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.