LTE Evolution & Beyond LTE.

As the mobile Internet is becoming reality, the demand for a ubiquitous, high-bandwidth Internet access anytime, anywhere is continuously increasing. As spectrum is limited, this means that future mobile communications systems have to provide significantly higher spectral efficiencies than today's systems. Further requirements towards next generation networks, as outlined for example by the NGMN alliance, are fairness, low latency and appropriate total cost of ownership.

3GPP will finalize standardization of the first release of LTE in 2008, and prototypes and first commercial products are becoming increasingly available. LTE is a good basis, on which further innovations can be based. Within 3GPP, the discussion on further evolution of LTE has started within the “LTE-Advanced” context. Techniques which could play a role are multi-cell transmission and detection as well as relaying. Theoretical analysis and system performance evaluation are required which show the potential and limits of such techniques, as well as system concept development which ensures that the complexity and costs of such techniques are kept reasonable. One example of activities in this research area is the German research project EASY-C, where both inter-cell and intra-cell signal processing techniques such as network MIMO and relaying are implemented and evaluated in field-test beds in downtown Dresden and Berlin. Further projects addressing these topics are e.g. WINNER+ and the MVCE.

The “International Workshop on LTE Evolution” complements the high-quality technical papers and exhibition at ICC 2009, and will include keynote speeches and a panel discussion.