LTE - Long Term Evolution|LTE in Railways

LTE - Long Term Evolution|LTE in Railways

 LTE - Long Term Evolution

LTE stands for Long Term Evolution. It is a worldwide standard for 4G wireless transmission of voice and data, the fourth generation of mobile network technology. It was indeed a “long-term evolution" for mobile networks (based on 3G technologies) in 2008 when it started.

The evolution took many years

1G (First generation) 1980’s Let us talk to each other on mobile phones

2G 1990’s Let us send SMS and travel (roaming)

3G 2000’s Introduced some mobile internet experience

4G 2010’s Brought fast internet experience

5G 2020’s Brings super-fast internet and much more

Mobile network generations: from 1G to 5G

Evolution of LTE

Long Term Evolution (LTE) was started as a project in 2004 by a telecommunication body known

as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). SAE (System Architecture Evolution) is the

corresponding evolution of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/3G packet core network

evolution. The term LTE is typically used to represent both LTE and SAE.

LTE evolved from an earlier 3GPP system known as the Universal Mobile Telecommunication

System (UMTS), which in turn evolved from the Global System for Mobile Communications

(GSM). Even, related specifications were formally known as the evolved UMTS terrestrial radio

access (E-UTRA) and evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN). The first

version of LTE was documented in Release 8 of the 3GPP specifications.

The main goal of LTE is to provide a high data rate, low latency and packet-optimized radio

access technology supporting flexible bandwidth deployments. Same time its network architecture

has been designed to support packet-switched traffic with seamless mobility and great quality of

service

3GPP

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is an international partnership project of

major SDOs (Standards Development Organizations) of the world, including Telecom

Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) – the national SDO of India. LTE is a

technology defined by 3GPP. 3GPP develops and maintains global technical specifications to

make sure that network equipment and handset manufacturers can develop products that are

interoperable all over the world. The 7 telecommunications standard development organizations

(or 3GPP’s Organizational Partners) use these specifications to create the standards.

3GPP Organizational Partners

The 3GPP organizational partners or standard development organizations include:

1. ARIB - The Association of Radio Industries and Businesses, Japan

2. ATIS - The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, USA

3. CCSA - China Communications Standards Association

4. ETSI - The European Telecommunications Standards Institute

5. TSDSI - Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India

6. TTA - Telecommunications Technology Association, Korea

7. TTC - Telecommunication Technology Committee, Japan

Several Railway organizations around the world are looking to migrate from the existing

technologies to the advanced ones in order to meet their current and future requirements. LTE

(Long-Term Evolution) is one of the strong contenders as a technology capable of meeting

the diverse requirements of Railways. LTE is a technology defined by 3GPP (3rd Generation

partnership Project), an international partnership project of major SDOs (Standards

Development Organizations) of the world, including Telecom Standards Development

Society, India (TSDSI) – the national SDO of India. LTE, which was initially designed for 

regular Public Mobile Communications, is now being enhanced for various other domains

including Railways. UIC has set up Future Rail Mobile Communications System (FRMCS)

project to prepare the necessary steps towards the introduction of a successor of GSM-R. The

Future Railway Mobile Communication System - FRMCS has been prepared by UIC in order

to have a Mobile Train Communication System based on LTE termed as LTE-R

Overview of LTE

Long Term Evolution (LTE), also referred as 4G, is the latest family of mobile

communication standards developed by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The first

release of the LTE standard was published almost 20 years after the GSM standard. LTE is a

result of many developments and advances in telecommunications and electronics that

occurred during these years. Thus, from the telecommunications point of view, there are huge

differences between these two mobile technologies. All the evolution from GSM to LTE was

motivated by the needs of commercial mobile networks. The new solutions are optimized for

this type of networks. However, most of these enhancements are equally relevant to railway

mobile networks.

The main goal of LTE is to provide a high data rate, low latency and packet optimized radio

access technology supporting flexible bandwidth deployments. Same time its network

architecture has been designed with the goal to support packet-switched traffic with seamless

mobility and great quality of service.