New physical layer features of 3GPP LTE release-13 [Industry Perspectives]

The worldwide proliferation of versatile mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers) over the last few years have clearly changed people's lifestyles. In parallel, the ever increasing demands of mobile broadband Internet have catalyzed a huge market growth of fourth-generation (4G) cellular services, which is mainly facilitated by radio access technologies including Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE), as well as its enhanced version, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). Generally speaking, LTE-A is referred to as Release-10 of 3GPP standards, and its achievable performance makes it a true 4G technology according to the definitions given by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).