+ and LTE provide similar data capacity and end-user experience.

HSPA+ & LTE in 5 MHz Provide similar performance

LTE for wider bandwidths complements HSPA+

Figure 1. Flexible Bandwidth Allocation

LTE supports a range of bandwidths up to 20 MHz, as depicted in Figure 1. LTE also supports devices that can work on various system-bandwidth combinations, therefore reducing the need to make specific device profiles tailored to each combination. This allows an operator to deploy LTE in 10 or 20 MHz combinations, without worrying about device-compatibility issues. LTE devices are mandated to support 20 MHz bandwidth in the DL and the UL. The available peak rates and average user rates for an individual user, however, scale with the deployment bandwidth. LTE supports both FDD and TDD modes, allowing operators to address all available spectrum resources.

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[3] LTE Complements HSPA+

UMTS operators around the world are experiencing tremendous success with HSPA, and are rapidly launching HSPA services that capitalize on HSPAs mobile-broadband capabilities and increased data capacity. HSPA+ further enhances the performance capabilities through incremental investments and backward-compatible devices. HSPA+ ensures a consistent user experience across the entire network, and allows the operator to roll out LTE in phases. LTE is most beneficial in wider bandwidths, and thus is suitable for deployments in dense urban areas where data demand is higher. LTE coverage can be incrementally increased as data demand increases throughout the network area. The common IMS network enables users to experience the same services across the entire operator network, irrespective of the air-interface technology in use. HSPA+ offers similar capacity and peak rates as LTE in 5 MHz, and provides similar user experience and service continuity when outside the LTE coverage. Furthermore, HSPA+ supports high-capacity VoIP, allowing voice-service continuity for LTE systems that rely on VoIP for voice services. LTE utilizes a new core network, the EPC, which allows for a more flat IP-based architecture. Throughout the design of LTE and EPC, emphasis has been placed on interoperability with existing 3GPP technologies like UMTS and GSM. This will ensure that HSPA+ and LTE co-exist seamlessly.

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HSPA/HSPA+ LTE LTE LTE

Figure 2. LTE Complements HSPA/HSPA+

As shown in Figure 2, an operator can initially focus on high-demand areas, falling back to HSPA/HSPA+ outside the LTE coverage. Coverage can be expanded over time asand whenthe data demand increases. Multimode devices supporting both LTE and the existing 3GPP technologies will ensure interoperability and a consistent user experience across the two networks. The LTE network supports handoffs to UMTS/HSPA and GSM/GPRS networks, providing service continuity throughout the operators network.

[4] LTE Performance Overview

LTE is designed from the ground up as a high-capacity mobile wireless technology for efficient delivery of real-time applications such as VoIP and video services.

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4.1 High-Capacity Mobile Broadband

LTE leverages advanced antenna techniques such as MIMO, SDMA and beamforming, which provide benefits to users in both high- and lowsignal-strength conditions. These advanced technologies (discussed in detail in the next section), along with an optimized air interface, enable high capacity and data rates with LTE.

Figure 3. DL Cell Capacity in 10 MHz FDD (Mbps)

Figure 3 shows the system capacity achievable with 10 MHz system deployments. The figure also highlights the similarity of HSPA+ and LTE performance in the same bandwidth and antenna configuration. LTE provides increased capacity with higher-order MIMO (4x4) and SDMA. Compared with the baseline configuration of HSPA Release 6, both LTE and HSPA+ provide more than two times the data capacity in the DL.

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On the UL, LTE introduces SDMA techniques that help increase UL system capacity. The UL capacity is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. UL Capacity in 10 MHz (Mbps)

4.2 High Voice Capacity through VoIP

LTE and the EPC network are optimized to provide end-to-end QoS control for all types of data traffic. High-capacity voice service on LTE will be supported by using VoIP over the LTE data channels. The end-to-end QoS control ensures that the LTE provides Telco-quality VoIP. The voice call continuity (VCC) service in the IMS core will ensure that the VoIP service is interoperable with the circuit-switched voice and VoIP services on the existing UMTS networks. Carrying voice traffic on the data channels not only enables a high-capacity voice service, it also enables operators to meet all possible service needs by efficient mixing of voice and data traffic. It enables a suite of new, rich voice services that can be targeted to specific market segments for increased operator revenue.

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200 182

93 68 40

Rel 99

Rel 6

Rel 7 HSPA+

LTE 5MHz

LTE 1.25MHz

Figure 5. Voice Capacity in 5 MHz (users/sector)

Figure 5 shows the voice capacity of a 5 MHz LTE system. Compared with the 3GPP Release 99 circuit-switched voice capacity of 68 users per sector, LTE can support three times the number of voice users in the same bandwidth. HSPA+ can support 182 users per sector with VoIP, and maintains VoIP service continuity between LTE and HSPA networks. High voice capacity makes LTE suitable for dense urban areas when deployed in bandwidths of 10 MHz or higher. As is evident in Figure 5, the voice capacity in a smaller bandwidth of 1.25 MHz is disproportionately lessthis is due to the higher signaling and control overheads in a smaller bandwidth.

4.3 High User Data Rates for Better User Experience

The advanced techniques of higher-order MIMO and higher-order modulation, coupled with a wider bandwidth deployment, provide higher peak user data rates.

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Table 1 shows the peak data rates for four possible bandwidth deployments. The data rates achievable are a direct result of the spectrum bandwidth of the LTE deployment and the number of users per sector. In a 20 MHz deployment, LTE enables a DL peak data rate of 277 Mbps and an UL peak data rate of 75 Mbps. These significantly higher data rates provide superior performance for existing data applications, and provide an improved broadband experience to end users.
BW Downlink (DL) (4x4 MIMO) Uplink (UL) 1.25 MHz FDD 16 4 5 MHz FDD 68 18 10 MHz FDD 138 37 20 MHz FDD 277 75

Table 1: LTE DL and UL Peak Data Rates (Mbps)

[5] LTE Key Design Features

LTE incorporates many key features that enable operators to provide an enhanced broadband experience: OFDMA on the DL and SC-FDMA on the UL Advanced antenna techniques MIMO SDMA Beamforming

Enhanced Interference Control Single Frequency Network multicast services All-IP packet-optimized network architecture

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5.1 OFDMA on the DL and SC-FDMA on the UL

LTE utilizes OFDMA on the DL. OFDMA techniques employ a fast Fourier transform (FFT) to segment the allocated bandwidth into smaller units, which can then be shared among the users. OFDMA and CDMA with equalization provide similar spectral efficiencies; however, OFDMA is better suited for wider bandwidths. The ability to use different FFT sizes for OFDM modulation easily allows flexible bandwidth allocations, and the use of frequency domain adds an additional degree of freedom to the channel-dependent scheduler. On the UL, LTE uses single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA, also called DFTspread OFDM). SC-FDMA has potential peak-to-average benefits over OFDMA, but an optimized OFDMA implementation mitigates any issues and provides similar performance and benefits as SC-FDMA.

5.2 Advanced Antenna Techniques

LTE uses advanced antenna techniques and wider spectrum allocations to provide higher data rates throughout the cell area. LTE supports MIMO, SDMA and beamforming (Figure 6). These techniques are complementary and can be used to trade off between higher sector capacity, higher user data rates, or higher cell-edge rates, and thus enable operators to have finer control over the end-user experience.

Figure 6. Advanced Antenna Techniques

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DL MIMOLTE supports up to 4x4 MIMO in the DL, which uses four transmit antennas at the Node B to transmit orthogonal (parallel) data streams to the four receive antennas at the user equipment (UE). Using additional antennas and signal processing at the receiver and transmitter, MIMO increases the system capacity and user data rates without using additional transmit power or bandwidth. To be most effective, MIMO needs a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the UE and a rich scattering environment. High SNR ensures that the UE is able to decode the incoming signal, and a rich scattering environment ensures the orthogonality of the multiple data streams. The MIMO benefit is therefore maximized in a dense urban environment, where there is enough scattering and the small cell sizes provide an environment of high SNRs at the UE. SDMASDMA enables multiple users to send and receive data using the same time-frequency OFDM resource. In the DL, the eNode B can transmit data simultaneously, and over the same time-frequency resource, to two users that have enough spatial separation to ensure that the two data streams remain orthogonal. Similarly, on the UL, SDMA enables two users in the cell to simultaneously send data to the eNode B, using the same timefrequency resource. Even though the transmissions are simultaneous, the spatial separation ensures that the two data streams do not interfere with each other. Allowing these concurrent transmissions increases the cell capacity in both the DL and the UL. LTE does not support simultaneous MIMO and SDMA operation to a user; hence, there is a tradeoff between higher user data rates and higher system capacity in the DL. BeamformingBeamforming increases the user data rates by focusing the transmit power in the direction of the user, effectively increasing the received signal strength at the UE. Beamforming provides the most benefits to users in weaker-signal-strength areas, like the edge of the cell coverage. Beamforming ensures that cell-edge rates are high, and enables the operator to deploy high-bandwidth services without concern for service degradation at the cell edge.

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5.3 Enhanced Interference Control for Cell-Edge Performance

Interference control via frequency-reuse schemes can be used to improve the cell-edge data rates and capacity, to provide a consistent user experience across the cell coverage area. Frequency-reuse schemes trade system capacity for improved cell-edge experience, by using a fraction of the available bandwidth in each cell. Figure 7 shows three frequency-reuse schemes.

Figure 7. Frequency-Reuse Schemes

Figure 7(a) is the base high-capacity system, in which all available frequencies are used in each cell to provide the maximum system capacity. As shown in Figure 7(b), by using 1/3 of the available frequency in each sector we reduce interference in each cell and improve the cell-edge performance. Figure 7(c) depicts the optimal case of fractional frequency reuse (FFR), which enables a more flexible tradeoff between the overall capacity and cell-edge rates. FFR operation is driven by the eNode B scheduler, and the reduction of intercell interference is a direct function of the scheduler implementation.

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5.4 Single-Frequency Network Multicast Services

LTE specifies a high-capacity multicast and broadcast service, using a single-frequency network (also called multicast-broadcast singlefrequency network or MBSFN). As depicted in Figure 8, all cells in the network (or a geographical area) transmit time-synchronized, identical DL signals. At the user terminal, these multiple timesynchronized transmissions appear as a single transmission with high signal strength, and thus can be easily decoded. In addition to the benefits of time-synchronized transmissions, the robustness of OFDM to multipath propagation ensures that the inter-cell interference is reduced.

Figure 8. Multicast-Broadcast Single-Frequency Network (MBSFN)

MBSFN has the flexibility to provide both macro-area broadcasts and cell-specific broadcasts. The capacity benefits of the single-frequency network are highest when the same content is transmitted in all cells of the macro network.

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5.5 All-IP Packet-Optimized Network Architecture

Figure 9. LTE Network Architecture

LTE leverages a new radio and core network architecture to reduce network latency, improve system performance and provide interoperability with existing 3GPP and non-3GPP technologies. The hierarchical architecture of existing 3GPP networks is simplified and flattened, with fewer system nodes (Figure 9). The radio access network (RAN) functionality is collapsed into eNode B to reduce network latency and simplify the operation and maintenance of the system. The eNode B is designed to perform most of the functions that were traditionally performed by the Node B and the radio network controller (RNC) in UMTS networks.

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The EPC network, with the Evolved Packet System (EPS) access gateways, provides a simpler deployment with fewer nodes, while providing more functionality than the traditional GPRS core network. The EPS maintains interaction with the existing 3GPP systems through the GPRS core network, and provides connectivity to the IMS and IP-services domains. EPS also provides connectivity to non-3GPP technologies, such as 3GPP2 and Wi-Fi networks. EPS protocols are being designed to support various interoperability scenarios. LTE supports end-to-end QoS control, optimized for an entire range of packet services like VoIP, real-time gaming, real-time video, and data services. As discussed earlier, LTE will support voice services with VoIPenabling deployment of a suite of rich voice services.

[6] Backward Interoperability and Leverage from a Large 3G Ecosystem

There are more than 174 commercial UMTS networks, with over 128 networks enabled with HSPA as of mid-2007 (Figure 10). Wireless operators have made considerable investments in these networks, and HSPA+ will enable those operators to leverage their investments. Benefiting from the HSPA coverage, LTE is being designed to provide seamless interoperability with existing networks. In addition to complementing existing networks in high-demand areas, this interoperability will ensure service continuity for end users throughout the operators wireless network. Multimode devices with support for GSM, GPRS and UMTS (HSPA, HSPA+), along with the interconnect features of the EPC, ensure this interoperability. This allows the network operators to deploy LTE incrementally, with initial focus on high-demand urban areas.

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WCDMA WCDMA + HSDPA

There Were More Than 137 Million UMTS Subscribers July 07

WCDMA: 174 Commercial Operators HSDPA: 128 Commercial Operators
53 Commercial Operators @ 3.6Mbps

Figure 10: WCDMA and HSPA Deployments (Source: GSMA [Operators: July 2007], [Subscribers: June 2007])

The large, established 3GPP device and vendor ecosystem provides economies-of-scale benefits for the deployment of LTE. Operators will have greater flexibility in selecting vendors, and will have a larger choice of devices that they can offer to their customers at an affordable price.

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[7] Conclusion
LTE is an optimized mobile-OFDMA solution built from the ground up for mobility, which allows operators to offer advanced wireless services in new and wider bandwidths of up to 20 MHz. LTE builds on HSPAs success and will complement existing HSPA and HSPA+ networks with a capacity boost in high-demand areas. LTEs high performance, integrated QoS support and low latency allow operators to efficiently target the entire range of IP services, from delay-sensitive services such as telco-quality VoIP to HD-quality video streaming. LTE will support a full range of devices, including desktop modems, mobile phones, laptops and UMPCs, and will effectively meet the demand for connectivity from a new generation of consumer electronics. LTE allows operators to economically address all market segments and many types of innovative services, including the stringent needs of corporate clients with high-bandwidth demands. LTE is based on a simplified, flattened IP-based network architecture that improves network latency and is designed to interoperate and ensure service continuity with existing 3GPP networks. LTE leverages the benefits of existing 3G technologies and enhances it further with additional antenna techniques, such as higher-order MIMO and SDMA. The 3G ecosystem of device manufacturers will leverage 3G knowledge and experience to ensure the availability of multimode devices that suit a variety of applications and end-user preferences in the years ahead.

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[8] Glossary
3GPP DFT DL eNode B EPC EPS FDD FDMA FFR FFT HSPA HSPA+ IMS IP LTE MIMO OFDM OFDMA QoS RNC SC-FDMA SDMA TDD UE UL UMPC UMTS VCC VoIP Third-Generation Partnership Project Discrete Fourier transform Downlink Evolved Node B Evolved packet core Evolved packet system Frequency-division duplex Frequency-division multiple access Fractional frequency reuse Fast Fourier transform High-speed packet access High-speed packet access evolved IP multimedia subsystem Internet protocol Long-Term Evolution Multiple-input multiple-output Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access Quality of service Radio network controller Single-carrier frequency-division multiple access Spatial-division multiple access Time-division duplex User equipment Uplink Ultra-mobile PC Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service Voice-call continuity Voice over Internet protocol

2008 Qualcomm, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Qualcomm is a registered trademark of Qualcomm, Incorporated. UMTS and 3GPP are trademarks of ETSI. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Qualcomm asserts that all information is correct through January 2008.

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