January 2015

The Chairman of 3GPP RAN, Dino Flore, presented the status of 3GPP activities related to unlicensed spectrum at the IEEE 802 meeting this month, in Atlanta.

In his presentation, Dino Flore described the progress of 3GPP RAN’s feasibility study on LTE over unlicensed spectrum (aka LAA) as well as the 3GPP activities to enhance LTE/Wi-Fi interworking.

The LAA Study Item is scheduled for completion in June 2015 (3GPP TR 36.889), paving the way for the specification work to be completed in the Release 13 timeframe (March 2016). The main goal of the Study Item is to identify the enhancements needed for LTE to operate in unlicensed spectrum and to ensure fair coexistence with Wi-Fi.

In his presentation the RAN Chairman stressed that “Licensed spectrum remains 3GPP operators’ top priority to deliver advanced services and user experience” but noted that the “opportunistic use of unlicensed spectrum is now becoming an important complement for 3GPP operators to meet the growing traffic demand.”

2 presenations on the topic:

3GPP & unlicensed spectrum  – Dino Flore, RAN Chairman, Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Coexistence Lessons Learned -  Paul Nikolich , IEEE 802 Chair & co-authors. This presentation was delivered to the 3GPP RAN Plenary in December 2014, and covers; Ideas on IEEE 802 and 3GPP cooperation on coexistence, on the fair sharing of spectrum, on Listen Before Talk, on study of use cases and the effects on other systems under fair sharing…

Contact for this article: Kevin FLYNN, Marketing and Communications Officer, 3GPP