Further Outlook for LTE Evolution and 5G

This chapter covers the expected evolution in Release 14 and beyond from long‐term evolution (LTE)‐Advanced evolution point of view. It looks at the 5G evolution aspects, including consideration of the relationship between LTE and 5G. The chapter presents the expected timeline in third generation partnership project (3GPP) for addressing 5G in response to the IMT‐2020 process going on in ITU‐R. The mainstream approach for spectrum allocation for mobile communication is the exclusive spectrum licensing, where an operator owns the rights to use a particular spectrum band, and thus the system deployed is protected from external interference as no one else is allowed to use that particular band. Different research organizations and public research programs such as the EU‐funded METIS and 5G‐PPP are conducting radio‐related research on multitude of different new technological components that could become 5G building blocks.