Comparison of 3GPP LTE and 3GPP2 UMB

Abstract

In the last years, technology evolution in mobile communications is mainly motivated by three relevant agents: (1) the market globalization and liberalization and the increasing competence among vendors and operators coming from this new framework, (2) the popularization of IEEE 802 wireless technologies within the mobile communications sector and, finally, (3) the exponential increase in the demand for advanced telecommunication services. Concerning the last item, the envisaged applications to be supported by current and future cellular systems include Voice over IP (VoIP), videoconference, push-to-talk over cellular (PoC), multimedia messaging, multiplayer games, audio and video streaming, content download of ring tones, video clips, Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections, web browsing, email access, File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Thus, the race towards IMT-Advanced was officially started in March 2008, when a Circular Letter was distributed asking for the submission of new technology proposals. Previous to this official call, the 3rd Partnership Project (3GPP) established the Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the 3rd Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) established the Ultra Mobile Broadband. In this paper we have conducted a comparative study between UMB and 3GPP LTE by focusing on their first layers, i.e. Physical layer. The comparison specifically includes system architecture, radio aspects of the air interface such as radio access modes, multiple access technologies, multiple antenna technologies, modulation and mobility.