Section: Application Domains

Mobile radio access networks

The future mobile radio access network referred to as 4G (4th generation) is expected to provide a wireless access of 100 Mbps in extended mobility and up to 1Gbps in reduced mobility as defined by the group IMT-Advanced of the ITU-R(adiocommunication) section. On the road towards the 4G, IMT-2000 standards evolutions are driven by the work of the WiMAX forum (IEEE 802.16e) on the one hand and by those of the LTE (Long Term Evolution) group of the 3GPP on the other hand. Both groups announced some targeted evolutions that could comply with the 4G requirements, namely the Gigabit Wimax (802.16m) and the LTE-Advanced proposal from the 3GPP.

In both technologies, the scarcity of the radio spectrum is handled by the use of MIMO and OFDMA technologies combining the dynamic spatial and frequency multiple access. A dynamic allocation of the radio resources, and a complete reconfigurability of the terminals will be required to cope with these 4G requirements.