LTE carrier Aggregation

LTE is specified in 3GPP release 8 and 9. LTE advanced is specified in 3GPP release 10. The
main difference between them is, carrier aggregation has been introduced in LTE Advanced.
Also the number of antennas supported by MIMO has been increased to 8 in LTE Advanced.

1. Carrier Aggregation
Carrier aggregation (CA) is used in LTE-Advanced in order to increase the bandwidth, and
thereby increasing the bitrate. Hence it will support higher data rate compared to non-CA
device. It is applied for both TDD and FDD (DL Speeds up to 1 Gbps and UL Speeds up
to 500Mbps).

Each aggregated carrier is referred to as a component carrier, CC. The component carrier
can have a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz and a maximum of 5 component
carriers can be aggregated, hence the maximum aggregated bandwidth is 100 MHz. In FDD
the number of aggregated carriers can be different in DL and UL. However, the number of
UL component carriers is always equal to or lower than the number of DL component
carriers. The individual component carriers can also be of different bandwidths. For TDD the
number of CCs as well as the bandwidths of each CC will normally be the same for DL and
UL.

1.1 Types of CA
1. Intra-band contiguous - The component carriers belong to the same
operating frequency band. This might not always be possible, due to
operator frequency allocation scenarios. E.g. 3C, 7C, 38C

2. Intra-band non-contiguous - The component carriers belong to the same

operating frequency band, but have gaps, in between so that they don’t
overlap. E.g. 3A-3A, 7A-7A.

3. Inter-band non-contiguous – The component carriers belong to different

operating frequency bands so they have gaps in between. E.g. 3A-7A, 7A-
20A, 3A-38A.
1.2 Carrier Aggregation - Secondary Cells (SCell)
In CA the UE is camped to only one cell (PCell) called the Primary serving cell, served by the
Primary component carrier (PCC). The other component carriers are all referred to as
Secondary component carriers (SCC), served by the Secondary serving cells (SCell). The SCC’s
are added and removed as required, while the PCC is only changed at handover.

If the UE is configured with one or more SCells, the Enodeb may activate and deactivate the
configured SCells. Activation/Deactivation does not apply to PCell. When 2 CC’s are
combined it is called 2 Carrier Aggregation (2CA). Similarly, we can combine 3CC, 4CC and
5CC and are called as 3CA, 4CA and 5CA, respectively. Below diagram shows the throughput
based up on number of component carriers when combined.
A typical use case of activation of the SCell would be when there is a need of more data to
delivered to the UE in the downlink, the network can activate several secondary CCs to
maximize downlink throughput. Another use case could be that if the PCell is fully loaded,
the SCell can be activated and the data transfer can be scheduled only on the SCell (Load
balancing). The network can deactivate the SCell when there is no more data to be delivered
to the UE or the channel quality of the SCell turning to be bad.

SCell Activation is done via MAC Control Element whereas the deactivation mechanism is

either by using MAC control element or by the expiry of the SCellDeactivationTimer.

1.3 CA Bandwidth Class

It indicates a combination of maximum ATBC (Aggregated Transmission Bandwidth
Configuration) and maximum number of    Component Carriers (CC).
1.4 Intra-band contiguous channel spacing
For Intra-band contiguous we have to take in to account the nominal channel spacing. For
intra-band contiguous carrier aggregation with two or more component carriers, the
nominal channel spacing between two adjacent E-UTRA component carriers is defined as
the following:

where BW Channel(1) and BWChannel(2) are the channel bandwidths of the two respective
E-UTRA component carriers.
 PCC – Primary Component Carrier (PCell)
 SCC – Secondary Component Carrier (SCell)
 
For example: 2CA band 40C
If we are planning to set a PCell of bandwidth 20 MHz(BW1) and a SCell of bandwidth 20
MHz(BW2) then the nominal spacing will be calculated as follows,
 
Nominal Channel Spacing = FLOOR.MATH((20+20-0.1*ABS(20-20))/0.6)*0.3
        = FLOOR.MATH((40+0.1*0)/0.6)*0.3
        = FLOOR.MATH(40/0.6)*0.3
        = FLOOR.MATH(66.6666667)*0.3
Nominal Channel Spacing = (66)*0.3 => 19.8 MHz
 
NOTE: (You can put the line “FLOOR.MATH((20+20-0.1*ABS(20-20))/0.6)*0.3” directly into
Excel and it should give you 19.8).

Which means for Intra-band contiguous the Channel Spacing should be a multiple of 300
KHz and equal to (or) less than Nominal Channel Spacing,
Channel Spacing < Nominal Channel Spacing
 
Channel Spacing = ((BW1+BW2)/2).
If we take the PCC EARFCN=39000, Frequency=2335, Bandwidth=20 MHz then the SCC is
calculated as,
SCC EARFCN = PCC EARFCN + 19.8 * 10
                         = 39000 + 198
                         = 39198
 
SCC EARFCN=39198, Frequency=2354.8, Bandwidth=20 MHz
 
The Nominal Channel Spacing is 19.8 MHz (2335 – 2354.8) which is less than or equal to
Channel Spacing of 19.8 MHz. Only when this condition is satisfied it is treated as Intra-band
contiguous.
 
For intra-band non-contiguous carrier aggregation the channel spacing between two E-UTRA
component carriers in different sub-blocks shall be larger than the nominal channel spacing.
(ie) The combination is considered as 40A-40A,
Channel Spacing > Nominal Channel Spacing

The same method, but let’s say for 2CA band 7C with 10 and 20 MHz bandwidth and PCC
EARFCN=3100,
Nominal Channel Spacing = FLOOR.MATH((10+20-0.1*ABS(10-20))/0.6)*0.3
                                           = 14.4 MHz
                  SCC EARFCN = 3100+14.4*10 = 3244
 
Similarly, for bandwidth 10 + 10 Nominal Channel Spacing = 9.9MHz.
                For bandwidth 10 + 5 Nominal Channel Spacing = 7.2MHz.
                For bandwidth 5 + 5 Nominal Channel Spacing = 4.8MHz.

1.5 Difference between Primary Cell and Secondary Cell (PCell vs SCell)

2. Understanding the CA Downlink Band Combinations from UE Capability

Lets have a look at how the LTE downlink CA band combinations are retrieved from the "UE
Capability Information" message. The list of downlink CA band combinations supported by
the UE are mentioned under the IE “supportedBandCombination-r10”. The element
“bandEUTRA-r10” mentions the LTE bands and the element “ca-BandwidthClassDL-r10”
mentions the Aggregated Transmission Bandwidth Combination a, b or c in downlink.

In Carrier Aggregation downlink there is only one PCell(Serving cell) but can contain any
number of SCell's(Neighboring cell). In downlink CA combination there will only be one LTE
band with both the elements "ca-BandwidthClassDL-r10" and "ca-BandwidthClassUL-r10".
This will always be the PCell and the other bands will be the SCell(s).

In the below figure, there are some examples of how to find the 2CA and 3CA band
combinations in downlink. When you understand 2CA & 3CA then you will easily understand
how to find 4CA & 5CA combinations from the UE capability.
 
In the below figure you will see some examples of 2CA band combinations. The supported
2 CA downlink band combinations are 3a-7a, 3c and 3a-3a.

In the below figure you will see some examples of 3CA band combinations. The supported 3 CA
downlink band combinations are 3a-7a-20a and 3c-7a.
3- Understanding the CA Uplink Band Combinations from UE Capability

UL CA combines two or more component carriers, transmitted from a UE to the wireless
base station, dramatically increasing the speed with which a user can upload content and
files. As of now there is only 2 carrier aggregation (2CA) in uplink. Therefore in Carrier
Aggregation uplink there is only one PCell(Serving cell) and only one SCell(Neighboring cell).
 
Lets have a look at how the LTE uplink CA band combinations are retrieved from the "UE
Capability Information" message. The list of uplink CA band combinations supported by the
UE are mentioned under the IE “supportedBandCombination-r10”. The element
“bandEUTRA-r10” mentions the LTE bands and the element “ca-BandwidthClassUL-r10”
mentions the Aggregated Transmission Bandwidth Combination a, b or c in uplink.

In uplink CA combination both LTE bands will contain the elements "ca-BandwidthClassDL-
r10" and "ca-BandwidthClassUL-r10". In this case the PCell and SCell can be any(However
the UE selects its PCell and SCell based up on the priority set by the network operator).

In the below figure you will see some examples of 2CA band combinations. The supported
2 CA uplink band combinations are 3c and 3a-20a/20a-3a.
 LTE category 6:
LTE Category 6, as laid out by 3GPP, is a platform designed to allow for increased
connectivity and speeds, and to provide a basis upon which further, more advanced
networks as defined by LTE Cat. 9 and LTE Cat. 11 can be built upon.

But what exactly is LTE Cat 6? In this article, we’ll take a look at the basics about this
technology, and discuss where it’s been implemented worldwide

LTE Cat 6 Doubles The Speeds Offered By LTE Networks

LTE networks, as laid out in 3GPP release 4, have a maximum bit rate of approximately 150 Mbit/s,
but most LTE networks in America have still not even implemented release 4 – and are still using Cat
3. networks with maximum bandwidth throughputs of less than 100 Mbit/s. The LTE Cat 6 network is
a method by which speeds can be easily doubled or tripled. There are two primary methods by which
these speeds can be achieved.
Method1:

Dual Band Antenna

Most modern smartphones actually already have this capability built in, and have been designed
with both 2600-MHz and 1800-MHz frequency antennas built in. Even older phones, like the iPhone
5s, have this capability.

Basically, this allows wireless providers to built two synchronized, simultaneous frequency bands on
top of each other, and by more evenly distributing traffic across their networks, they will be able to
increase the speed – even of people who lack dual band antennas.
Think of phones with dual-band antennas like sports cars – when the 2600MHz band is opened up,
they’ll be able to switch lanes, and those of us stuck on the 1800MHz frequency will be able to take
advantage of their absence by speeding up.
By allowing traffic to be distributed across multiple frequencies, the speed of the entire network will
increase, and dual-band phones will be able to hit download speeds of oup to 300 Mbit/s.

Method 2:

LTE Carrier Aggregation is a very complex concept – if you’d like a thorough,

technical explanation, head over to 3GPP – but we’ll break it down for you here.

Essentially, LTE carrier aggregation allows “component carriers” to aggregate into

more effective, high-bandwidth networks. Currently, up to 5 component carriers can
be combined, each with a maximum bandwidth of 20 MHz – meaning that an
aggregated LTE carrier can have up to 100 MHz.
The interesting part of LTE carrier aggregation is not all of your component carriers
have to be the same bandwidth – you can utilize underused, lower-bandwidth
carriers to take some of the load off of higher bandwidth carriers. This allows for
overall faster speeds, better efficiency, and a much more responsive network.

LTE Cat 6 Is The Future

3GPP has a history of creating wireless standards long before they can be used. In
fact, the first LTE standard was supported only by specific wireless routers at its
inception in 2007 – cellphones complex enough to use the first LTE standards didn’t
come into being until about 2013.

So while LTE Cat 6 adoption is slow in the United States, its certainly the future of
wireless connectivity both in the US and abroad, and once these technologies are
fully implemented, it will certainly revolutionize how we communicate with each other
– and with wireless networks.