LTE-Advanced = IMT-Advanced = 4G(or 5G?)

The 3GPP TSG RAN workshop on IMT-Advanced was held (in the week after the RAN WG meetings) on April 7-8, 2008 in Shenzhen, China hosted by ZTE Corporations. The main conclusions from the workshop are:

• LTE Advanced shall be an evolution of LTE.
  o LTE terminal shall be supported in LTE-advanced networks.
  o An LTE-Advanced terminal can work in an LTE part of the network.
  o Primary focus of LTE-Advanced is low mobility users.
• All requirements/targets in TR25.913 apply to LTE-Advanced.LTE-Advanced requirements shall fulfill IMT-Advanced requirements within the ITU-R time plan
• For LTE-Advanced:
  o Same inter-RAT interworking capability with at least same performance as in LTE Release 8
  o Intra-RAT handover performance shall be same or better than LTE Release 8
• As a way forward for LTE-Advanced it was agreed:
  o TSG RAN email reflector for LTE-Advanced will be established (the new reflector is called 3GPP_TSG_RAN_LTE_ADVANCED and it is available since 21.04.2008)
  § Email discussions on LTE-Advanced requirements will be started on this reflector (moderator: Takehiro Nakamura, NTT DoCoMo, LTE-Advanced SI rapporteur).
  o A new TR will be created (after the workshop it was decided to create TR 36.913 "Requirements for LTE-Advanced") to include LTE-Advanced requirements and updated by RAN WG meetings in May 2008 referring to structure of 25.913 and outcome of the workshop.(note: Allocation of the TR number 36.xyz was done after the workshop.)
  o Review of the outcome of this workshop and kick-off of discussions about LTE-Advanced requirements and technical solutions in RAN WG meetings in May 2008 in Kansas City.The goal is to complete LTE-Advanced requirements at RAN #40 in Prague end of May 2008 according to agreed work plan (i.e. TR 36.913 will be provided to RAN #40).