GE Overview for 18-2 BLTJ

After three decades of fragmentation within the mobile communication industry with each technology generation offered by two or more competing solutions, the next generation currently being deployed around the globe is the first to be built with a common technology offer the potential of true global mobility. This next "LTE" technology is based on the twin foundations of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) [1] and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) [2] and has been jointly optimized to support both time and frequency division duplexing. While originally targeted as a large "macro" cell technology for deployment at existing and new cell sites recent advances in standards and enabling technologies have allowed the mobile industry to also apply the same LTE technology to offer wireless access from small cell nodes, known as "femto" and "metro" cells and to non-civilian usage for public safety and railways applications. In addition, new MIMO modes supporting up to eight antennas, a broadcast service known as evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) and refinements to mobility mechanisms between LTE and legacy second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) radio access technologies have been added to the based standards incorporated within 3GPP "Release 8," the first that offered the LTE access technology. This edition of Bell Labs Technical Journal focuses on recent advances in mobile technologies driving the ongoing evolution of mobile wireless systems and solutions with a focus on radio access techniques, small cell systems, spectrum policies, radio equipment design and enablers to support novel applications and solutions.