LTE UE category definitions

LTE UE Category
There are 20 different LTE UE categories that are defined. As can be seen in the table below,
the different LTE categories have a wide range in the supported parameters and performance.
LTE category 1, for example does not support MIMO, but LTE UE category five supports
4×4 MIMO.

It is also worth noting that UE class 1 does not offer the performance offered by that of the
highest performance HSPA category. Additionally all LTE UE categories are capable of
receiving transmissions from up to four antenna ports.

3GPP Release 8 defines five LTE user equipment categories depending on maximum peak
data rate and MIMO capabilities support. With 3GPP Release 10, which is referred to as LTE
Advanced, three new categories have been introduced, and four more with 3GPP Release 11.
Note: Maximum datarates shown are for 20 MHz of channel bandwidth. Categories 6 and
above include datarates from combining multiple 20 MHz channels using Carrier
Aggregation. Maximum datarates will be lower if less bandwidth is utilized.

Note: These are L1 transport data rates not including the different protocol layers overhead.
Depending on cell BW, cell load, network configuration, the performance of the UE used,
propagation conditions, etc. practical data rates will vary.

Note: The 3.0 Gbit/s / 1.5 Gbit/s data rate specified as Category 8 is near the peak aggregate
data rate for a base station sector. A more realistic maximum data rate for a single user is 1.2
Gbit/s (downlink) and 600 Mbit/s (uplink). One vendor has demonstrated downlink speeds of
1.4 Gbit/s using 100 MHz of aggregated spectrum.
More on LTE UE Categories
A summary of the different LTE UE category parameters is given in the tables below.
Includes new LTE UE Categories: 11, 12, 13 and 14 in 3GPP Rel-12

CableFree LTE UE Categories – up to Category 14