3GPP Release 9, Release 10 and Beyond: HSPA+, SAE/LTE and LTE-Advanced

3G Americas, recently published a highly anticipated resource report on 3GPP standards and their evolution to IMT-Advanced, or 4G. The white paper, 3GPP Mobile Broadband Innovation Path to 4G: Release 9, Release 10 and Beyond: HSPA+, SAE/LTE and LTE-Advanced, provides in-depth examination of 3GPP technology standards from a technical, business and applications standpoint.

This new 2010 paper, 3GPP Mobile Broadband Innovation Path to 4G: Release 9, Release 10 and Beyond: HSPA+, LTE/SAE and LTE-Advanced, provides a thorough review of Release 9 (Rel-9) including HSPA+ and enhancements of Rel-8 LTE/EPC capabilities such as location, emergency and broadcast services, support of CS over LTE, Home NodeB/eNodeB architecture considerations (i.e. support of femtocell type applications) and IMS evolution.

Further this paper also provides detailed discussions of Release 10 (Rel-10) including the significant new technology enhancements to LTE/EPC for meeting the very aggressive IMT-Advanced requirements with LTE-Advanced which was proposed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at its Geneva conference in October 2009.

With work for Release 9 is nearing completion, significant progress has already been made in 3GPP on work for Release 10, which includes LTE-Advanced. 3GPP has already submitted a proposal in October 2009 based on LTE-Advanced for the IMT-Advanced evaluation and certification process led by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The ITU has defined requirements that will officially define and certify technologies as IMT-Advanced, or 4G, and is expected to evaluate submitted proposals by standards organizations for potential certification in the 2010 timeframe; certified 4G/IMT-Advanced technology specifications are projected to be published by early 2011.

The white paper, 3GPP Mobile Broadband Innovation Path to 4G: Release 9, Release 10 and Beyond: HSPA+, SAE/LTE and LTE-Advanced, was written collaboratively by members of 3G Americas and is available for free downloadon the 3G Americas website at www.3gamericas.org.

3GPP Release 10 Features

3GPP Release 10 Features detailed in 3GPP description document "Overview of 3GPP Release 10; Summary of all Release 10 Features (Release 10)" are as following

• Network Selection for non-3GPP Access
• Registration in Densely-populated area
• Enhanced Home NodeB / eNodeB continuation of Rel-9
• IMS aspects of Architecture for Home NodeB - moved from Rel-9
• IMS Service Continuity – Inter Device Transfer enhancements (EHNB)
• GTP-based S8 chaining - moved from Rel-9
• Multi Access PDN Connectivity - moved from Rel-9
• EEA3 and EIA3 (new Encryption & Integrity EPS security algorithms)
• Study on Mobile Haptic Services
• Study on advanced requirements for IP interconnect - moved from Rel-9
• Study on Unauthenticated PS Emergency Calls - moved from Rel-9
• Study on Study on Personal Broadcast Service - moved from Rel-9
• Study on LCS support in SAE for non-3GPP accesses - moved from Rel-9
• Study on System enhancements for the use of IMS services in local breakout and optimal routing of media - moved from Rel-9
• Study on Intra Domain Connection of RAN Nodes to Multiple CN Nodes - moved from Rel-9
• Study on IMS Evolution - moved from Rel-9
• Study on enhancements to IMS border functions for IMS Interconnection of services - moved from Rel-9
• Study on Policy solutions and enhancements
• Study on IPv6 Migration
• Study on SR-VCC Enhancements