eRAN

Carrier Aggregation Feature Parameter Description 2 Overview

2 Overview

2.1 Introduction
3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) requires LTE-Advanced networks to provide a
downlink peak data rate of 1 Gbit/s. However, radio spectrum resources are so scarce that in
most cases an operator owns only non-adjacent chunks of the spectrum. Due to the limited
bandwidth of a single chunk of the spectrum, the 1 Gbit/s data rate requirement is hard to
meet.

To deal with this situation, 3GPP specifications Release 10 introduced carrier aggregation
(CA) to LTE-Advanced networks, allowing aggregation of contiguous or non-contiguous
carriers. These carriers are called component carriers (CCs). CA achieves wider bandwidths
(a maximum of 100 MHz). Figure 2-1 shows CA for UEs.

Figure 2-1 CA for UEs

During CA, upper-layer data streams are mapped to individual component carriers (CCs) at
the Media Access Control (MAC) layer in LTE-Advanced networks. An eNodeB constructs
one (two or more in the case of spatial multiplexing) transport block (TB) in each
transmission time interval (TTI) for each CC. Each CC uses its own hybrid automatic repeat
request (HARQ) entities and link adaptation mechanism. Therefore, the LTE-Advanced
system can inherit single-carrier-based physical layer designs from the LTE system.

Huawei eNodeBs allow three configuration modes: CA-group-based, frequency-based, and

adaptive CA. Unless otherwise stated, the descriptions in this document apply to all three
modes. For details about the configuration modes, see 3.2.1 Overview.

Issue 06 (2015-12-30) Huawei Proprietary and Confidential 18

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