3G Americas Provides Updates to 3GPP Release 7 and Release 8 White Paper

3G Americas, a wireless industry group supporting the GSM family of technologies in the Americas, has provided updates to its popular white paper titled UMTS Evolution from 3GPP Release 7 to Release 8: HSPA and SAE/LTE that explains the leading evolutionary roadmap for the GSM family of technologies to 3G and beyond.  Globally, the demand for wireless data services is driving the growth of 3G UMTS/HSPA technology with more than 200 commercial HSDPA networks today and subscriptions to UMTS/HSPA estimated at over 236 million by Informa Telecoms and Media. With more than 3.1 billion subscriptions for the GSM family of technologies worldwide today, the potential for third generation HSPA technology is forecast to reach 1.39 billion subscriptions by year end 2012 and 1.8 billion by year end 2013 according to Informa.

UMTS Evolution from 3GPP Release 7 to Release 8: HSPA and SAE/LTE offers a further review of 3GPP Release-7 (Rel-7) upon its completion in the technology standardization process and an introduction to the improved features of 3GPP Release 8 (Rel-8). The paper explores the growing demands for wireless data and successes for a variety of wireless applications, the increasing Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for wireless services by operators worldwide, recent developments in 3GPP technologies by several leading manufacturers, and 3GPP technology benefits and technical features.

Upon the finalization of the Rel-8 standard later this year, 3G Americas will publish a new white paper on the 3GPP standards that will include the completion of Rel-7 HSPA+ features, voice over HSPA, SAE/EPC (Evolved Packet Core) specification and Common IMS among other new developments and features. Since HSPA+ enhancements are fully backwards compatible with Rel-99/Rel-5/Rel-6, the upgrade to HSPA+ has been made smooth and evolutionary for GSM operators. Additionally, Rel-7 standardizes Evolved EDGE with continuing development in Rel-8 which will improve the user experience across all wireless data services by reducing latency and increasing data throughput and capacity.  Finalization of the Rel-8 standard by the end of this year will further progress market interest in commercial deployment of LTE.  Leading operators worldwide are announcing their plans to deploy LTE as early as 2010 with trials already occurring today.  

The popular white paper UMTS Evolution from 3GPP Release 7 to Release 8: HSPA and SAE/LTE was written collaboratively by members of 3G Americas and is available for free download at: www.3gamericas.org

Terminology of the GSM Evolution

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), also known as WCDMA: The GSM evolution to Third Generation (3G) high speed wireless data services, adopted worldwide as the leading wireless standard.  UMTS represents an evolution from GSM Second Generation (2G) mobile networks in terms of capacity, data speeds and new service capabilities.  It is an Internet Protocol-based (IP) technology that supports packetized voice and data. Additional benefits of UMTS include simultaneous voice and data capability for users, high user densities that can be supported with low infrastructure cost due to the scope and scale of billions of customers, and support for high-bandwidth data applications.

High Speed Packet Access (HSPA): A nomenclature for developments encompassing both directions of information transmission – the downlink (HSDPA) and the uplink (HSUPA) directions.  HSPA is an enhancement to UMTS and offers a successful combination of spectral efficiency (4-5 times that of UMTS) and high speed data throughput thus enabling true mass market mobile broadband. HSDPA users today experience throughput rates in excess of 1 Mbps with favorable conditions and this will increase with planned improvements to HSDPA.  HSUPA users will experience peak user achievable rates close to 1 Mbps in the uplink under favorable conditions, and low latency (less than 100 ms).  HSPA also lowers an operators’ cost per bit, enabling cost-effective, rich multimedia services.  

Evolved EDGE: The EDGE evolution is expected to enable operators the opportunity to upgrade their EDGE networks to improve service coverage and more than double spectral efficiency for EDGE, reduce latency to less than 80 ms, and increase data rates to a peak theoretical rate per user of 1 Mbps for the downlink and 500 Kbps for the uplink.

HSPA Evolution (HSPA+): HSPA+ is a study item of 3GPP with a goal of creating a highly optimized version of HSPA that employs Release 7 features and other incremental features such as interference cancelization and optimization to reduce latency.  HSPA+ will enable operators to capitalize on existing RAN infrastructure investments, as well as possibly leverage the use of the SAE core with the current radio interface in 2 x 5 MHz spectrum.  

System Architecture Evolution (SAE): The 3GPP work item for SAE or Evolved Packet Core (EPC) develops a framework for a higher-data-rate, lower-latency, packet-optimized system that supports multiple radio access technologies with a focus on the packet-switched domain to support voice services. The main drivers for the network evolution are: to be able to meet the targets for the evolution of the radio-interface (LTE), to enable the evolution towards an all-IP network, and to support mobility and service continuity between heterogeneous access networks.

Long Term Evolution (LTE): The 3GPP work item on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) or EUTRAN (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network) or the Air-Interface Evolution will develop a framework for a high-data-rate, low-latency and packet-optimized OFDMA radio-access technology. Trials started in 2008, products are expected to be commercially available in 2009 and commercial deployments will begin in 2010.  

About 3G Americas: Unifying the Americas through Wireless Technology

3G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of telecommunications service providers and manufacturers.  The organization's mission is to promote and facilitate the seamless deployment throughout the Americas of the GSM family of technologies, including LTE.  3G Americas has contributed to the successful commercial rollout of GSM across the Americas and its place as the number one technology in the region, as well as the global adoption of EDGE. The organization aims to develop the expansive wireless ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications enabled by GSM and its evolution to LTE.  3G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, WA with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas, Texas.  More information is available at www.3gamericas.org.