GSA – the Global mobile Suppliers Association, has welcomed confirmation by 3GPP that the LTE Terrestrial Radio Access Network technology specifications have been approved and are now under change control, leading to their inclusion in the forthcoming 3GPP Release 8.
3GPP LTE is an evolution of the GSM/UMTS (comprising WCDMA, HSPA) systems family, and specifies the next generation mobile broadband access system.
LTE utilizes a new state-of-the-art radio air interface technology known as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) to provide several key benefits including significantly increased peak data rates, increased cell edge performance, reduced latency, scalable bandwidth, co-existence with GSM/EDGE/UMTS systems, reduced CAPEX and OPEX.
GSA actively supports the work of 3GPP through its role since 1999 as a Market Representation Partner of 3GPP. Alan Hadden, President, GSA said: "LTE is firmly on track, and will deliver competitive capacity and data throughput enhancements, to build on the huge momentum and market success of mobile broadband services and applications enabled today by WCDMA-HSPA systems."
3GPP LTE radio technology is optimized to enhance networks by enabling significant new high capacity mobile broadband applications and services, whilst providing cost efficient ubiquitous mobile coverage. LTE is also scalable to allow operation in a wide range of spectrum bandwidths, from 1.4 – 20 MHz, using both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) modes of operation, thus providing flexibility to suit any operator's existing or future frequency allocation globally.