During the past years, there has been a quickly rising interest in radio access tech-
nologies for providing mobile as well as nomadic and fixed services for voice,
video, and data. The difference in design, implementation, and use between
telecom and datacom technologies is also getting more blurred. One example is
cellular technologies from the telecom world being used for broadband data and
wireless LAN from the datacom world being used for voice over IP.
One traditional view of how wireless networks evolve is of a continuous, inevitable progres-
sion to higher link speeds, combined with greater mobility over wider areas. This standpoint
certainly captures the development from first and second generation cellular systems focused
on voice support, and the early short-range wireless data networks, through to today’s 3G
cellular and mobile broadband systems; there is every confidence that the trend will continue
some way into the future.
At present, there is a strong worldwide push toward bringing fiber closer to indi-
vidual homes and businesses. Fiber-to-the-Home/Business (FTTH/B) or close to it
networks are poised to become the next major success story for optical fiber com-
munications. In fact, FTTH connections are currently experiencing double-digit or
even higher growth rates, e.g., in the United States the annual growth rate was 112%
between September 2006 and September 2007, and their presence can add value of
U.S. $4,000–15,000 to the selling price of a home.
The past two decades have witnessed the introduction and unprecedented growth of cellular
mobile telephony and wireless communications. Numerous wireless access technologies
have been introduced in the mobile communications market. While some have flourished
and formed the basis of successful manufacturing and network operator businesses, many
have lived only for a short time and disappeared.
Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) networks have become mainstream over the last few years. What
started out as cable replacement for static desktops in indoor networks has been extended
to fully mobile broadband applications involving moving vehicles, high-speed trains, and
even airplanes.
The telecommunications industry is undoubtedly in a period of radical change with
the advent of mobile broadband radio access and the rapid convergence of Internet
and mobile services. Some of these changes have been enabled by a fundamental
shift in the underlying technologies; mobile networks are now increasingly based
on a pure Internet Protocol (IP) network architecture. Since the first edition of this
book was published in 2009, a multitude of connected devices from eBook readers
to smartphones and even Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies have all started
to benefit from mobile broadband. The sea change over the last few years is only the
beginning of a wave of new services that will fundamentally change our economy, our
society, and even our environment. The evolution towards mobile broadband is one of
the core underlying parts of this revolution and is the focus of this book.
The next-generation wireless broadband technology is changing the way
we work, live, learn, and communicate through effective use of state-
of-the-art mobile broadband technology. The packet-data-based revolu-
tion started around 2000 with the introduction of 1x Evolved Data Only
(1xEV-DO) and 1x Evolved Data Voice (1xEV-DV) in 3GPP2 and High
Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in 3GPP. The wireless broad-
band fourth-generation technology (4G) is an evolution of the packet-
based 3G system and provides a comprehensive evolution of the
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System specifications so as to
remain competitive with other broadband systems such as 802.16e
(WiMAX)
Fundamentals of WiMAX was consciously written to appeal to a broad audience, and to be of
value to anyone who is interested in the IEEE 802.16e standards or wireless broadband networks
more generally. The book contains cutting-edge tutorials on the technical and theoretical under-
pinnings to WiMAX that are not available anywhere else, while also providing high-level over-
views that will be informative to the casual reader.
Providing QoS while optimizing the LTE network in a cost efficient manner is
very challenging. Thus, radio scheduling is one of the most important functions
in mobile broadband networks. The design of a mobile network radio scheduler
holds several objectives that need to be satisfied, for example: the scheduler needs
to maximize the radio performance by efficiently distributing the limited radio re-
sources, since the operator’s revenue depends on it.
This books attempts to provide an extensive overview on Long-Term Evolution
(LTE) networks. Understanding LTE and its Performance is purposely written to
appeal to a broad audience and to be of value to anyone who is interested in 3GPP
LTE or wireless broadband networks more generally. The aim of this book is to
offer comprehensive coverage of current state-of-the-art theoretical and techno-
logical aspects of broadband mobile and wireless networks focusing on LTE. The
presentation starts from basic principles and proceeds smoothly to most advanced
topics. Provided schemes are developed and oriented in the context of very actual
closed standards, the 3 GPPP LTE.
