4G /LTE (Long Term Evolution)

The development of GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA and LTE is in stages known as
3GPP releases. Hardware vendors and software developers use these releases as part
of their development roadmap.

In wireless cellular systems, mobiles have to share a common medium for transmission.
There are various categories of assignment, the main four include:

1. FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)

2. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)
3. CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
4. OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access.

1. FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)

In order to accommodate various devices on the same wireless network, FDMA divides
the available spectrum into sub-bands or channels. Using this technique, a dedicated
channel can be allocated to a user, whilst other users occupy other channels, i.e.
frequencies.
In cellular system mobiles typically occupy multiple channels; one for the downlink
and one for the uplink. This does however make FDMA less efficient since most data
applications are downlink intensive.

2. TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)

In TDMA systems the channel bandwidth is shared in the time domain. It shows how
each device is allocated a time on the channel, known as a “timeslot”. These are then
grouped into a TDMA frame. The number of timeslots in a TDMA frame is dependent on
the system, for example GSM utilizes 8 timeslots.
TDMA systems are normally digital and therefore offer additional features such as
ciphering and integrity.

In addition, they can employ enhanced error detection and correction schemes
including FEC (Forward Error Correction). This enables the system to be more resilient
to noise and interference and therefore they have a greater spectral efficiency when
compared to FDMA system.

3. CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)

The concept of CDMA is slightly different to that of FDMA and TDMA.
CDMA, instead of sharing resources in the time or frequency domain, the devices are
able to use the system at the same time and using the same frequency/bandwidth.
This is possible due to the fact that each transmission is separated using a unique
code.
The figure illustrates the basic concept of CDMA. The narrowband signals are spread
with a wideband code and then transmitted. The receivers are designed to extract the
encoded signal (with the correct code) and reject everything else as noise.
 UMTS, cdmaOne and CDMA2000 all use CDMA. However, the implementation of the
codes and the bandwidths used is different. For example, UMTS utilizes a 5MHz
channel bandwidth, whereas cdmaOne uses only 1.25MHz.

4. OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is the latest addition to
cellular systems. It provides a multiple access technique based on OFDM
(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing). It can be seen that the bandwidth is
broken down to smaller units known as “subcarriers”. These are grouped together
and allocated as a resource to a device. It can also be seen that a device can be
allocated different resources in both the time and frequency domain.

Transmission Mode: - FDD Mode. A separate uplink and downlink channel are
utilized, enabling a device to transmit and receive data at the same time (assuming the device
incorporates a duplexer). The spacing between the uplink and downlink channel is referred to as
the duplex spacing.

Normally the uplink channel (mobile transmit) operates on the lower frequency. This
is done because higher frequencies suffer greater attenuation than lower frequencies
and therefore it enables the mobile to utilize lower transmit levels.
TDD mode enables full duplex operation using a single frequency band and time division
multiplexing the uplink and downlink signals. One advantage of TDD is its ability to
provide asymmetrical uplink and downlink allocation. Depending on the system, other
advantages include dynamic allocation, increased spectral efficiency, as well as the improved
use of beamforming techniques - this is due to having the same uplink and downlink frequency
characteristic.

Spectrum usage: - GSM The table illustrates the main frequency bands defined for GSM.
However, this does not guarantee that the spectrum is available since there may be regulatory
issues, as
well as limitations in some handsets and base stations.

The initial GSM band was referred to as P-GSM (Primary GSM). This was mainly defined to
replace the TACS system which was also in the 900MHz band. Other 900MHz bands which
were added include E-GSM (Extended GSM) and R-GSM (Railways GSM) bands, providing
more channels and support of a railway-based variant. Finally, other bands away from the
900MHz band are also available; however, the support for 450MHz and 480MHz is limited. The
terms DCS (Digital Cellular Service) and PCS (Personal Communications Service) are
typically used in Europe and North America respectively to identify the higher frequency
deployment options. It was expected that these frequencies would offer a better re-use in built
up areas and therefore provide additional capacity.
Spectrum usage: - UMTS: - like GSM, has a number of frequency bands defined.
In addition to the previous UMTS FDD bands, various UMTS TDD bands are also defined. The
table illustrates the main TDD bands, however the majority of these have never been
implemented.
Spectrum usage: - LTE: - The LTE Radio interface, namely the E-UTRA (Evolved - Universal
Terrestrial Radio Access), is able to operate in many different radio bands. FDD requires two
center frequencies, one for the downlink and one for the uplink. These carrier frequencies are
each given an EARFCN (E-UTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number) which
ranges from 0 to 65535. In contrast, TDD only has one EARFCN.