If you go by 3GPP and common sense it can be expected that most operators having an LTE network today will launch 5G as what is referred to as 5G EN-DC (eUTRAN New Radio – Dual Connectivity), a.k.a. 5G NR ‘option 3’ in 3GPP circles. In other words, mobile devices will still camp on the … Continue reading What Comes After 5G EN-DC?
In the previous post I looked at 3GPP TS 23.401 and how the UE, the RAN and the LTE core network signal their 5G capabilities. TS 23.401 states that the LTE eNodeB signals a locally connected 5G gNB to the UE. But how does it actually do that?
In many cases 5G will come to smartphones, tablets and other devices in the form of 4G-5G dual-connectivity, also referred to as EN-DC (E-UTRAN New Radio – Dual Connectivity). While the mobile is in Idle state it will camp on a 4G LTE cell. A 5G NR cell is only added by the network once … Continue reading LTE Core Network Enhancements for 5G EN-DC
5G is many things to different people. For most, 5G is about more network capacity and faster speeds for Internet access. The main challenge for this goal is that there is little spectrum still available below 6 GHz, a frequency that is generally seen as the limit for the current air interface technologies around. So … Continue reading The 28 GHz 5G Frontier
Time flies and it’s already 3 years since the previous edition of my book became available. Time for an update and I’ve worked hard over the course of the past 12 months to ensure my introduction book on wireless networks continues to reflect the latest state of how the technology is deployed and functions in … Continue reading From GSM to LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G – My Latest Book Is Now Available!
In the first part of this series, I emphasized that in 3GPP Release 15, a major focus is to get a first incarnation of 5G into the field that complements 4G LTE. Instead of today’s approach where a device is either connected to GSM, or to UMTS or to LTE, i.e. only to one technology … Continue reading 5G – Part 3 – Dual Connectivity (EN-DC)
One of the new features of 5G networks is ‘Network Slicing’. So far I couldn’t really get my head around the concept, everything I heard was just too abstract to make practical sense. Finally, however, things are getting more concrete and 3GPP TS 38.300 has an interesting section of how network slicing will work on … Continue reading 5G – Part 2 – Some Thoughts On Network Slicing
Two and a half years ago in March 2015 I had my first post on 5G on this site about 3GPP kicking off its 5G activities. A lot has happened since then and I had the occasional post but now things are getting really exciting for me: Various 3GPP groups have started churning out the … Continue reading 5G – Part 1 – A First Look Into The TS’es
So far I was really wondering why the industry is doing 5G in the first place for frequency bands below 5 GHz and why a new core network architecture is required and useful!? At last I have now found one interesting answer for the core network side: Let’s revamp security and privacy and make it … Continue reading Encrypted IMSIs in 5G
In a previous post on this topic I was asking if anyone knew what the ‘g’ in gNB stood for. I got quite a number of suggestions but nobody knew for certain. So I dug a bit deeper and found the person who actually suggested the term.