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LTE-Advanced Pro – A Short Excursion

Grandmetric Guidepaper

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LTE-Advanced Pro – A Short Excursion, Grandmetric Guidepaper
©2017 Copyright Grandmetric Sp. z o.o.
www.grandmetric.com
Executive summary
Everybody is currently talking about the upcoming 5G era but during this race to get to 5G, we should not
forget about the evolution of LTE that’s taking place. One of the main reasons for this is the potential 5G
requirement to have tight integration with the evolved LTE. With Rel-13 of 3GPP standards getting frozen
a new step has been taken in the evolution of LTE, under the name of “LTE-Advanced Pro”. We provide an
overview of this new “LTE creature” herein. This Guidepaper starts with the features covered under the
umbrella of LTE-Advanced Pro and is divided into the ones standardized within Rel-13 and Rel-14. Further
enhancements are also shortlisted and outlined in taking LTE-Advanced Pro to Rel-15. Next chapters
elaborate some of the features in more details including: the integration of LTE-Advanced Pro with WiFi
at the RAN level, LTE interface version for unlicensed spectrum access (Licensed Assisted Access), and
LTE feature for massive MTC, namely Narrowband-IoT. Finally, the Guidepaper is summarized by
showing the evolution of the system features, starting from LTE through LTE-Advanced Pro along with
the changes in the theoretical peak throughput values.

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LTE-Advanced Pro – A Short Excursion
Contents
Executive summary..................................................................................................................................... 2
LTE-Advanced Pro – What is it? ............................................................................................................... 4
LTE-Advanced Pro Rel-13 features ...................................................................................................... 4
LTE-Advanced Pro v.2 – enhancements within Rel-14 ................................................................... 4
Rel-15 enhancements to LTE-Advanced Pro ..................................................................................... 5
LTE-Advanced Pro RAN level integration with WiFi .............................................................................. 6
LTE access to unlicensed spectrum........................................................................................................ 6
Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) for massive MTC........................................................................................... 7
The evolution of LTE: from LTE Rel-8 through LTE-Advanced to LTE-Advanced Pro .................... 8
Timeline ..................................................................................................................................................... 8
Main features ........................................................................................................................................... 8
Magic throughput values ....................................................................................................................... 9
Summary .................................................................................................................................................... 10
Glossary...................................................................................................................................................... 12
References ................................................................................................................................................. 14
About the author ....................................................................................................................................... 15

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LTE-Advanced Pro – What is it?
LTE-Advanced Pro is a new marker for LTE starting with Rel-13 onwards.
According to 3GPP, “the new term is intended to mark the point in time
where the LTE platform has been dramatically enhanced to address new
markets as well as adding functionality to improve efficiency” [1]. Some
of the main features for initial LTE-Advanced Pro release are summarized
below followed by enhancements from the Rel-14 and Rel-15 Work Items.

LTE-Advanced Pro Rel-13 features


The first release of LTE-Advanced Pro was frozen in March 2016. It was brought to reality with quite
extensive set of new functionalities as compared to LTE-Advanced. They are summarized below.

Massive CA - extends carrier aggregation towards higher number of aggregated bands and towards the
use of unlicensed spectrum for mobile networking. Massive CA enables up to 32CCs and thus
theoretically provides up to 640MHz of aggregated bandwidth for a single device, while still fulfilling
backwards compatibility with LTE Rel-8 channel bandwidths.

Dual Connectivity (DC) – spectrum aggregation in inter-site scenario, where a macro-cell serves as a
mobility anchor, whereas the additional radio link provided by Small Cell acts as a local capacity booster.
DC enables to switch User Plane links among available SCs, whereas the user’s context is maintained by
the overlay macro-cell. In contrary to CA, DC scheme, instead of aggregating MAC layer transport blocks,
the PDCP Packet Data Units are combined, thus omitting the requirement for low latency and allowing
non-ideal backhaul for Small Cell connectivity.

Indoor positioning – improvements for location performance (especially for emergency calls) using WiFi,
collaborative positioning and beacon systems.

LTE-WLAN Aggregation (LWA) - the Carrier Wi-Fi serves as a capacity booster, using radio level
integration for uniform user experience provisioning over the Wi-Fi radio. In LWA, UE is configured by the
eNB to utilize radio resources of both, LTE and WLAN.

Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) - aggregates the licensed LTE carrier (serving as a mobility and signaling
anchor - PCell) with SCell using the new LTE frame format over the unlicensed 5GHz ISM band.

Device-to-device (D2D) - direct communication between devices assisted by network utilizing sidelink
using new transport and physical channels.

MTC enhancements – addressing low complexity MTC with focus to define a low complexity UE category
type that supports reduced bandwidth (operation with 1.4MHz), reduced transmit power, reduced
support for downlink transmission modes, ultra-long battery life via power consumption reduction
techniques and extended coverage operation (up to 15dB). Additionally, NB-IoT has been specified as a
modified LTE interface for even lower channel bandwidth for the operation in 180kHz spectrum chunks.

3D/Full Dimension-MIMO - allows to use elevation beamforming enhancing the horizontal beam steering,
and using up to 64 antenna ports with further outlook towards high frequencies for 5G.

LTE-Advanced Pro v.2 – enhancements within Rel-14


The work for Rel-14 has just been completed, with the new SI/WI targeting improvements and new
features for LTE-Advanced Pro. Some of the interesting functionalities are summarized below.

enhanced LAA (eLAA) - extends LAA scheme with UL consideration and forward compatibility to enable
full DC-like capabilities for unlicensed spectrum.

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enhanced LWA (eLWA) - As LWA standardized within Rel-13, considered DL-only operation, an enhanced
LWA (eLWA) is proposed within Rel-14 to overcome this limitation. The new features in this enhancement
include: addition of UL transmission via WLAN, PDCP optimizations for increased data rates, and SON-
related features for WLANs under eNB coverage.

Vehicluar-to-Vehicular (V2V) –specifies RAN support for V2V operation integrated with Uu interface
within or without network coverage using sidelink including: PHY layer structure, RRM requirements, and
L2/L3 protocol operation.

CP and UP latency enhancements - Shortening TTI down to a single OFDMA symbol and more resource
efficient UL scheduling timing are some examples of the proposed improvements targeting latency
reduction.

Light connection – discussion on new intermediate RRC state for keeping UE context alive during short
active/inactive transitions (applicable for massive MTC use case with small data transmission);

Multi-connectivity - is expected to enhance DC, by providing multiple links for a UE in two options. First
option considers configuration of multiple radio links per UE, where only limited, selected set of radio
links is active at any given moment. Alternatively, all of the configured multiple radio links can be active.

Rel-15 enhancements to LTE-Advanced Pro


Further enhancements for the LTE-Advanced Pro covered within the recently started Rel-15 include the
following Work Items:

1024 QAM for LTE – targets improving the spectral efficiency for LTE small cell deployments using 10
bits per Resource Element. Some scenarios that can benefit from this high capacity links can be nomadic
laptops or indoor / outdoor CPEs further delivering connectivity to end-devices via other links.

LAA/eLAA for CBRS at 3.5GHz – the original LAA/eLAA has been standardized within Rel-13 and Rel-14
respectively for purely unlicensed spectrum at 5GHz to ensure coexistence with (mostly) WiFi networks.
As the CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service), specified by FCC for USA, allows for 3-tier spectrum
usage model (with incumbent, licensees and unlicensed uses), the Rel-15 aims at adjusting the frame
structure 3 to operate in 3500-3700MHz band using the LAA and eLAA framework.

Enhancing LTE Operation in Unlicensed Spectrum – following the LAA feature specified within Rel-13 for
DL operation in unlicensed spectrum and eLAA feature from Rel-14 to cover both DL and UL, Rel-15 is
aiming at improving the performance of LTE in the unlicensed spectrum specifying e.g., the support of
autonomous uplink access within frame structure 3 absorbing the knowledge from the latency reduction
Work Item.

Enhancements to V2X – cover the support of advanced V2X services (like vehicle platooning,
advanced/remote driving, extended sensors) still being backward compatible with Rel-14 V2X (for the
delivery of safety messages). Some of the objectives include improvements for PC5 link, like: aggregation
of up to 8 PC5 carriers under CA feature; 64QAM; transmit diversity; or short TTI.

Further Enhancements to NB-IoT – the NB-IoT baseline has been specified with the first release of LTE-
Advanced Pro within Rel-13. Rel-14 defined the enhancements to the baseline including the NB-IoT
support for positioning, multi-cast and non-anchor carrier operation. The interesting improvements
within Rel-15 include: small-cell support for NB-IoT, and TDD support for in-band, guard-band and
standalone operation modes.

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LTE-Advanced Pro RAN level integration with WiFi
WiFi was considered as an offload mechanism for LTE from its
introduction, within Rel-8. However, the initial interworking was
very loose, with the WiFi connected to the EPC add on functions
and a “deeply hidden” CN “suggests” to the UE for moving the
traffic to the WLAN. As we progress with the standardization, the
integration of the carrier-WiFi to the cellular is more and more
tight, the Rel-13 specifies a RAN-level interworking within LTE-Advanced Pro.

The following mechanisms have been standardized within Rel-13 under the LTE-WiFi RAN-level
integration framework [2]:

LTE-WLAN Aggregation (LWA): is basically an evolution of Dual Connectivity (as specified within Rel-12),
where the secondary link is provided by the WiFi AP. This is very tight resource aggregation, where a
single DRB can be either switched very fast between LTE and WiFi link or split and provided
simultaneously by the two RATs. However, in order to be able to do that, the WiFi network needs to be
upgraded with the WT logical entity and support Xw interface. Additionally, the UE needs to be upgraded
with LWAAP protocol, to be able to properly route the PDCP PDUs coming from WiFi link.

RAN-Controlled LTE-WLAN Interworking (RCLWI): is also based on WT and Xw interface upgrade of the
WiFi network for control signaling, however, the UP bearers are not going through the LTE eNB, but rather
through a CN with WiFi legacy link. This is rather a bearer handover (or an offload) than an aggregation
compared to LWA, however still the UE is controlled by the network to receive the data from WiFi link,
instead of taking this decision by itself. Compared to LWA, this solution doesn’t require the UE upgrade
with LWAAP.

LTE-WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP): provides the possibility to aggregate
resources from WiFi and LTE simultaneously (similar to LWA), but without the need to upgrade the WiFi
network (i.e., enables use of the legacy WiFi networks). The WiFi link is managed by the LTE eNB, however
instead of the LWA-like flow control and use of LWAAP, the IPsec tunnel is established between UE and
eNB. The split bearer is not possible as the aggregation is done at IP level.

LTE access to unlicensed spectrum


LTE operation in unlicensed spectrum is not
limited to its aggregation with WiFi (as
mentioned in the previous chapter). The other
approach to utilize the unlicensed spectrum
combined with the MNO’s operated LTE
networks is based on a specialized version of
LTE system to cope with the unlicensed
spectrum’s requirements. This is referred to as Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) and has been addressed
with the introduction of LTE-Advanced Pro within Rel-13. There are however, two other technologies to
achieve that, not-standardized by 3GPP, namely LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) and MuLTEfire. Those three
“technologies” enabling the LTE system accessing unlicensed spectrum are shortly presented below.

Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) [2], is a 3GPP Rel-13 feature, where the resources from unlicensed
spectrum, handled by the modified version of the LTE radio interface, are aggregated utilizing Carrier

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Aggregation feature. For this, the legacy licensed LTE carrier serves as a Primary Component Carrier
(PCC), and up to four DL Secondary Component Carriers (DL SCC) can be used from the 5GHz unlicensed
band with the specialized Frame Type 3. The Rel-14 talks about enhanced LAA (eLAA) that deals with the
addition of the UL LAA carriers. To assure “fairness” of using the unlicensed spectrum, LAA utilizes Listen
Before Talk (LBT) mechanism, where the transmitter, prior to transmission, senses the channel to verify
if it’s occupied or free. With this, it can be applied globally, whilst it fulfills the regulatory requirements.

LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) [3], is a proprietary technology (developed before the release of LTE-Advanced
Pro), where the unlicensed spectrum is also aggregated with the licensed spectrum PCC by means of
CA. However, the standard LTE frame type is used, not supporting the LBT scheme. Instead, it uses the
Channel Selection and Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission (CSAT), where once the specific channel
is empty, the regular LTE transmission is used. When there are no empty channels, the adaptive duty
cycle is used, where the LTE is switched ON and OFF for specific periods of time with the durations,
adapted to the channel occupancy by the other systems. However, due to no LBT support, it is not allowed
in many countries.

MuLTEfire [4], is also a proprietary solution, but reusing LAA and eLAA design with LBT. However it is
designed for a standalone mode, i.e., no licensed PCell is needed. Of course, because of this, the additional
aspects need to be considered for the unlicensed access, like mobility, paging and system information.
This allows for using the unlicensed spectrum with neutral host concept, where multiple operators share
the MuLTEfire resources.

Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) for massive MTC


LTE-Advanced Pro has touched the needs of the massive MTC use cases
under the Narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) [5] feature1. To address the
IoT requirements in this segment namely, support for: low throughput and
sporadic transmission, limited mobility, large number of devices, low device
cost, enhanced coverage – the PHY layer, protocol stack and signaling
procedures has been simplified with respect to the LTE system design to
support low-end devices and decrease signaling load.

The key aspects of NB-IoT to support low-end IoT devices and services,
while reusing LTE infrastructure include [2]:

• PHY layer has been modified for coverage enhancements and power consumption reduction by
e.g., reducing system BW to 180 kHz, reduction of transmission modes and number of antenna
ports, reduced TB size, improved DRX cycles for both connected and idle modes, and single
HARQ process for both DL and UL. The three operation modes have been specified: standalone
180 kHz carrier, LTE guard-band usage, in-band LTE – using single LTE resource block. The DL
supports multi-tone transmission with 12 subcarriers of 15kHz, while for UL both multi-tone and
single-tone operation is possible with both 15kHz and 3.75kHz subcarrier separation.
• System aspects that have been modified with respect to LTE, include: lack of connected mobility
support (assuming the majority of the NB-IoT applications being used by stationary UEs) and
system optimizations for efficient data transmission (also called CP/UP CIoT EPS Optimization
Solutions). The CP solution is based on the concept of UP data transmission over NAS signaling,

1
3GPP Rel-13 has also specified the other 2 solutions for IoT, namely LTE-M (enhanced MTC) and EC-GSM

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without establishing of the Data Radio Bearer (DRBs) and is mandatory solution for NB-IoT UEs.
The UP solution on the other end is built upon the idea of holding the UE context at the eNB when
the UE moves to RRC IDLE state, thus decreasing the signaling overhead when the UE is
switching between IDLE and CONNECTED mode with the use of Resume/Suspend procedure.

The evolution of LTE: from LTE Rel-8 through LTE-


Advanced to LTE-Advanced Pro
After the description of selected
LTE-Advanced Pro features, this
chapter highlights an evolution path
of LTE, starting with its introduction
within 3GPP Release 8 back in early
2009, up to LTE-Advanced Pro finalized in March 2016 within Release 13.

Timeline
LTE Rel-8 standard was frozen in March 2009. The goal for it was to prepare the system evolution for 4G
requirements imposed by IMT-Advanced. From the technical point of view, it was not a full 4G system.

LTE-Advanced was specified within 3GPP Rel-10. The corresponding standard was frozen in June 2011.
LTE-Advanced was defined to fulfill IMT-Advanced requirements, thus is a 4G technology.

LTE-Advanced Pro name was agreed by 3GPP in October 2015 as a marker for LTE from Rel-13 onwards.
The Rel-13 was frozen March 2016. The new name is used to mark a point where significant
improvements with regards to LTE-Advanced are made.

Main features
Rel-8 LTE was initially standardized with the following main set of features:

• OFDMA – to allow sharing and assigning resources in time and frequency domain;
• MIMO – to natively use space dimension for capacity/coverage improvements;
• eNB – a simplified RAN architecture with a single type of node encapsulating features from RNC
and NodeB (from the 3G world);
• Operation with FDD and TDD duplex modes;
• Adaptive modulation and coding with QPSK/16QAM/64QAM and turbo codes with variable rates;
• Use of flexible spectrum bandwidth with 1.4MHz to up to 20MHz.

LTE-Advanced is defined in 3GPP as Rel-10, but for simplicity, we assume it also incorporates Rel-9
characteristics. Thus, the combined set of features includes the following:

• Carrier Aggregation (CA) – possibility to aggregate multiple Rel-8 Component Carriers (CC) on
MAC level to increase system capacity or user throughput with the scheduling flexibility;
• Enhanced MIMO with up to 8 antennas at eNB – to improve spectral efficiency;
• Heterogeneous Networks (HetNet) – a network with different types of nodes to allow home
usage of LTE and increasing capacity in hotspots. This includes such concepts as HeNB and
enhanced ICIC.
• SON – introducing automation to network operation in the means of Self-Configuration, Self-
Optimization and Self-Healing;

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• Multicast Broadcast Multimedia Services – with the Single Frequency Network (SFN) to allow
broadcasting the same service content within different cells using LTE radio;
• Extending maximum combined spectrum bandwidth to up to 100MHz (i.e. the use of maximum
of 5 CCs with 20MHz each).

LTE-Advanced Pro features set includes the following (similar to above reasoning, for the simplicity
purposes, LTE-Advanced Pro features cover Rel-11 to up to Rel-13):

• Enhanced MIMO
o Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission/Reception (CoMP) – transmission/reception
using different transmission points to address a single UE to improve cell edge users’
performance;
o Full Dimension-MIMO – allow to use elevation beamforming enhancing the horizontal
beam steering.
• Enhanced PHY layer
o Enhanced PDCCH – decreasing the dedicated PHY signaling resources by transmitting
resource allocation messages within data resources;
o 256QAM – further increasing spectral efficiency to allow transmission of 8 bits per
symbol;
o Combined operation of FDD and TDD by the means of CA.
• New connectivity methods
o Dual Connectivity (DC) – possibility to combine different data links from macro cell and
small cell. It uses the PDCP level aggregation;
o Device-to-device (D2D) – direct communication between devices assisted by network
by using side-link.
• Usage of unlicensed spectrum
o Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) – LTE radio usage within unlicensed 5GHz band with
new frame type to assure fair coexistence with WiFi;
o LTE-WiFi Aggregation (LWA) – aggregation of links using both LTE and standard WiFi
system where the data is split on PDCP level.

Magic throughput values


To improve the attractiveness of each new system/release (but also to show the maximum capability of
the technology) a maximum theoretical throughput in DL is provided as one of the Key Performance
Indicators.

For LTE, the maximum throughput is ~320Mbps, for LTE-Advanced – 3Gbps, and LTE-Advanced Pro is
expected to extend it further to 4Gbps. An interesting question is: where do these magic numbers come
from?

Let’s take each of them and try to answer this question with simplified calculations:

LTE maximum throughput

• Maximum DL spectral efficiency = 16bits/s/Hz (with 4 spatial streams using 4 antennas and
64QAM – i.e. 6bits/symbol)
• Maximum BW size = 20MHz
• Maximum throughput = 16bit/s/Hz * 20MHz = 320Mbit/s

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LTE-Advanced maximum throughput

• Maximum DL spectral efficiency = 30bits/s/Hz (increase in number of antennas by 2, i.e. to 8.


However spectral efficiency is not improved exactly 2x, due to additional pilots needed)
• Maximum BW size = 100MHz (5 x 20MHz - maximum of 5 component carriers)
• Maximum throughput = 30bits/s/Hz * 100MHz = 3Gbps

LTE-Advanced Pro maximum throughput

• Maximum DL spectral efficiency = 40bits/s/Hz (8/6 * 30bits/s/Hz, i.e. with the introduction of
256QAM, a maximum of 8bits/symbol can be transmitted instead of 6)
• Maximum BW size = 100MHz (Note: further spectrum enhancements are not included here, e.g.
32CC and unlicensed spectrum usage)
• Maximum throughput = 40bits/s/Hz * 100MHz = 4Gbps

Summary
LTE evolution is an exciting area where new features are added to improve current system’s performance
and operability, but also to enable new services to be introduced. On the other side, the overall system’s
complexity is increased with the new solutions.

What we can observe by looking at the presented features set, is that the initial macro-network-based
LTE using OFDMA waveform and multi-antenna is evolving towards Heterogeneous Networks increasing
used spectrum with the multi-point connectivity, unlicensed spectrum and automated network operation.
In this Guidepaper we have focused on the 3 areas: LTE integration with WiFi, LTE access to unlicensed
spectrum and LTE specialized interface for MTC application.

Rel-13 brought the different options for the very tight network controlled LTE-WiFi integration. This is to
enable different level of integration and depending on the required WiFi network upgrade and / or UE side
upgrade:

• LWA is the tightest and most flexible resource aggregation, whereas requires highest level of
upgrade.
• LWIP allows to use legacy network, still enabling the resource aggregation on the RAN level.
• RCLWI on the other hand requires similar upgrade at the network side, but doesn’t require UE
upgrade, but doesn’t allow very tight resource aggregation as the WiFi link is anchored at the CN
side.

Speaking of enhancing the LTE framework with the access to the unlicensed 5GHz spectrum there are 3
technologies to do that with slight differences:

• LAA is standardized, globally usable technology with LBT scheme, requiring the anchor licensed
carrier, supporting DL (and Rel-14 eLAA considering UL);
• LTE-U is non-standardized, non-globally usable technology, but introduced earlier than LAA, and
supporting only DL direction, requiring the anchor licensed carrier;
• MuLTEfire is non-standardized, globally usable technology with LBT scheme, operating in
standalone mode for both DL and UL.

Some of the 5G use case requirements are also heavily addressed with the use of legacy system support
and infrastructure. In these considerations, mMTC edge of the “5G service triangle” is addressed by NB-
IoT with:

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• Air interface simplifications for coverage improvements, device simplification, battery
consumption reduction etc.,
• System enhancements for (mostly) signaling reduction, UE operation simplification.

If we collect the individual enhancements from this Guidepaper, the evolved LTE moves towards a
system with the following properties:

• Use of licensed and unlicensed access;


• Aggregation of large portions of spectrum;
• Support for multiple links aggregation;
• Truly heterogeneous networks with multi-RAT support with a RAN level integration;
• Addressing IoT market and D2D support with initial works on V2V;
• Enhancing legacy LTE with latency and “connection lightness” improvements
• High spectral efficiency with the use of large number of antennas.

And if we take a closer look on these, and compare with some “5G” design concepts, we can notice they
look very close to each other. In our opinion, the main difference comes from the fact that the evolution
of LTE towards 5G design goals is achieved by improvements and enhancements and adding more
features, whereas 5G targets a flexible design where all of the above should be brought together in a
native manner.

Info about the book and that more detailed about this is there

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Glossary
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project
AP Access Point
BW Bandwidth
CA Carrier Aggregation
CBRS Citizens Broadband Radio Service
CC Component Carrier
CIoT Cellular Internet-of-Things
CN Core Network
CoMP Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission/Reception
CP Control Plane
CPE Customer Premises Equipment
CSAT Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission
D2D Device-to-Device
DC Dual Connectivity
DL Downlink
DRB Data Radio Bearer
DRX Discontinuous Reception
EC-GSM Extended Coverage GSM
eICIC enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination
eLAA enhanced LAA
eLWA enhanced LWA
eNB evolved NodeB
ePDCCH enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel
EPS Evolved Packet Core
FCC Federal Communications Commission
FDD Frequency Division Duplex
HeNB Home eNB
HetNet Heterogeneous Network
IMT International Mobile Telecommunications
IP Internet Protocol
ISM Industrial, Scientific, Medical
L2/L3 Layer2 / Layer3
LAA Licensed Assisted Access
LBT Listen Before Talk
LTE Long Term Evolution
LWA LTE-WLAN Aggregation
LWAAP LWA Adaptation Protocol
LWIP LTE-WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel
MAC Medium Access Control
MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output
MNO Mobile Network Operator
MTC Machine Type Communications
NAS Non-Access Stratum
NB-IoT Narrowband IoT
OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
PCC Primary Component Carrier
PCell Primary Cell
PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol
PDU Packet Data Unit

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QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QPSK Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
RAN Radio Access Network
RAT Radio Access Technology
RCLWI RAN-Controlled LTE-WLAN Interworking
RNC Radio Network Controller
RRC Radio Resource Control
RRM Radio Resource Management
SC Small Cell
SCC Secondary Component Carrier
SFN Single Frequency Network
SI Study Item
SON Self-Organizing Network
TB Transport Block
TDD Time Division Duplex
TTI Transmission Time Interval
UE User Equimpent
UL Uplink
UP User Plane
V2V Vehicular-to-Vehicular
V2X Vehicular-to-Anything
WI Work Item
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

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References
[1] www.3gpp.org

[2] 3GPP TS 36.300

[3] www.lteuforum.org

[4] www.multefire.org

[5] http://www.3gpp.org/news-events/3gpp-news/1785-nb_iot_complete

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About the author
Marcin Dryjanski received his M.Sc. degree in telecommunications from the Poznan
University of Technology in Poland in June 2008. During the past 10 years, Marcin has
served as R&D Engineer, Lead Researcher, R&D Consultant, Technical Trainer and
Technical Leader. He has been providing expert level courses in the area of LTE/LTE-
Advanced for leading mobile operators and vendors. In addition to that, Marcin was a
work-package leader in EU-funded research projects aiming at radio interface design for
5G including FP-7 5GNOW and FP-7 SOLDER. He co-authored a number of research
papers targeting LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G radio interface design. Marcin is a co-
founder of Grandmetric, heading the field of mobile wireless systems. In this role, Marcin
provides consulting services and training courses in the area of 5G related topics.

To contact Marcin, please write to: marcin.dryjanski@grandmetric.com

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Grandmetric.
Your guide through Network & Wireless.

grandmetric.com
info@grandmetric.com
Poznan | Poland | Europe

Grandmetric is an R&D and training company specializing in Next Generation Networks along
with Wireless Systems based in Poznan, Poland. Our latest research is focused on 5G, Internet-
of-Things (IoT) and Network Security. We actively conduct technology trainings, are engaged in
developing latest systems, and consulting network designs.

Shall you have any enquiries or to schedule a meeting with us, please write at:
info@grandmetric.com

Note: ETSI is the copyright holder of LTE, LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro Logos. LTE is a trade mark of ETSI. Grandmetric
Ltd is authorized to use the LTE, LTE-Advanced or LTE-Advanced Pro logos and the acronym LTE.

Note: This Guidepaper is created based on our entries at Grandmetric blog. For more info contact us or STAY CONNECTED using:

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