What is "LTE"?

LTE =European implementation of IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications) by ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute). LTE, short for Long Term Evolution, is considered by many to be the obvious successor to the current generation of UMTS 3G technologies, which is based upon WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA, and HSPA. LTE is not a replacement for UMTS in the way that UMTS was a replacement for GSM, but rather an update to the UMTS technology that will enable it to provide significantly faster data rates for both uploading and downloading. LTE is a standard for wireless data communications technology and an evolution of the GSM/UMTS standards. The goal of LTE was to increase the capacity and speed of wireless data networks using new DSP (digital signal processing) techniques and modulations that were developed around the turn of the millennium. A further goal was the redesign and simplification of the network architecture to an IPbased system with significantly reduced transfer latency compared to the 3G architecture. The LTE wireless interface is incompatible with 2G and 3G networks, so that it must be operated on a separate wireless spectrum. LTE: Characteristics Packet oriented propagation only High data rates o Up to 300 Mbit/s Downlink o Up to 75 Mbit/s Uplink Flexible frequency assignment o About 40 frequency ranges o Varying frequency blocks (1.4, 3, 5, 10 and 20 MHz) small latency of 5ms between mobile phone and conventional telephone network optimized for travelling speeds of up to 15 km/h (up to 500km/h possible LTE employs Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) for downlink data transmission and Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) for uplink transmission

LTE Advanced Specified as LTE Release 10 Improved performance Data rate up to 1 GBit/s End-to-end delay 20 30 ms Enhancements: Carrier aggregation up to 5 * 20 MHz -> 100MHz Possible in contiguous and non-contiguous spectrum allocations Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) Up to 4 LTE antennas in LTE devices to use MIMO also for Uplink Base stations can be equipped with up to 8 antennas Support for relay node base stations Connected to base station only

Improve signal quality at cell borders Support of low power nodes such as picocells and femtocells for crowded areas WiMAX: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, standardized by IEEE 802.16 and WiMAX-Forum (more than 230 members, including AOL, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia) IEEE 802.16 FBWA (Fixed Broadband Wireless Access) is an alternative for broadband cable services like DSL; frequency range: initially 10-66 GHz, in assumption of LOS (line of sight) Enhancement IEEE 802.16a; frequency band: 2-11 GHz, NLOS (non line of sight) Enhancement IEEE 802.16e for MBWA (Mobile Broadband Wireless Access); frequency band: 2-6 GHz, NLOS