Cisco Cisco 1900 2900 3900 Series 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet HS-WIC with PoE
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2. Cellular Technology Evolution to 4G LTE
The basics of the third-generation (3G) and previous-generation cellular networks are covered in the 3G
deployment guide at:
Figure 1. Cellular Technology Evolution
This guide builds on the background of the 3G deployment guide and emphasizes the 4G LTE aspects.
With the advent of the 4G LTE, the new architecture was designed as part of two Third-Generation Partnership
Project (3GPP) work items:
●
System architecture evolution (SAE), which covered the core network
●
Long-term evolution (LTE), which covered the radio access network (RAN), air interface, and mobility
Officially, the whole system is known as the evolved packet system (EPS), and LTE refers only to the evolution of
the air interface. Despite
this official usage, LTE has become a colloquial name for the whole system, and LTE is
regularly used in this way by 3GPP Release 8. The Cisco 4G LTE is an all-IP design to carry multimedia services
over a packet-switched domain. Currently, data services are offered. Voice and other rich-media services will be
available in the future.
2.1 4G LTE Performance Characteristics
The 4G HWIC supports the latest production 3GPP Release 8 cellular standards including Universal Mobile
Telecommunications Service (UMTS), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), and the latest production
Code Division Multiple Access 2000 (CDMA2000) standards, Evolution-Data Optimized (EVDO) Rev A.
shows the CDMA2000 technologies and the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and UMTS
technologies evolving into 4G LTE.