Researchers at Nokia Siemens Networks in Germany have demonstrated relaying technology proposed for LTE-Advanced, which is currently being studied by 3GPP for Release 10 and will be submitted towards ITU-R as the 3GPP Radio Interface Technology proposal.
The demonstration combined an LTE system supporting a 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna system, and a relay station. The relaying operated in-band, which means that the relay stations inserted in the network do not need an external data backhaul. They are connected to the nearest base stations by using radio resources within the operating frequency band of the base station itself. Towards the terminal they are base stations and offer the full functionality of LTE.
The demonstration featured an intelligent demo relay node embedded in a test network forming a FDD in-band self-backhauling solution for coverage enhancements.
Nokia Siemens Networks said the demonstration illustrates how advances to Relaying technology can further improve the quality and coverage consistency of a network at the cell edge -- where users are furthest from the mobile broadband base station. The performance at the cell edge could be increased up to 50% of the peak throughput.
"Demonstrating improved cell edge and indoor-user data rates is an important milestone for coverage scenarios. It further strengthens the position of LTE as the major mobile broadband technology. Consumers will enjoy an even richer user experience thanks to higher throughput everywhere in the cell, while operators will be able to deploy their networks in a more flexible and cost efficient way," said Stephan Scholz, Chief Technology Officer of Nokia Siemens Networks.
"LTE Advanced is the next step in the evolutionary development of LTE technology. Nokia Siemens Networks performs extensive research activities for LTE-Advanced in developing this important technology which will be decisive to our customers in the future,"http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com
- In 2006, Nokia Siemens Networks demonstrated LTE technology with data speeds in the 160 Mbps range as well as a successful handover between LTE and HSPA.
- In 2007, the company demonstrated a multiuser field trial in an urban environment with peak data rates of 173 Mbps.
- In February 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks showcased a live demo on commercial hardware and launched its LTE solution based on Flexi Multimode Base Station.
- In September 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks started to ship its LTE compatible Flexi Multimode Base Station hardware.
