E-UTRA is expected to support different types of services including web browsing, FTP, videostreaming, VoIP, online gaming, real time video, push-to-talk and push-to-view. Therefore, LTE isbeing designed to be a high data rate and low latency system as indicated by the key performancecriteria shown in Table 1. The bandwidth capability of a UE is expected to be 20MHz for both transmissionand reception. The service provider can however deploy cells with any of the bandwidthslisted in the table.
This gives flexibility to the service providers’ to tailor their offering dependenton the amount of available spectrum or the ability to start with limited spectrum for lower upfrontcost and grow the spectrum for extra capacity.Beyond the metrics LTE is also aimed at minimizing cost and power consumption while ensuringbackward-compatibility and a cost effective migration from UMTS systems. Enhanced multicastservices, enhanced support for end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) and minimization of the numberof options and redundant features in the architecture are also being targeted.The spectral efficiency in the LTE DownLink (DL) will be 3 to 4 times of that of Release 6 HSDPAwhile in the UpLink (UL), it will be 2 to 3 times that of Release 6 HSUPA.
The handover procedurewithin LTE is intended to minimize interruption time to less than that of circuit-switched handoversin 2G networks. Moreover the handovers to 2G/3G systems from LTE are designed to beseamless.
