White Paper: Broadband Multi-Carrier Based Air Interface (version 1.4)

Paper in proceeding, 2002

The future success of the mobile communications revolution strongly depends on increasing the data rate and quality of service (QoS) available to the mobile user. This will enable value added services, which are not possible with current state of the art mobile wireless radio systems. While an increase in data rate, and maybe to some extent also QoS, could be achieved by combining techniques in the form of multi mode terminals (e.g. UMTS and wireless LAN), this has the disadvantage that for each new scenario another mode has to be added. The combination may also not be suitable for the mobility requirements of wireless radio systems. This paper proposes using a broadband multi-carrier based air interface. It also includes a discussion of the enabling technologies for multi-carrier mobile systems and the technology trends for future research. The multi-carrier technology offers the desired high data rates for the 4G mobile environments and also has advantages for spectral efficiency and low-cost implementation.