Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 11 - 12, 2012
The 3GPP RAN Chairman held a workshop this week, to identify common requirements for future 3GPP radio access technologies.
As well as the call for higher data rates and more capacity to cope with traffic predictions - with usage set to double in each of the next five years – 3GPP companies agreed that priority must also be given to complimentary areas:
- Energy saving
- Cost efficiency
- Support for diverse application and traffic types
- Backhaul enhancements
After the discussions on those ‘Requirements’, presentations also brought forward proposals for potential technologies for 3GPP elaboration.
Takehiro Nakamura, RAN Chairman, observed that the majority of the Member companies – There were over 50 presentations from the leading operators and manufacturers during the two days - showed interest in enhanced small cells for LTE, with some re-occurring proposals in that area, such as:
- Interference coordination / management
- Dynamic TDD
- Enhanced discovery / mobility
- Frequency separation between macro and small cells - using higher frequency bands in small cells (e.g. 3.5 GHz)
- Inter site Carrier aggregation / macro cell assisted small cells
- Wireless backhaul for small cells
The workshop also considered LTE Multi-Antenna and site technologies such as 3D MIMO and beamforming, as well as further work needed on existing CoMP and MIMO specifications and future enhancements.
Other areas for Release 12, commonly identified in the presentations, included:
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RELEASE 12 schedule
Release 12 should take 18 to 24 months to complete, with its freeze date expected in 2014.
update: 19/6/2012
The RAN#56 meeting report gives further details of the schedule, following the Workshop. It says that new Work Item and Study Item proposals – that take the above findings in to account - can be provided to the next RAN Plenary in Chicago in September (RAN #57).
Also, an email discussion is to be initiated by the RAN chairman, on the RAN reflector list - prior to the Chicago plenary, to establish the requirements and deployment scenarios of small cell enhancements.
During RAN#26 in Ljubljana the RAN Chairman also emphasised that the start of new work (on Release 12) will depend on workload situation in last quarter of 2012, as 3GPP Release 11 completion is the current priority.
The Workshop Presentations
RWS-120002 | Release 12 and beyond for C^4 (Cost, Coverage, Coordination with small cells and Capacity) | NSN |
RWS-120003 | Views on Rel-12 | Ericsson & ST-Ericsson |
RWS-120004 | LTE evolving towards Local Area in Release 12 and beyond | Nokia Corporation |
RWS-120005 | Views on Release 12 | Orange |
RWS-120006 | Views on Rel-12 and onwards for LTE and UMTS | Huawei Technologies, HiSilicon |
RWS-120007 | 3GPP RAN Rel-12 & Beyond | Qualcomm |
RWS-120008 | New Solutions for New Mobile Broadband Scenarios | Telefonica |
RWS-120009 | Telecom Italia requirements on 3GPP evolution | Telecom Italia |
RWS-120010 | Requirements, Candidate Solutions & Technology Roadmap for LTE Rel-12 Onward | NTT DOCOMO, INC. |
RWS-120011 | Where to improve Rel-12 and beyond: Promising technologies | NEC |
RWS-120012 | Deutsche Telekom Requirements and Candidate Technologies | Deutsche Telekom |
RWS-120013 | Release 12 Prioritization Concepts | Dish Networks |
RWS-120014 | Towards LTE RAN Evolution | Alcatel-Lucent |
RWS-120016 | Requirements and Technical Considerations for RAN Rel.12 & Onwards | Fujitsu Limited |
RWS-120017 | Operator requirements on future RAN functionality | TeliaSonera |
RWS-120018 | AT&T View of Release 12 in the North America Marketplace | AT&T |
RWS-120019 | Major drivers, requirements and technology proposals for LTE Rel-12 Onward | Panasonic |
RWS-120020 | Efficient spectrum resource usage for next-generation N/W | SK Telecom |
RWS-120022 | LTE Rel-12 and Beyond | Renesas Mobile Europe |
RWS-120023 | LTE Rel-12 and Beyond: Requirements and Technology Components | Intel |
RWS-120024 | Considerations on further enhancement and evolution of UMTS/LTE network in R12 and onwards | China Unicom |
RWS-120025 | Views on LTE R12 and Beyond | CATT |
RWS-120026 | A proposal for potential technologies for Release 12 and onwards | ETRI |
RWS-120028 | India market Requirements for Rel. 12 and beyond | CEWiT |
RWS-120029 | Views on LTE Rel-12 & Beyond | CMCC |
RWS-120030 | LTE addressing the needs of the Public Safety Community | IPWireless |
RWS-120031 | Vodafone view on 3GPP RAN Release 12 and beyond | Vodafone |
RWS-120032 | An Operator’s View of Release 12 and Beyond | Sprint |
RWS-120033 | Public Safety Requirements for Long Term Evolution REL-12 | U.S. Department of Commerce |
RWS-120034 | Views on 3GPP Rel-12 and Beyond | ZTE |
RWS-120035 | Considerations for LTE Rel-12 and beyond | Motorola Mobility |
RWS-120037 | Views on REL-12 and Onwards | China Telecom |
RWS-120039 | Evolving RAN Towards Rel-12 and Beyond | SHARP |
RWS-120040 | Views on enhancement of system capacity and energy efficiency toward Release12 and onward | Hitachi |
RWS-120041 | Beyond LTE-A: MediaTek’s view on R12 | MediaTek |
RWS-120042 | Potential Technologies and Road Map for LTE Release 12 and Beyond | ITRI, HTC |
RWS-120046 | Technologies for Rel-12 and onwards | Samsung Electronics |
RWS-120047 | KDDI’s Views on LTE Release 12 onwards | KDDI |
RWS-120048 | A view on Rel-12 and onwards from an operator’s viewpoint | Softbank Mobile |
RWS-120049 | UE AAS (Active Antenna System) | Magnolia Broadband |
RWS-120050 | LG’s view on evolution of LTE in Release 12 and beyond | LG Electronics |
RWS-120051 | New concept to maximize the benefit of interference rejection at the UE receiver: interference suppression subframes (ISS) | Broadcom |