Posted 24.06.2010 | 3:58 pm
  The rapid proliferation of data-capable mobile devices, including Smartphones, Net-books and UMPCs, has fueled the growth of mobile broadband in an unprecedented manner, compelling device and chipset manufacturers to develop high performance, multi-technology devices in the shortest time possible. Aricent offers a pre-packaged, 3GPP Release-8 compliant UE Software Suite, complemented by complete product lifecycle services. The LTE UE Software Suite is highly scalable, hardware agnostic, and includes protocol stacks designed for optimal power consumption and processor utilization.
Aricent’s LTE UE Software Suite for Devices
Select Customer Engagements & Partnerships
- Aricent and CEVA collaborate to deliver reference implementation for LTE devices
Customer Challenges
Some of the key challenges faced by device and chipset manufacturers include:
- Manage Complexity in Product Development – Constantly evolving specifications complicate the development of solutions that are interoperable with multiple technologies on a single platform
- Balance R&D Investments – Chipset and platform manufacturers strive to balance investment between legacy and LTE, while creating cost-effective LTE solutions for multiple device types
- Reduce Total Cost of Ownership – As the market becomes more fragmented, manufacturers look to control the total cost of ownership while capturing market share
Pre-packaged LTE UE Software Suite for Devices
Aricent’s LTE UE Software Suite is a comprehensive software package which assists device manufacturers and chipset vendors in accelerating the development of LTE enabled devices. Its main features include:
- High throughput – 3GPP Rel-8 compliant Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocol stacks tested for 50 Mbps uplink and 100 Mbps downlink data rates
- Pre-optimized solution – Pre-optimized power consumption and processor utilization ensures stellar performance for LTE devices
- Multi-platform support – Hardware and operating system agnostic solution with a modular and scalable design that enables ease of integration on multiple platforms
- Layer 1 and Layer 2 support – Layer 1: PHY/Baseband IPR for FDD Mode; Layer 2: MAC, RLC, PDCP
- Improved interoperability – A pre-tested solution with field proven interoperability on third party platforms
- Standards compliance – Aricent’s UE Software suite is compliant with latest 3GPP Rel-8 standards
- Future proof design – Modular and adaptable future-proof design supports continuously evolving standards
Aricent also provides implementation, optimization and integration and testing services including performance testing with other network components in a real-time environment, and conformance testing in simulated or real-time environments.
Voice over LTE (VoLTE) Support
Aricent’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) solution allows customers to leverage an IMS-based core network, upon which the carrier’s current services can be replicated. The solution allows carriers to exploit their investment in their existing circuit-switched mobile core networks, while providing next-generation services. Additionally, they can migrate to a full IMS solution to provide converged multimedia services and VoLTE. It also allows multiple applications to co-exist and can integrate with other SIP or IMS applications like presence, group/list Management, Messaging, Video Share, Push-to-talk, etc.
Product Lifecycle Services
- Product Strategy and Design – Aricent’s services in the areas of product strategy, system design, and hardware engineering help vendors ensure a smooth transition of their products to carrier grade solutions. Additionally, Aricent’s UI innovation services can help device manufacturers develop elegant and effective user interfaces for their LTE devices.
- Product Development – Aricent teams have executed multiple LTE development programs for both ODMs as well as platform vendors, helping them to rationalize their R&D spend on LTE without compromising the quality of products. Aricent also provides implementation, optimization and integration services for the LTE UE Software Suite.
- Testing and Certification – Aricent has a rich history of customer engagements in product validation, interoperability, managed testing and certification services with complete test ecosystems, tools and global best practices including performance and conformance testing in simulated or real-time environments for LTE.
Key Benefits
Accelerated time to market – Aricent’s UE solutions, being pre-tested and interoperable, allow manufacturers to accelerate the development of multi-mode wireless devices including handsets, data cards, and USB wireless modems, as well as embedded devices for laptops, Ultra Mobile PCs and desktops. Additionally vendors receive support through advanced development, test and verification tools that further accelerate time-to-market.
Reduced total cost of ownership – Aricent takes complete ownership of the solution, from design to implementation, offering wireless, multimedia and application expertise on mobile platforms. This is complemented by design services from Aricent’s design house, Frog Design. Additionally, Aricent’s contemporary engagement models help reduce development and integration expenses, and facilitate customization and portability.
LTE (both radio and core network evolution) is now on the market. Release 8 was frozen in December 2008 and this has been the basis for the first wave of LTE equipment. LTE specifications are very stable, with the added benefit of small enhancements being introduced in Release 9, a Release that will be functionally frozen in December 2009.
Motivation for 3GPP Release 8 – The LTE Release
- Need to ensure the continuity of competitiveness of the 3G system for the future
- User demand for higher data rates and quality of service
- Packet Switch optimised system
- Continued demand for cost reduction (CAPEX and OPEX)
- Low complexity
- Avoid unnecessary fragmentation of technologies for paired and unpaired band operation
LTE Release 8 Key Features
- High spectral efficiency
— OFDM in Downlink, Robust against multipath interference & High affinity to advanced techniques such as Frequency domain channel-dependent scheduling & MIMO
— DFTS-OFDM(“Single-Carrier FDMA”) in Uplink, Low PAPR, User orthogonality in frequency domain
— Multi-antenna application
- Very low latency
— Short setup time & Short transfer delay
— Short HO latency and interruption time; Short TTI, RRC procedure, Simple RRC states
- Support of variable bandwidth
— 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz
- Simple protocol architecture
— Shared channel based
— PS mode only with VoIP capability
- Simple Architecture
— eNodeB as the only E-UTRAN node
— Smaller number of RAN interfaces, eNodeB « MME/SAE-Gateway (S1), eNodeB « eNodeB (X2)
- Compatibility and inter-working with earlier 3GPP Releases
- Inter-working with other systems, e.g. cdma2000
- FDD and TDD within a single radio access technology
- Efficient Multicast/Broadcast
— Single frequency network by OFDM
- Support of Self-Organising Network (SON) operation
LTE Release 8 Major Parameters
LTE-Release 8 User Equipment Categories
LTE Release 8 Specifications
- LTE is specified in 36 series technical specifications
- The latest version of the LTE Release 8 specifications (September 2009 version) can be found in On-line in the 36 series
LTE Historical Information
The technical paper UTRA-UTRAN Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 3GPP System Architecture Evolution (SAE) is a good starting point.
Initiated in 2004, the Long Term Evolution (LTE) project focused on enhancing the Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and optimizing 3GPP’s radio access architecture.
Targets were to have average user throughput of three- to four-times the Release 6 HSDPA levels in the Downlink (100Mbps), and two to three times the HSUPA levels in the Uplink (50Mbps).
In 2007, the LTE of the 3rd generation radio access technology – “E UTRA” – progressed from the feasibility study stage to the first issue of approved Technical Specifications. By the end of 2008, the specifications were sufficiently stable for commercial implementation.
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) was selected for the Downlink and Single Carrier-Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) for the Uplink. The Downlink supporting data modulation schemes QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM and the Uplink BPSK, QPSK, 8PSK and 16QAM.
LTE’s E UTRA uses a number of defined channel bandwidths between 1.25 and 20 MHz (contrasted with UTRA’s fixed 5 MHz channels).
4 x Increased Spectral Efficiency, 10 x Users Per Cell
Spectral efficiency is increased by up to four-fold compared with UTRA, and improvements in architecture and signalling reduce round-trip latency. Multiple Input / Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technology should enable 10 times as many users per cell as 3GPP’s original W CDMA radio access technology.
To suit as many frequency band allocation arrangements as possible, both paired (FDD) and unpaired (TDD) band operation is supported. LTE can co-exist with earlier 3GPP radio technologies, even in adjacent channels, and calls can be handed over to and from all 3GPP’s previous radio access technologies.
In the same time frame as the development of LTE, 3GPP’s core network has been undergoing System Architecture Evolution (SAE), optimizing it for packet mode and in particular for the IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) which supports all access technologies.
The awkwardly named Long-Term Evolution (LTE) technology is pulling ahead in the race for the 4G wireless networks. If carrier plans are any indication, Ultra Mobile Broadband, the upgrade technology for CDMA networks, is quickly becoming a non-factor. Even WiMAX, which was at one point seen as offering significant cost and time advantages, has started to lose out to LTE.
Since so many industry insiders have started talking about the inevitability of LTE over everything else, I have started to keep tabs on different carriers and their 4G plans. Here are some notables that have made their LTE plans public.
This is not a complete list so much as a directional indicator. (If you have any carriers you want to see on this list, please send me an email.) China and India, the big gorillas on Planet Mobile, have yet to decide their 3G/4G destiny and so remain an X-factor. (More on India down below.)
As more carriers opt for LTE, the equipment makers can start planning for scale and thus bring down the cap-ex costs for these carriers. Lower pricing can have a domino effect, so we could see smaller carriers start to opt for LTE as well. Companies on the equipment side are already making LTE plans.
At the CTIA show in Las Vegas, which wrapped up last week, there were a couple of significant announcements:
- Chinese equipment maker Huawei Technologies said it will have its 700 MHz products ready for launch in the first quarter of 2009, around the time the carriers can start claiming the wireless spectrum they bought. These offerings include UMTS, CDMA and LTE devices.
- Ericsson, which is now a dominant wireless infrastructure equipment provider, announced its 700 MHz plans with its new M700 mobile platform, an LTE-capable platform with peak data rates of up to 100Mbps in the downlink and up to 50Mbps in the uplink.
Again, this is not a complete list. (If you want us to include you in future 700 MHz/LTE posts, please drop us a link or short informational blurb via our contact form.)
Our favorite wireless data analyst, Chetan Sharma, did the rounds at CTIA and his conclusion about LTE concurred with our reporting. “Without a doubt the operator community is rallying behind LTE, and there might be an opportunity to finally converge to a single standard,” he says.
Sharma points out that single standards, while nice and dandy, will soon become a thing of the past thanks to “advances in silicon” that now make it possible “to integrate multiple radios” on single chip. Of course, the potential of software-defined radios are finally beginning to be realized as well; Huawei, for example, will be using SDRs in its 700 MHz gear.
So what about WiMAX? Well in the U.S., things aren’t looking so good. Sprint’s Xohm Network has hit some snags and Clearwire is riding rough seas. A rescue in the form of a new, megabillion-dollar funding for a new WiMAX operator might emerge, but we’ll have to wait and see.
As Sharma notes, “WiMAX has forced acceleration of the LTE standardization process but is starting to lose its time (and cost) advantage.” From what I have been able to learn, WiMAX is the technology of choice in the emerging telecom economies. In India for instance, Tata and Reliance, two giant telecom operators, are spending a ton of cash on WiMAX, as is the incumbent Indian incumbent, BSNL.
Charlie Martin, CTO of wireless for Huawei, in an interview with Fierce Broadband Wireless, said, “We view WiMAX as different from CDMA and LTE in terms of the fact that WiMAX is a good alternative for emerging markets and alternative operators.” If there is one company that knows emerging markets, it is Huawei, so I give Martin’s comments a lot of credence.
|
