LTE Advanced: 3GPP Solution for IMT-Advanced

2.5 Further LTE-Advanced 3GPP Releases

3GPP continues the work full speed ahead after the first LTE-Advanced Release. Release 11 work followed immediately Release 10 activity with plenty of proposed work items to further enhance the LTE-Advanced capabilities from Release 10. In order to maintain the schedule 3GPP had to take special actions to prioritize the Release 11 content in September 2011. The selected content is expected to be finalized during second half of 2012 with the specification freeze scheduled to take place at the end of 2012, as shown in Figure 2.2. The key areas where further work was identified included carrier aggregation enhancements and enhanced downlink control channel, as explained with the Release 11 content in more detail in Chapter 12.

Figure 2.2 LTE-Advanced upcoming release schedule and expected market deployment.

3GPP is preparing also the Release 12 and beyond LTE-Advanced content. The 3GPP TSG RAN Release 12/13 workshop in June 2012 collected the vision of the content of the Releases ahead from 3GPP operators and manufacturers. The official Release 12 timing has not yet been decided though with the typical 18-month Release duration and Release 12 could be expected to finalize during the second half of 2014. Figure 2.2 shows also the estimated milestones for the Release 10, 11 and 12 terminals to enter the market based on the assumption of the availability ...