4G Americas, Wednesday released an executive summary that provides an overview of key features for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced enhancements found in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 13 (Rel-13).
“As work on 3GPP Rel-13 continues to develop the standards for HSPA+ and LTE/LTE-Advanced, simultaneous discussion on future network requirements and recommendations for the next generation of 5G technologies has begun. Groups such as 4G Americas are contributing to the discussion and are liaising with other organizations such as NGMN Alliance, 3GPP, 5G PPP, ITU, CITEL, ATIS, Small Cell Forum and others. It is expected that discussions in the 3GPP working groups will turn to 5G standardization in Rel-14”, said Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications at 4G Americas.
Besides further enhancements in Carrier Aggregation (CA), the Rel-13 standards are focusing on improving throughput and coverage for LTE-Advanced. The standards will also leverage new key technologies such as Active Antenna Systems (AAS), including elevation beamforming enhancements and enhanced signaling to support inter-site Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission and Reception (CoMP).
In addition, it also covers the dual Connectivity (DC) enhancements to better support multi-vendor deployments with improved traffic steering, enhancements to Machine Type Communication (MTC) and Licensed Assisted Access for LTE (LAA-LTE), in which LTE can be deployed in unlicensed spectrum.
