LTE for Public Safety

Foreword

Foreword by Dr. Hossein Moiin

People love Long-Term Evolution (LTE). At 280 million LTE subscribers globally in October 2014, LTE has been adopted faster than any previous generation of mobile technology. The time to reach one billion subscribers is expected to be 7 years, as compared to 11 years for 3rd Generation (3G) and 12 years for Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). LTE also has the biggest and fastest growing device ecosystem. With 331 commercially launched LTE networks in 112 countries today and more than 600 operator commitments, it has become the technology of choice for operators. I believe that LTE will outgrow other technologies to become the unrivaled fabric of mobile broadband, thanks to its feature richness, wide spectrum availability, and economy of scale.

As a technology, LTE has many unique characteristics that make it suitable for extension to services beyond basic mobile broadband. LTE is not only built upon improved radio principles with peak data rates beyond 150 Mbps, scalable bandwidth, and low latency but also has a much simplified Internet Protocol (IP)/Internet-based two-node architecture. As a result, LTE broadens the reach of mobile communications in the future by providing a platform for services such as LTE for Public Safety, LTE for TV Broadcast, LTE in Unlicensed and in UHF bands, LTE for M2M, LTE for Device-to-Device communication, and many other applications such as LTE for Connected Cars and for Airplanes.

Public Safety ...