LTE System Overview

Telecommunication History

Nowadays, 2G – 3.5G networks are deployed all over the world. LTE is still under developing
and testing stage. In the definition of ITU, LTE/SAE is 3.9G network and 4G network is defined
as IMT Advanced. The first LTE network is planned to implement in the late 2009.

1G FDMA 2G TDMA (Voice, CS 2.5G TDMA (GPRS)

(Voice) data, etc ~ 9.6kbps) PS data ~50kbps

2.75G TDMA 3G – 3.5G WCDMA

(GPRS+EDGE) PS and CS data, HSPA,
PS data ~ 150kbps Voice, etc ~ 14-42Mbps
s s

3.9G LTE/SAE
PS and Voice (VoIP), 4G IMT Advanced
~ 100Mbps
s

Figure 1. History of Telcom.

EPS, EPC and E-UTRAN

3G network is mainly made up of UTRAN and CN. In each part, we have various elements. See
below:
RNC
UTRAN
3G (WCDMA system) NodeB
MSC (deal with cs traffic)
CN

SGSN (deal with ps traffic)

In comparison, 3.9G can be also called EPS which stands for Evolved Packet System. In EPS, we
have two parts as well, which are E-UTRAN and EPC. E-UTRAN is well known as LTE while
EPC is Evolved Packet Core. Within E-UTRAN, we have only e-NodeB and under EPC, MMS,
P-GW (Packet Gateway) and S-GW (Service Gateway) are defined. See below:

E-UTRAN e-NodeB (can talk to each other)

3.9G (EPS)

EPC MMS, P-GW, S-GW (handle with ps data only)

We notice that in EPS, there is no RNC node any more. The functionalities of RNC are partly
converged to e-NodeB and others are combined into EPC. In this case, there are fewer nodes than
3G network. The advantage to do so, in one hand, shortens the delay because e-NodeB can
directly communicate with core network; on the other hand, also reduce the cost to build up a
network. Simpler management is a benefit as well. See figure 2.

Figure 2 WCDMA and EPS architecture comparison

Our target in LTE
What we have now from user throughput point of view?

P7:
P6/P6 FP:
HSDPA/EUL ~ 21Mbps/5.76Mbps
HSDPA/EUL ~ 14Mbps/5.76Mbps
TTI = 2ms
P7 FP:
SF = 4
HSDPA/EUL ~ 42Mbps/5.76Mbps
Maximum channelized code = 4/cell
Because of the usage of MIMO,
HSPDA data rate is even doubled.

How about LTE?

LTE:
HSDPA > 100Mbps
EUL > 50Mbps
TTI = 1ms
MIMO (2 x 2 at present) is used.

Interfaces in EPS
From transport network point of view, the interfaces are reduced significantly. Since there is no
RNC anymore, Iub, Iu and Iur interfaces do not exist neither. Instead, interface between e-
NodeBs is called X2 interface; while interfaces among e-NodeBs and EPC are called S1. Of
course, there are other interfaces newly defined in EPC since new nodes (MME, P-GW and S-
GW) are introduced. Here note that in Ericsson, we integrate P-GW and S-GW as one node so
that the interface between them sometimes is not considered. However, if among different
vendors, which means P-GW and S-GW are separate nodes, in this case, we need to take the
interface between them into account as well. Figure 3 and Figure 4 below can very well show the
all interfaces in EPS:
Figure 3 Interfaces concerning in TN

Figure 4 Interfaces in the EPS

Steps to EPS
We need to have some solution for co-existing of GSM, WCDMA and EPS networks. Firstly, we
can have both 3G CN and EPC who talk to each other. See figure 5:

Figure 5 3G CN co-exists with EPC

In the end, in order to simplify and reduce the unnecessary interfaces among 3G CN and EPC, we
integrate SGSN into MME to cut off 3G CN at all. See figure 6:

Figure 6 All networks combined within one EPC