Measurement Journal Issue 6

Scanning the IMT-Advanced timeline The ITU’s 3G program took some 12 years to complete, with work having started as far back as 1985 under its original project name of Future Public Land Mobile Telephone System (FPLMTS). Not so with IMT-Advanced, which has a much contracted timeline — and a pronounceable name. The 4G work started in 2005 and Figure 1 shows the projected ITU timeline and links into 3GPP. What’s in a 4G name? In naming its 4G initiative IMT-Advanced, the ITU has consciously reused the ﬁ rst part — “IMT” — from the 3G IMT-2000 program. This naming is signiﬁcant because it has been agreed that spectrum currently allocated for exclusive use by IMT-2000 technologies will now be known as just “IMT” spectrum and will also be made available for IMT-Advanced. Crucially, there are no plans for exclusive IMT-Advanced spectrum. This is pragmatic since spectrum is scarce and largely occupied. 2008 ITU-R 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Proposals Evaluation Consensus Specification Early deployment? Study item Work item 3GPP Reviewing IMT-2000 (3G) requirements and deployment The requirements for 3G systems can largely be summarized by the following peak single-user data rates: • 2048 kbps: indoor ofﬁce • 384 kbps: outdoor to indoor and pedestrian • 144 kbps: vehicular • 9.6 kbps: satellite It is unfortunate that 2 Mbps dominated early 3G marketing and it was a long time before the limited reality of early 3G deployments became clear. Since the emergence of HSDPA in 2006, the original 3G data rates have long been surpassed. Even so, these ﬁgures have always lacked the caveats that translate headline rates into typical end-user experience. The two biggest culprits are coverage and capacity. Coverage falls into a couple of categories: locations where, for commercial reasons, there is simply no 3G service; and performance within the coverage area, which is highly dependent on radio conditions (indoor performance being particularly challenging). The other major issue is capacity. The IMT-2000 ﬁgures represent single-user peak data rates and say nothing about the number of users who can expect to see such performance in any given cell. The requirements may have ignored coverage and capacity factors but the end-user certainly cannot because these directly drive quality of experience (QoE). Shortcomings with coverage and capacity — along with difﬁculty in pricing and presenting value-added services — are the main reasons why the uptake of 3G has been much slower than predicted. Figure 1. Overall IMT-Advanced timeline The ITU’s goal is to approve candidate 4G technologies by the end of 2009 with standards development and implementation to follow. This puts 4G about two years behind 3GPP’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) project, suggesting that 4G commercial service will be available no earlier than 2012. By any standard, and particularly by 3G standards, this is an aggressive timeline. It is made possible, however, because the two most likely 4G candidate technologies — IEEE’s 802.16e standard (Mobile WiMAX TM) and 3GPP’s LTE — are already considered 3.9G technologies and the enhancements required to meet 4G’s requirements are not considered major. This is a signiﬁcant point: Unlike with 3G, the advent of 4G is not going to result in a major rethinking of existing air-interface technologies. In some ways, IMT-2000 led the development of 3G standards; however, in the case of IMT-Advanced, it is playing catch-up with the many developments that have taken place since the IMT-2000 requirements were established in 1997. 3GPP’s submission to the ITU, planned for September 2009, will be a backwards-compatible enhancement of LTE Release 8, to be known generally as LTE-Advanced, and will probably be fully speciﬁed in 3GPP release 10.2 For the IEEE, it is likely any submission will be based on the 802.16m standard, which is an evolution of 802.16e. 53 Agilent Measurement Journal

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Measurement Journal Issue 6

Measurement Journal Issue 6 Using a Few Words to Convey a Deeply-Held Spirit Charting a Unique Path to Technology Innovation Contents Announcing First Commercial GC/MS Metabolites Library Assessing Nonlinear Behavior Testing Combines Form and Function Testing Multiplay Networks Higher Sensitivity LC/MS Easing Military Radio Test Stepping Up Calibration Accuracy Increasing Spectrum Analyzer Bandwidth 3GPP Tool Supports TS 36 Standards The Olympic Story Spotlights Agilent's Continuing Contribution to Technology Innovation Ensuring a Level Playing Field in Competitive Sports GPS: Coming of Age Resolving Design Issues in HSPA Mobile Devices Achieving Accurate Results with Oscilloscope-Based Jitter-Analysis Software RF Handheld Testers Guarantee Traffic Stability Under Olympic-Sized Stress Conditions Utilizing LAN-Based Instrumentation to Measure Total Harmonic Distortion in Remote Facilities IMT-Advanced: 4G Wireless Takes Shape in an Olympic Year EPO Doping: A Speed Engine, Turbo-Charged by Chemistry

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