DL - 4G Americas

ideas for potential technologies and promoted views on spectrum required to address a rapidly growing
wireless world.
By the end of 2008, ITU-R advanced beyond the vision and framework and had concluded work on a set
of requirements, which along with evaluation guidelines by which technologies and systems could, in the
near future, be determined as being part of IMT-Advanced and in so doing, earn the right to be
considered 4G.
Starting in 2008 and throughout 2009, ITU-R held an open call for the “first invitation” of 4G (IMT-
Advanced) candidates. Subsequent to the close of the submission period for the first invitation, an
assessment of those candidates' technologies and systems were conducted under the established ITU-R
process, guidelines and timeframes for this IMT-Advanced first invitation.
At year-end 2009, WP 5D received six valid candidate technology submissions for the global mobile
wireless broadband technology known as IMT-Advanced. The six proposals were aligned around the
3GPP LTE Rel-10 and beyond (LTE-Advanced) technology and the IEEE 802.16m technology.
Throughout 2010, the candidate Radio Interface Technologies (RITs) or Set of RITs (SRITs) were
evaluated by Independent Evaluation Groups that were registered in the ITU-R. In this process, the
candidate RITs or SRITs were assessed based on the Report ITU-R M.2133 and ITU-R M.2135-1.
During the evaluation phase, the ITU-R monitored the progress of the evaluation activities and provided
appropriate responses to problems or requests for guidance to facilitate consensus building. To facilitate
the process, ITU-R convened correspondence activities from October 2009 to June 2010 and coordinated
discussion between proponents and Independent Evaluation Groups, and among Independent Evaluation
Groups.
At the end of 2010, ITU-R attained a major milestone in the IMT-Advanced process by announcing the
technologies that it considered as a result of the IMT-Advanced process (principally the results of Steps 4
through 7) to be qualified as IMT-Advanced..
The following is taken from the October 21, 2010, ITU-R press release 105 announcement:
“ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) has completed the assessment of six candidate
submissions for the global 4G mobile wireless broadband technology, otherwise known as IMT-
Advanced. Harmonization among these proposals has resulted in two technologies, “LTE-
Advanced” 106 and “WirelessMAN-Advanced” 107 being accorded the official designation of IMT-
Advanced, qualifying them as true 4G technologies, … ITU-R Working Party 5D, which is charged
with defining the IMT-Advanced global 4G technologies, reached a milestone in its work by
deciding on these technologies for the first release of IMT-Advanced. In the ITU-R Report, which
will be published shortly, the LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced technologies were
each determined to have successfully met all of the criteria established by ITU-R for the first
release of IMT-Advanced.”
105
http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/40.aspx
106
Developed by 3GPP as LTE Release 10 and Beyond (LTE-Advanced).
107
Developed by IEEE as the WirelessMAN-Advanced specification incorporated in IEEE Std 802.16 beginning with approval of
IEEE Std 802.16m.
www.4gamericas.org February 2011 Page 47