LTE NETWORK

CARRIER AGGREGATION
ABBREVATION:

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RELATED EVENTS:

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CARRIER AGGREGATION INTRODUCTION:

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. The
aggregated carriers are called component carriers (CCs). CA achieves wider bandwidths
(a maximum of 100 MHz).

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CARRIER AGGREGATION BENIFIT:

CA achieves wider bandwidths and allows a CA-capable UE, With CA enabled, a single UE can reach
higher uplink and downlink peak data rates

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CA RADIO PROTOCOL STACK:

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CA SCELL ACTIVATION:

When the traffic volume of a CA UE meets certain conditions, the eNodeB activates the configured
SCells for the UE

When the downlink traffic volume meets both of the following conditions, the eNodeB sends a MAC
control element (CE) to activate all the configured SCells:
Data volume buffered at the RLC layer > max (Uu data rate at the RLC layer
x CaMgtCfg.ActiveBufferDelayThd, CaMgtCfg.ActiveBufferLenThd)
Delay of the first RLC protocol data unit (PDU) > CaMgtCfg.ActiveBufferDelayThd
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CA SCELL ACTIVATION:
To have SCells removed when their signal quality is poor, enable the SCell removal function. When an
SCell meets the triggering condition of event A2, the eNodeB that serves the PCell of a CA UE removes
the SCell

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CA SOLUTIONS:

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CA SIGNALLING FLOW:

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CA PRINCIPLE CONCEPT:

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Thanks for Listening