Vision and architecture supporting wireless GBit/sec/km 2 capacity density deployments

Abstract

An IMT-Advanced key requirement for next generation systems is the support for unprecedentedly high throughput per user. This implies an infrastructure — composed of access and backhaul network — capable of supporting the resulting extremely high capacity densities. The current next-generation technologies LTE and WiMAX support a mere 100Mbps/km2 in economical cellular deployment. This is insufficient, in particular in dense urban areas where the market demand for wireless broadband access is the highest, thereby seriously jeopardising the wide scale uptake of IMT-Advanced technologies. BuNGee's (Beyond Next Generation Mobile Broadband, FP7-ICT-2009–4–248267) goal is thus to dramatically improve the overall infrastructure capacity density of the mobile network by an order of magnitude (10×) to an ambitious goal of 1Gbps/km2 in economical cellular deployment — thereby removing the barrier to beyond next-generation networks deployment. To achieve this objective, the project will target a set of breakthroughs such as exploring an unprecedented joint design of access and backhaul over licensed and license exempt spectrum; propose unconventional below-rooftop backbone solutions exploiting natural radio isolation; develop beyond next-generation networked and distributed MIMO and interference mitigation techniques and thus an entire protocol suite facilitating autonomous ultra-high capacity deployment.