The Good Gets Better: LTE Mobile Broadband Standards

BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - February 11, 2015) - Today, 4G Americas released an updated executive summary titled, Understanding 3GPP Release 12: Standards for HSPA+ and LTE Enhancements. This condensed document explains the Release 12 (Rel-12) standards which have a functional freeze date of March 2015 and is ideal for journalists, analysts, regulators and others who seek a shortened version of major features and enhancements of HSPA+, LTE and Machine Type Communications (MTC) as well as technology agnostic standards and how they benefit operators and customers.

"The work of 3GPP continues to provide the innovation and interoperability for a global communications and computing platform that transforms every part of our enterprise and personal lifestyles," stated Vicki Livingston, Head of Communications at 4G Americas and a contributor to the paper. "We provide these concise summaries of 3GPP standards to further the understanding of the scope of 3GPP's planning."

The 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) release standards serve as a key resource for mobile operators to understand the new options and tools for increasing capacity, extending battery life, reducing energy consumption at the network level, maximizing cost efficiency, supporting diverse applications and traffic types, enhancing backhaul and providing customers with a richer, faster and more reliable experience. 3GPP's most recently finalized set of standards in Release 12 focuses on technology enhancements which are described in the report for:

LTE-Advanced: Downlink Multiple-input Multiple-output (MIMO), small cells, Machine Type Communications (MTC) / M2M, Proximity Services (ProSe), User Equipment (UE) receivers, Self-Optimizing Networks (SON), Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) Mobility, Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services, Local Internet Protocol Access and Selected Internet Protocol Traffic Offload, Enhanced Interference Management and Traffic Adaptation and FDD-TDD Carrier Aggregation (CA)

HSPA+: UMTS HetNets, System Information Broadcast (SIB), Further Enhanced Uplink (F-EUL), Home Node B (HNB) mobility, HNB positioning for UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), MTC and Dedicated Channel (DCH) for Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems (UMTS)

Network and Services: MTC and Other Mobile Data Applications, public safety, ProSe, Group Communication System, WiFi interworking, core network overload, Web Real-Time Communication and Voiceover Internet Protocol (VoIP) / Multimedia, network energy savings, policy and charging control

Release Independent Features: Rel-12 added five new spectrum bands aggregated over all releases bringing the total up to 43 bands.

Jim Seymour, Principal Engineer, Cisco Mobility CTO Group, and leader of the Release 12 Executive Summary working group, commented, "The significance of the standards work by 3GPP is exemplified by the success that is demonstrated by global deployments of 572 HSPA+ networks and 367 LTE networks today, with 49 LTE-Advanced networks already deployed in 31 countries."

The Executive Summary, Understanding 3GPP Release 12: Standards for HSPA+ and LTE Enhancements, written collaboratively by members of 4G Americas, is available for free download at www.4gamericas.org.

About 4G Americas: Unifying the Americas through Mobile Broadband Technology
4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of the 3GPP family of mobile broadband technologies, including LTE-Advanced and beyond to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas. 4G Americas contributes to the success of 3GPP technologies and their No. 1 place in the region. 4G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. More information is available at www.4gamericas.org or www.twitter.com/4gamericas and www.facebook.com/4gamericas.

4G Americas' Board of Governors members include: Alcatel-Lucent, América Móvil, AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Entel, Ericsson, HP, Intel, Mavenir, Nokia, Qualcomm, Sprint, T-Mobile US, Inc. and Telefónica.