LTE for Small Cells
The wideband nature of LTE brings new challenges to operators since overall cell throughput tends to decline significantly towards the edge of a cell when compared to 3G air interfaces. For this reason, the industry has generally accepted the view that small cells, including picocells, metrocells and femtocells, will play a critical role in the success of LTE implementations by providing coverage and capacity where it is needed. Picocells and metrocells will be deployed closer to street levels to resolve coverage holes and serve capacity hot spots within the LTE macro network. Femtocells will provide coverage and capacity in enterprises and homes that would otherwise be without macro based service.
UbeeAirWalk is uniquely positioned to provide LTE systems since the architecture specified by standards bodies is the same flat all-IP architecture found in UbeeAirWalk CDMA products. Controllers are combined with base stations, and peer-to-peer interfaces are defined to assist with handoffs, just as found in the UbeeAirWalk CDMA system architecture. In particular, UbeeAirWalk will leverage these strengths to provide Tri-Mode product implementations that serve the specific needs of CDMA operators as they transition the overlap from CDMA only networks through to LTE networks. With our own in-house RF development teams, UbeeAirWalk will also be able to provide industry leading RF implementations that will set industry benchmarks for efficiency and cost-effective deployments in various MIMO implementations.
UbeeAirWalk will offer a full LTE product line based on our flat all-IP architecture, starting with a series of microcells, picocells and femtocells designed to enhance and complement the basic coverage provided by initial macrocell deployments at leading LTE operators. UbeeAirWalk LTE products will complement the existing CDMA product line, allowing site growth through module stacking and Tri-Mode product configurations. Integrated management of all UbeeAirWalk products will be provided though the highly scalable UbeeAirWalk Universal Base Station Management (U-BSM) system. Both conventional picocell and high volume femtocell deployments can be managed through a single U-BSM system thus reducing costs and maintenance training needs.
The use of wideband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) techniques allows LTE to support significantly higher data rates over a single transceiver compared to existing 3G technologies. In the case of 3GPP2 CDMA operators, LTE networks are expected to initially offer high speed data service overlays to augment EVDO systems while voice remains on the highly efficient 1xRTT systems. Over the coming decade, networks will eventually migrate all services, including VoIP based voice to LTE systems as LTE network coverage expands to achieve parity with the existing networks.
Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a defined technology evolution path adopted by both 3GPP and 3GPP2 that will enable operators to provide high bandwidth services to customers in accordance with 4G objectives defined by the IUT.