LTE-A Component Carriers sizing and LTE Band Blocks

[nephipower]

LTE Advanced (LTE-A) is able to provide faster speeds by using carrier aggregation which combines different LTE Component Carriers (CC). This article gives the basics for how it works.

 

http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/lte-long-term-evolution/4g-lte-advanced-carrier-channel-aggregation.php

 

As you can see by this image in the article there can be different combinations of contiguous or non-contiguous CCs.

 

http://www.radio-electronics.com/images/lte-carrier-aggregation-03.gif

 

What I am trying to better understand how is the component carrier size is determined inside a LTE band if a carrier is licensed for some contiguous and non-contiguous blocks within a band. It is very common in a market for a carrier to have different Blocks of an LTE band.

 

For example, lets assume in a city a carrier is licensed for AWS3 Blocks G, H and J. Using the chart below you can see that Blocks G & H are contiguous spectrum and there is a gap between Block H and J.

 

http://www.commlawblog.com/files/2014/04/aws-3-charts-1.jpg

 

So for carrier aggregation would Blocks G & H be considered 1 component carrier (CC) and Block J would be 1 CC?

 

Or would Blocks G, H, and J be considered 1 CC even though there is a gap between H & J?

 

[lilotimz]

 

L

 

 

Every on air LTE carrier is considered a component carrier if they're aggregated. It does not matter what spectrum it uses or how much bandwidth it encompasses. 

[nephipower]

Every on air LTE carrier is considered a component carrier if they're aggregated. It does not matter what spectrum it uses or how much bandwidth it encompasses. 

 

 

I don't understand what your response is really answering. That seems like a vague statement.

 

Define what you mean when you say "LTE carrier"?

 

Basically the whole point of my post was to help understand the definition of LTE component carrier since in all my searching online I couldn't find out a definition of that in relation to LTE Band Blocks.

[lilotimz]

I don't understand what your response is really answering. That seems like a vague statement.

 

Define what you mean when you say "LTE carrier"?

 

Basically the whole point of my post was to help understand the definition of LTE component carrier since in all my searching online I couldn't find out a definition of that in relation to LTE Band Blocks.

 

Because you're overthinking this.

 

A component carrier is a LTE carrier that is aggregated with another. Again, what spectrum it uses (AWS1/PCS/CLR850/700 etc etc) does not matter. 

 

Interband carrier aggregation aggregates two LTE carriers from two different frequencies (ie PCS B2 or AWS1- B4) with one being designated by the eNB as the PCC and one as the SCC. 

 

Intraband carrier aggregation can come in two forms.

 

One is contiguous where the spectrum available to use exceeds the 3GPP LTE carrier size bandwidths of 1.4/3/5/10/15/20 MHz such as Sprint who in many places have up to 60 MHz of spectrum available in the 2.5 GHz frequencies. There is no standard to allow 60 MHz LTE carriers so the best way to utilize all the spectrum is to fire up 3 individual 20 MHz LTE carriers and aggregate them. These three LTE carriers are then component carriers when aggregated with each other with one being the primary (PCC) and the other two being the secondary (SCC). 

 

The other is intraband non contiguous where the LTE carriers is within the same band say LTE B2 but there's a gap in licensed frequencies such as being licensed 20 MHz (10x10) of PCS A block and 10 MHz (5x5) of PCS C block. Using carrier aggregation, the two LTE carriers can be aggregated and are called component carriers. 

[nephipower]

Ah ok, that makes more sense now. The reason I am asking about these questions is so I can figure out how many component carriers exist in my city. Then I can see how much more potential there is for increased speeds in areas once 4CA becomes available in UE and carriers.

 

So based upon my example above since it would be intraband non-contiguous it would be 2 CC.

 

Thank you for explaining things.

[Tengen31]

Ah ok, that makes more sense now. The reason I am asking about these questions is so I can figure out how many component carriers exist in my city. Then I can see how much more potential there is for increased speeds in areas once 4CA becomes available in UE and carriers.

 

So based upon my example above since it would be intraband non-contiguous it would be 2 CC.

 

Thank you for explaining things.

4xca is on the list of plans for the companies. However att is the only one that can do as alot of cities they have 5 band Deployed. VZW could do it when the reframe 850 MHz to B5. Sprint could with a 4th B41 or if they did it with the current 3 carriers then added B25 on to it.

 

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[dkyeager]

Don't forget Sprint is also testing in the field CA 25 which could be used just with on b25 for greater speeds benefiting the edge. Unfortunately, we have not found it yet.

 

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