Gothenburg, March 11, 2016

The 3GPP RAN group has started working on the evolution of LTE specifications in Release 14, targeting completion by June 2017. The list below contains the main projects approved so far, providing links to the features being evaluated.

Dino Flore, the RAN group Chairman observed that “While a few more projects may be approved in the coming months, this list gives a good idea on how LTE will evolve – in Release 14 - to meet various market demands.”

The approved new items, listed here, were agreed during RAN meeting #70 last December and meeting #71, in Gothenburg this week.

Improvement to LTE efficiency

• RP-160680, Downlink Multiuser Superposition Transmission for LTE WI 
• RP-160623, Enhancements on FD-MIMO for LTE WI 
• RP-160664, Uplink Capacity Enhancements for LTE WI 
• RP-160665, Further enhancements to CoMP operation SI 
• RP-160676, SRS Carrier Based Switching for LTE WI 
• RP-160563, Study on enhancement of VoLTE SI 
• RP-160667, L2 latency reduction techniques for LTE WI 
• RP-160540, Signalling reduction to enable light connection for LTE WI 
• RP-160636, Mobility enhancement in LTE WI 
• RP-160571, Study on HSPA and LTE Joint Operation SI 
• RP-160633, Study on Context Aware Service Delivery in RAN SI 
• RP-160534, Flexible eNB-ID and Cell-ID in E-UTRAN SI 

Offload to unlicensed

• RP-152272, Enhanced LAA for LTE WI 
• RP-160600, Enhanced LTE-WLAN Aggregation WI

Enablers of new services / verticals

• RP-152293, Support for V2V services based on LTE sidelink WI
  • With parallel feasibility study on LTE-based V2X Services (RP-151109)

• RP-160675, eMBMS enhancements in LTE WI 
• RP-160677, Further Enhancements to LTE D2D, UE to Network Relays for IoT and Wearables SI 
  • Until June, the objective is to evaluate scenarios considering progress in SA WGs, and refine objectives accordingly
• RP-160538, Further Indoor Positioning enhancements for UTRA and LTE WI

RF and performance requirements 

• RP-152263, Performance enhancements for high speed scenario WI 
• RP-152205, Multi-Band BS testing with three or more bands WI 
• RP-160548, Further Enhancement of BS RF and EMC requirements for AAS WI
• RP-160678, Measurement Gap Enhancement for LTE WI
• RP-160603, Radiated performance requirements for the verification of multi-antenna reception of UEs WI
• RP-160681, LTE bandwidth flexibility enhancements SI 

Further reading:

See the TMN article, by Keith Dyer; "3GPP announces RAN work programme for R14" 

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