ABSTRACT
The 3rd-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) initiated the work on the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as part of 3GPP Release 8 in late 2004. The Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRA) substantially improved user throughput, cell capacity, and reduced user-plane and control-plane latencies, bringing significantly improved user experience with full mobility. This chapter describes the prominent functional features of 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced technologies including protocols, control signaling, transmission formats, and physical layer and Medium Access Control processing. The main objectives of 3GPP LTE were to minimize the system and User Equipment complexities, to allow flexible deployments in the existing or new frequency bands, and to enable coexistence with other 3GPP and non-3GPP radio access technologies. The evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network consists of e-Node B or equivalently E-UTRA base stations, providing the E-UTRA user-plane and control-plane protocol terminations toward the user equipment.
