LTE Release 12 - taking another step toward the Networked Society

The evolution of LTE is key to the realization of Ericsson’s vision of a Networked Society. This vision means that, in the future, anything that benefits from being connected will be connected – from parking meters and house alarms to cars and trash cans.

The wireless communication systems of the future will have to enable access to information and sharing of data anywhere and anytime for anyone and anything. As a consequence of this, the systems of tomorrow will have to overcome the following three main challenges:

A massive growth in the number of connected devices.
A massive growth in traffic volume.
A wide range of applications, each with specific requirements and characteristics.
The development of LTE Release 12 has just started, one aim being to address these challenges through a number of system enhancements.

First, important areas for improvement include capacity, QoE and energy efficiency in macro deployments through additional support for enhanced multi-antenna transmission and advanced receivers, and the introduction of a new lean carrier type.

Second, capacity and QoE in local areas must be improved by further enhancements of LTE small-cell deployments, and increased possibilities to closely integrate LTE and Wi-Fi deployments.

Third, the applicability of the next release of LTE should extend to new use cases through the introduction of features to improve the support for, for example, machine-type communication (MTC) and national security and public safety (NSPS) services including the support for device-to- device (D2D) communication.

With these enhancements in place, LTE will further strengthen its position as the dominant wireless access technology of the future.