‘We support operators with the most efficient use of spectrum for LTE’
—Hardeep Saini Director of Engineering, Qualcomm India
Voice&Data: How do you think 4G deployments are coming up in India?
Hardeep Saini: We believe the ecosystem of LTE is very strong, owing to affordable smartphones, newer mobile applications, content and expanding network coverage. 4G is growing at a fast pace in India... Operators already own two 20 MHz pan –India slots for LTE TDD in 2300 MHz and one or two slots 5 MHz slots in 1800 MHz for LTE. 850 MHz spectrum is also being redeployed for LTE.
With the recently concluded spectrum auction the number of spectrum slots available for LTE deployment obviously increases. Operators will typically deploy low and mid-band for coverage and high band for capacity.
Going forward, the 5G in most cases will use 4G as an anchor technology and evolve. Global pre-deployments of 5G will be seen by 2018/19
Voice&Data: What kind of carrier aggregation is there in the India market and how it helps?
Hardeep Saini: If you consider the current spectrum holdings, factoring in the recently concluded spectrum auctions, India has one of the most diverse spectrum holdings in terms of spectrum band. It is critical for operators to aggregate the spectrum across various bands to provide much higher throughput, enhance spectrum utilization and increase overall system capacity.
There are two versions of the technology release we have. LTE release 10 enables aggregation between FDD/ FDD spectrum and LTE release12 enables FDD/TDD aggregation. With the new spectrum, we expect operators to work with device OEMs to support new bands and address carrier aggregation opportunities with new bands. Qualcomm also supports Higher Order Modulation (HOM) 256 QAM to provide higher peak throughput. In the uplink, carrier aggregation and 64 QAM could be deployed to improve the upload performance.
LTE as a technology is almost bandagnostic. We have technology leadership in 4G. Going forward, the 5G in most cases will use 4G as an anchor technology and evolve. We have a lot of ongoing research in that respect and will maintain leadership in 5G as well.
Global pre-deployments of 5G will be seen by 2018/19 There are a number of dependencies there, mainly available spectrum bands, willingness of operators and the ecosystem in general…We are working with all stakeholders in the ecosystem.
Voice&Data: Can you elaborate in more detail on the latest developments related to telecom technologies at Qualcomm?
Hardeep Saini: Qualcomm Technologies is responsible for the continued momentum around telecom technologies. The company has propagated a number of developments related to the technologies: Carrier Aggregation: Qualcomm Technologies has helped make carrier aggregation mainstream with global proliferation, which benefits the entire mobile ecosystem, operators, app developers, and OEMs. It helps in delivering higher data rates, improved capacity, and the ability to use spectrum fragments, as well as helps aggregate wider bandwidths (up to 640 MHz) for Gbps+ data rates by evolving carrier aggregation across more carriers, diverse spectrum types and different cells. Aggregate licensed and unlicensed: Qualcomm is committed to both LTEbased and Wi-Fi based solutions and is in a unique position to support all options to utilize unlicensed and shared spectrum for enhanced local broadband services with gigabit class speeds: LTE-U/LAA, LWA, Wi-Fi, and MulteFire — pioneering shared and unlicensed spectrum technologies today for a unified more capable 5G platform. Utilizing unlicensed and shared spectrum efficiently is essential to meet the ever-increasing demand for wireless data. For mobile operators, the best solution is to aggregate unlicensed spectrum with LTE in licensed spectrum, either by expanding the benefits of LTE to unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U/ LAA) or by aggregating LTE and Wi-Fi (LWA). Extensive testing has verified that LTE in unlicensed spectrum fairly co-exists with Wi-Fi.
Small Cells: Qualcomm Technologies is working with small cell partners to meet the burgeoning data demand with
a suite of Femto Cells (FSM) small cells solutions and by equipping our customers with cutting edge technologies such as LTE-U/LAA and UltraSON. Qualcomm Technologies’ suite of FSM small cell solutions is enabling deployment of small cells both indoors and outdoors, in neighborhoods, small and large businesses and metro environments.
IoT & NB IoT: IoT - We are continuing to expand the capabilities of LTE to accelerate progress in IoT, including driving the new narrowband technologies (eMTC, NB-IoT already standardized in 3GPP) towards commercialization. The key objective of LTE IoT will deliver lower complexity, longer battery life, and deeper coverage for wide-area IoT applications.
Gigabit Class Modem: In 2016, Qualcomm Technologies announced the Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem. To make a Gigabit class LTE modem a reality, Qualcomm Technologies added a suite of enhancements built on a foundation of commercially-proven Carrier Aggregation technology. The Snapdragon X16 LTE modem employs sophisticated digital signal processing to pack more bits per transmission with 256-QAM, as well as receives data on four antennas through 4x4 MIMO, and supports for up to 4x Carrier Aggregation. All of this comes together to achieve unprecedented download speeds.
5G: Qualcomm is leading the technology innovations to make 5G a reality. We are pioneering 5G technologies today with our leadership in LTE. We have been working on new 5G designs for many years, building upon our long-standing expertise in delivering OFDM technology and chips.
Voice&Data: What does LTE stand for and what all it has to offer in terms of, Data (upstream, downstream, carrier aggregation), Voice (VoLTE, VoWiFi), Video (LTE Broadcast)? Hardeep Saini: LTE (Long Term Evolution) is one of the fastest growing wireless technologies of all time; and its succes-