LTE for Public Safety

1Introduction to LTE/SAE

1.1 Role of 3GPP

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (in short 3GPP) is a joint international standardization initiative between North American (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS)), European (European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)), and Asian organizations (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) and Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) in Japan, Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) in Korea and China Communication Standards Association (CCSA) in China) that was originally established in December 1998. The participating organizations are also called organizational partners. Scope of 3GPP was to specify a new worldwide mobile radio system (the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) was a European initiative while Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) was initiated in North America, both are not compatible with each other) based on the evolved GSM techniques General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/EDGE. This activity has led to the standardization of the third-generation Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), which consists of Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) as radio technology and a core network supporting both circuit-based voice calls and packet-based data services. UMTS was meant as a universal standard that allows subscribers to use their UMTS-capable mobile phones and subscriptions worldwide through roaming (for an explanation of the term “roaming,” ...