Fundamentals of

5G Communications
Connectivity for Enhanced
Mobile Broadband and Beyond

Wanshi Chen, Ph.D.

Peter Gaal, Ph.D.
Juan Montojo, Ph.D.
Haris Zisimopoulos, [Link].

New York Chicago San Francisco

Athens London Madrid
Mexico City Milan New Delhi
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[Link] 1 27-05-2021 10:18:03

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Fundamentals of 5G Communications:
Connectivity for Enhanced Mobile Broadband and Beyond

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 Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii
1 5G versus 4G: What’s New?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 LTE: A Success Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Physical Layer Changes in 5G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Protocol Changes in 5G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.5 Main Physical Layer Features of LTE over Releases. . . . . . . . . . . 16
2 Deployment Scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 LTE-NR Spectrum Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Switched NR UL Carrier Aggregation Enhancements . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Nonaligned Carrier Aggregation Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4 Frequency Ranges and Frequency Bands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3 Architecture Options for 5G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 The 5G RAN Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3 The 5G Core. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4 EPC versus 5GC (What Is 5GC For?). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5 Main Functional Entities of the 5G Core. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.6 High-Level Features of 5G Core. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.7 Network Slicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.8 QoS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.9 Interworking with Non-3GPP Access Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.10 Policy Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.11 5G Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.12 Access Control and Barring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.13 Support for Operator and Regulatory Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.14 Interworking with EPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.15 EPC to 5GC Migration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4 Evolution of 5G Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.2 Non-Public Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3 Cellular V2X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.4 Cellular IoT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.5 “Big Data” Collection (Enhanced Network Automation). . . . . . . 95

iii

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4.6 Enhancements to Interworking with Non-3GPP Accesses. . . . . . 97

4.7 URLLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.8 Slice Authentication. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.9 Other Release 16 Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5 Numerology and Slot Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.1 Numerology and Slot Structure in 4G LTE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.2 Lessons Learned from 4G LTE and 5G Considerations. . . . . . . . 104
5.3 SCSs for 5G NR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4 Frequency Ranges, Bandwidths, and Bands for 5G NR. . . . . . . . 110
5.5 gNB Channel Bandwidth versus UE Channel Bandwidth. . . . . . 112
5.6 Symbol, Slot, Subframe, and Frame for 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.7 Slot Structure for 5G NR and Forward Compatibility
Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6 Initial Access and Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.2 Initial Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.3 Random Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.4 Paging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.5 Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
7 Downlink Control Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.1 Downlink Control in 4G LTE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.2 Control Region Management in 5G NR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.3 PDCCH Structure in 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.4 Search Space for NR PDCCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
7.5 DCI Formats for NR PDCCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7.6 Physical Layer Block Diagram for NR PDCCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.7 Power Saving Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8 Downlink Data Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
8.1 Channel Coding for Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
8.2 Channel Code Rate Matching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
8.3 DL Soft Buffer Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
8.4 DL MCS and TBS Determination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.5 DL Resource Allocation in the Time Domain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.6 DL Resource Allocation in the Frequency Domain. . . . . . . . . . . . 207
8.7 DL Rate Matching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
8.8 DL HARQ Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
8.9 DL Data Rate Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
8.10 Processing Time for DL Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
8.11 Demodulation Reference Signals for Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
8.12 PDSCH DM-RS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
8.13 DL Phase Tracking Reference Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
8.14 Channel State Information Reference Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
8.15 Tracking Reference Signal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

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8.16 DL MIMO Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

8.17 CSI Feedback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
8.18 Beam Management for the PDSCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
8.19 Signal Quasi Co-Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
9 Uplink Control Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
9.1 Uplink Control in 4G LTE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
9.2 UCI Types and Payload Sizes in 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
9.3 PUCCH Formats in 5G NR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
9.4 PUCCH Resource Determination in 5G NR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
9.5 UCI on PUSCH in 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
9.6 Channel Coding for UCI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
10 Uplink Data Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
10.1 UL MCS and TBS Determination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
10.2 UL Resource Allocation in the Time Domain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
10.3 UL Resource Allocation in the Frequency Domain. . . . . . . . . . . . 332
10.4 UL Rate Matching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
10.5 UL HARQ Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
10.6 UL Soft Buffer Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
10.7 UL Data Rate Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
10.8 Processing Time for UL Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
10.9 PUSCH DM-RS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
10.10 UL Phase Tracking Reference Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
10.11 Sounding Reference Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
10.12 UL MIMO Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
10.13 Beam Management for the PUSCH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
10.14 UL Power Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
10.15 UL Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
11 Coexistence of 4G and 5G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
11.1 Adjacent Channel Coexistence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
11.2 Same Channel Coexistence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
11.3 EN-DC Power Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
11.4 Switched EN-DC UL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
12 5G in Unlicensed and Shared Spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
12.1 Unlicensed Operation in LTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
12.2 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
12.3 Channel Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
12.4 Discovery Burst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
12.5 Physical Layer Extensions for Uplink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
12.6 Increased Scheduling Flexibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
13 Vertical Expansion: URLLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
13.1 A Brief History of 3GPP Standardization Related to URLLC. . . . 416
13.2 Use Cases and Deployment Scenarios for 5G NR URLLC. . . . . . 421
13.3 Resource Management for URLLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

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13.4 Optimizing Link Efficiency for URLLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

13.5 Downlink Resource Sharing for Distinct Service Types. . . . . . . . 435
13.6 Uplink Resource Sharing for Distinct Service Types. . . . . . . . . . . 440
13.7 Handling Distinct Services at the UE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
13.8 Other Related Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
14 Vertical Expansion: MTC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
14.1 A Brief History of MTC in 3GPP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
14.2 Key Technical Enablers for eMTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
14.3 Key Technical Enablers for NB-IoT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
14.4 Integration of eMTC and NB-IoT into 5G NR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
14.5 Future Trends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
15 5G Vertical Expansion: V2X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
15.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
15.2 Background: LTE V2X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
15.3 NR V2X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
16 Vertical Expansion: Broadcast and Multicast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
17 Miscellaneous Topics for 5G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
17.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
17.2 Interference Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
17.3 UE Power Savings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
17.4 NR Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
17.5 Two-Step RACH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
17.6 Multi-RAT DC/CA Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
17.7 Mobility Enhancements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
17.8 Integrated Access and Backhaul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
18 A Look at Typical 5G Commercial Deployments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
19 5G: What’s Next?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
19.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
19.2 Radio Projects in Release 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
19.3 Systems Projects in Release 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
19.4 NR Expansion into Higher Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
19.5 Sidelink Beyond V2X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
19.6 Relaying Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
19.7 Edge Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
19.8 On the Path to 6G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

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 Foreword

S
everal years ago, around the time that 3GPP was starting its work item to develop
a 5G standard and almost 2 years before the first claimed deployment of new radio
(NR), I started to wear the 3GPP 5G1 lapel pin. To my amazement, many people
outside of the cellular industry — I’m talking about artists and teachers — recognized
5G. This is a testament to the ubiquity and importance of cellular technology in society,
and the visibility of previous generations of technology, epitomized by “4G LTE.”
In 2010, when 4G was launched, the goal was better connectivity to the smartphone.
5G is so much more. As a result, I have often termed 5G as both a technology and a
movement. In this book, the authors are addressing the technology; however, we can-
not ignore the movement, as it is the movement which is driving technology. Central to
the movement is the emerging ubiquity of connectivity. Today, almost everyone has a
smartphone which has replaced the wired telephone, the TV, the camera, and the watch.
The cellular subscriber’s personal platform has evolved to include not only the smart-
phone, but also their smart watch, ear buds and microphone, augmented or virtual
reality glasses, and pointer device. The connectivity is expanding to many other objects
around us. Transforma Insights has estimated that by 2030, there will be over 24 billion
internet of things (IoT) devices—about three connected devices for every human in the
world, and many times this number when one considers just the developed world. This
connectedness is leading to many businesses examining 5G to determine the benefits
that it can provide, such as greater operational efficiencies. As a result, this has led to
a shift in the vision of cellular communications to beyond the cell phone, to a world
where almost everything around us is connected.
The Gs in cellular technologies seemingly magically appear about every 10 years.
The first G, what we call analog cellular, appeared in the early 1980s. The most success-
ful of these analog systems was advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) with the first
service launched in the United States in October 1983. It was essentially an FM mobile
radio, with a connection to a telephone central office, a bit of control to send dialed
digits and to manage the call, and the ability to manage a radio channel and to perform
handoff. It was primitive by today’s standards, but it worked. Mobile telephone sys-
tems actually date from 1949 with the commercial introduction of mobile telephone sys-
tem (MTS). However, its capacity was so low, and its cost so high, even for the enhanced
improved mobile telephone system (IMTS), that the total number of customers in the

1
 3GPP approved the logo in February 2017.

vii

[Link] 7 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 viii Foreword

entire United States was limited to 40,000. AMPS, however, was a major success. By
1990—just 7 years after the commercialization of AMPS—there were 5 million cus-
tomers in the United States. AMPS was deployed in several countries in addition to
the United States. A derivative, with essentially different channel spacing, total access
communications system (TACS) was deployed in the United Kingdom and many other
countries, in both Europe and the rest of the world. JTACS (Japan TACS) was a variant
deployed in Japan. In Europe, several other analog systems were developed including
Nordic mobile telephone (NMT) operating at 450 and 900 MHz (launched in 1981),
Radiocom2000 (400 MHz, 200 MHz, 160 MHz), C450 (having 800,000 subscribers) in
Germany, TMA in Spain, and Radio Telefono Mobile Integrato (RTMI) in Italy.
With the rapid growth of AMPS, operators in the United States were demanding
more capacity. The United States took two directions. The first standard that was devel-
oped, IS-54, called DAMPS (Digital AMPS), used time-division multiple access tech-
niques to get three calls in the same 30 kHz channel bandwidth of AMPS. It became
known as TDMA and was deployed by several major operators, which essentially
coalesced to become what we now know as AT&T. Qualcomm, at the time a small
startup company, claimed that it could obtain 10 times the capacity of AMPS by using
a wideband code division multiple access system. At the time, it was called wideband,
due to its 1.23 MHz bandwidth, as compared to the 30 kHz bandwidth analog and
DAMPS (TDMA) currently in use. It was also standardized in the United States and
became known as IS-95 or CDMA, and was deployed by several major operators, which
today are known as Verizon and Sprint. It was also used in Korea by all the operators,
in Japan, and in several other countries. The development of CDMA was a particularly
important step, as it brought into the cellular industry advanced communications con-
cepts and set the stage for the high-performance cellular systems that we have today.
While the United States was searching for additional capacity, Europe undertook
a standardization program to create a pan-European system, which became known as
global system for mobile communications (GSM). The GSM physical layer used TDMA
techniques and was not particularly pioneering, but the overall system architecture and
separation of functions was very logical and clean. Perhaps most important was that the
development of GSM brought together many countries and created a single standard
for Europe. An often-overlooked aspect was that the standardization was conducted
in English and the standard was written in English. This avoided the complexities of
translating between multiple languages, speeded-up the standardization process, and
created a single definitive version of the standard, reducing ambiguities. Japan devel-
oped personal digital cellular (PDC) which was a derivative of North American TDMA.
During this era, there was considerable debate between proponents of cellular
systems and proponents of short-range cordless systems. The Japanese-designed per-
sonal handyphone system (PHS) and the European DECT (Digital European Cordless
Telephone/Digital European Cordless Telecommunications/Digital Enhanced Cordless
Telecommunications) were the most deployed. However, by the end of the 1990s, it had
become clear that cellular technology had become the communications mode chosen
by the consumer.
In 1985, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) started to study mobile
telephony, 6 years before the first commercial 2G systems. Recommendation M.687,
issued in 1990, put forth a vision for future public land mobile telecommunication systems
(FPLMTS) which included many of the attributes of modern systems, including support
for many services, international operation, and automated roaming. In hindsight, they

[Link] 8 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 Foreword ix
got two things wrong. The first was that they viewed mobile operation as an extension of
the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and integrated services digital network
(ISDN)—a vision that was to hinder the development of good data communications
through the early days of 3GPP. The second was their estimates of the required spectrum
were from 110 to 160 MHz for voice services and 65 MHz for data services for a total of
between 175 MHz and 225 MHz. This is an almost laughable number given the more than
1150 MHz and 700 MHz of sub-6-GHz licensed spectrum available today in China and
the United States, respectively. In addition, the United States has now allocated more than
3 GHz of millimeter wave spectrum which is being used for 5G deployments; other coun-
tries have made or are making a large amount of millimeter wave spectrum available.
By 1992, when the ITU issued Recommendation M.816, “Framework for Services
Supported on Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunication Systems (FPLMTS),” the
system was being called third generation with service starting around 2000. In 1994, the
ITU began using the term IMT-2000 instead of third generation (3G); however, the popular
term has remained 3G. The vision was for one air interface (radio interface), though more
than one could be acceptable, according to M.1035, “Framework for the Radio Interface(s)
and Radio Sub-System Functionality for International Mobile Telecommunications—2000
(IMT-2000)”: “IMT-2000 may need to use more than one radio interface in order to meet var-
ious operating environment or application needs.” When issued in 2000, the IMT-2000 spec-
ification, M.1457, “Detailed Specifications of the Terrestrial Radio Interfaces of International
Mobile Telecommunications—2000 (IMT-2000),” contained not a single common air inter-
face, but five air interfaces, none of which had been developed by the ITU. The ITU had
succeeded in setting the stage for 3G, but the air interfaces were developed by various
other groups. An essentially similar stage-setting approach has been used for successive
generations: IMT-Advanced (4G) and IMT-2020 (5G).
During the late 1990s, there were numerous public and behind-the-scene discus-
sions on creating a common 3G air interface. While the goal of creating a single 3G
air interface was not achieved, this era took a huge step forward in bringing together
the world’s cellular communications industry. The result was the creation of two part-
nership projects, 3GPP and 3GPP2, along with two CDMA-based systems: universal
mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), often called WCDMA, and cdma2000. One
common system was not attainable for both technical and business reasons. From a
technical perspective, cdma2000 offered a smooth evolution path from IS-95 CDMA
(called CDMAone) and significantly higher capacity, which was particularly a concern
due to the more limited amount of spectrum that was available at the time. From a busi-
ness perspective, beginning in the mid-1990s, GSM and cdma2000 had been in a very
heated competition trying to secure operators for their technology, particularly in South
America, Africa, and Asia. Over time, the larger Europe-based ecosystem of GSM secured
more operators, but it took a few more years for that to fully play out. Three of the initial
five air interfaces that were part of IMT-2000 came from 3GPP and 3GPP2. They were
IMT-2000 CDMA direct spread (WCDMA), IMT-2000 CDMA multi-carrier (cdma2000),
and IMT-2000 CDMA TDD. IMT-2000 CDMA TDD was a combination of a TDD air
interface originally developed by 3GPP, and TD-SCDMA, developed by CWTS (China
Wireless Telecommunications Standards), which was, eventually, incorporated into the
3GPP specifications. cdma2000 had both what was called a 1× mode which had a single
1.23 MHz bandwidth carrier, and what was called a 3× multi-carrier mode which had
three carriers spaced by 1.25 MHz, hence the name IMT-2000 CDMA multi-carrier. This
was the precursor for 3GPP’s carrier aggregation, though the 3× mode was never com-
mercialized. The other two IMT-2000 air interfaces were an evolution of TDMA and DECT.

[Link] 9 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 x Foreword

Around this time, AT&T concluded that continuing the TDMA path was not practical
and began deployment of GSM.
Thus, by the early 2000s the situation had clarified: 3G would be based upon the
two major CDMA-based air interfaces, WCDMA and cdma2000, though there was
deployment by China Mobile of TD-SCDMA. Standardization had consolidated into
the two partnership projects, 3GPP and 3GPP2. For much of the 2000s 3GPP and 3GPP2
were rivals, each coming up with new technologies, which in some form were adopted
by the other partnership project.
One of the weaknesses of the initial 3G standards was that they did not fully rethink
handling of packet traffic to support the rapidly expanding internet. WCDMA could
send on the Downlink about 2 Mbps using its 5 MHz carrier. Nevertheless, this was
an enhancement over general packet radio service (GPRS) which supported up to
114 kbps, and its enhancement EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution) which
supported up to 473.6 kbps. The CDMA community had focused on internet support
from its early days and had incorporated significantly higher data rates in IS-95-B; the
cdma2000 specification could support about 628 kbps on a 1.23 MHz bandwidth carrier.
A major step forward in providing better internet traffic came in late 2000, with
3GPP2’s completion of the cdma2000 high-rate packet data (HRPD) specification. The
common name for 3GPP2’s HRPD was 1× EVolution Data Only (1×EV-DO), which was
then changed to 1× Evolution Data Optimized. This air interface addressed Downlink
transmissions through a single transmission stream, very short transmissions, high-
rate feedback of the best transmission mode, the recognition that throughput is higher
when the best link to a mobile is selected for transmission (proportional fair schedul-
ing), the use of 8PSK and 16QAM modulation when the channel quality is good, and
incremental redundancy. While maintaining the 1.23 MHz channel bandwidth of IS-95
and cdma2000 1×, it was able to attain peak transmission rates of 2.4 Mbps, though it
used a separate channel. This was the source of considerable controversy at the time, as
1×EV-DO was not able to support circuit voice services and SMS—which were the pri-
mary services at the time—though later there were some trials of packet voice services.
As a result, by the end of 2000, 3GPP2 started to develop 1× EVolution Data and Voice
(1×EV-DV). While 1×EV-DV pioneered many new concepts, it was never commercially
deployed, and high-rate operation on 3GPP2 systems was provided by 1×EV-DO.
3GPP soon started to develop its equivalent of 1×EV-DV which appeared as high-
speed Downlink packet access (HSDPA) in Release 5 in 2002 with Downlink peak data
rates of 14.4 Mbps. Two years later high-speed Uplink packet access (HSUPA) appeared
in Release 6.
Due to the straightforwardness of the upgrade from IS-95 to cdma2000, the first com-
mercial cdma2000 systems appeared in 2000. It wasn’t until early 2004 that WCDMA
Release 99 was performing well, resulting in many operators starting commercial service,
though NTT Docomo in Japan had launched a simplified variant in 2001, called freedom of
mobile multimedia access (FOMA). However, it was not until the launch of HSDPA at the
end of 2005 with good internet packet performance that WCDMA showed its real potential.
Further enhancements beyond Release 6 added even higher order modulation, dual-carrier,
four carriers, simultaneous operation in multiple bands, and MIMO.
In the early 2000s after the completion of the first generation of IMT-2000, the ITU
turned its attention to two phases for the development of mobile systems, as outlined
in M.1645, “Framework and Overall Objectives of the Future Development of IMT-2000
and Systems Beyond IMT-2000,” which was published in 2003. The first phase was the
evolutionary enhancement of IMT-2000, which had been occurring through the various

[Link] 10 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 Foreword xi
3GPP releases and 3GPP2 specification revisions. The second was that “there may be a
need for a new wireless access technology to be developed around the year 2010, capa-
ble of supporting high data rates with high mobility, which could be widely deployed
around the year 2015 in some countries.”2
The ITU’s timeline would soon be eclipsed, with the first specifications of what
might be called 4G emerging in 2007. A number of important factors contributed to this.
First was the rapid increase in the users of cellular communications with 1.7 billion cel-
lular subscribers in mid-2004 (ITU M.1645 had predicted that same number would be
reached in 2010). A second was the rise of the data usage, spurred by several develop-
ments. At the end of the 1990s, the camera began to appear in phones and was in almost
every high-end phone just a few years later. Users wanted access to their email on cell
phones. Mobile location using global positioning system (GPS) was starting to appear.
And there were frustrations with the time that it took to send and receive data, particu-
larly photos. All this led to increasing demands for higher capacity and higher data rates.
A third was the previously described frustration with the performance of WCDMA in
the early 2000s. Orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) as a wireless
technology was causing a considerable amount of interest, due to its inherent resilience
to multipath as compared to CDMA which tried to identify and process multiple paths.
This became more difficult as the bandwidth increased due to the greater number of
resolvable paths. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as a technology
went back many years and had been used in the European digital audio broadcasting
(DAB) and digital video broadcasting (DVB) systems, and the IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g
standards for Wi-Fi. The push for OFDMA as a technology for cellular usage came from
a small startup, Flarion Technologies, which developed the 1.25 MHz bandwidth flash
OFDMA system in the early 2000s. But perhaps the most important incentive came
from the development of WiMax using the IEEE 802.16 standard. The early versions of
the 802.16 standard were designed for backhaul or point-to-multipoint data distribu-
tion, but the 802.16e amendment was meant for mobile operation.
This spurred 3GPP to have a future evolution workshop in November 2004 to study
the evolution of 3GPP radio technologies. This led to the development of the 3GPP
standard for long term evolution (LTE) based upon OFDMA which was completed as
part of Release 8 in December 2008. The workshop also led to further enhancements of
WCDMA, notably carrier aggregation.
Not to be outdone, 3GPP2 developed ultra-mobile broadband (UMB), a rather
advanced OFDMA design, which was completed in mid-2007. In spite of its technical
advantages, some key cellular operators which had been major backers of cdma2000,
notably Verizon, decided that it was time to have a common worldwide cellular stan-
dard based upon LTE. As a result, UMB was never commercially deployed.
While 802.16e saw commercial deployment by a number of operators, particularly
as the WiBro version in Korea, it took several years after the completion of the standard
to adequately develop the ecosystem sufficiently for deployment. This delay, coupled
with some design flaws which hindered performance, prevented 802.16e from becom-
ing a success. The design flaws were mostly fixed in the later 802.16m amendment, but
by then it was too late as operators had focused on LTE.

2
 ITU-R M.1645, “Framework and Overall Objectives of the Future Development of IMT-2000 and
Systems Beyond IMT-2000,” 2003, p. 3.

[Link] 11 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 xii Foreword

LTE turned out to be a great success. While there were a few small deployments
beginning in December 2009, the massive 38-market launch in December 2010 by
Verizon in the United States showed that LTE was commercially ready. Since then,
almost every operator in the world has deployed LTE. The term “4G-LTE” has become
known by the populace at large.
Yet the first release of LTE, Release 8, was not really “4G” in some countries as it
preceded the IMT-Advanced specification of the ITU. In Japan, NTT Docomo called it
Super 3G. The ITU IMT-Advanced designation came two releases later with Release 10.
M.2012, “Detailed Specifications of the Terrestrial Radio Interfaces of International
Mobile Telecommunications Advanced (IMT-Advanced),” was published at the begin-
ning of 2012 and contained both LTE and 802.16m. By then, it was clear that there was
going to be one cellular air-interface technology worldwide and that it was LTE. A num-
ber of people were concerned that the loss of competition between standards bodies
might slow down innovation and lead to the stagnation of air interface design. The past
ten years have shown these concerns to be unfounded. The desire of engineers to come
up with good ideas, the pride that engineers take in creating the next G, and the rivalry
between engineers and companies have kept innovation alive.
One of the trends of 4G, but really beginning with 3G, was the expansion of the
technologies beyond just cell-to-device unicast connectivity. The first came with multi-
media broadcast multicast service (MBMS) in Release 6 which provides 3G broadcast
and multicast services for mobile operators. With LTE came other capabilities includ-
ing proximity services (ProSe) communications, which enables direct communications
without going through the network for devices that are close to each other. Release 13
specified mission-critical push to talk (MCPTT), which supports public safety and other
users over unicast, MBMS, or ProSe transports. Release 14 introduced cellular vehicle-
to-everything (C-V2X) which enables communications between automobiles and with
road side units (RSUs). Of particular note has been all the activity on machine type
communications (MTC) to support IoT, notably creating enhanced MTC (eMTC), a sim-
plified version of LTE using a 1.4 MHz bandwidth, and creating a special air interface
named narrow-band IoT (NB-IoT), using 200 kHz bandwidth carriers. These highlight
just a few of the hundreds of work areas of 3GPP over the years.
This foreword has covered the first four generations of cellular communications
comprising the past 40 years. It came from simple analog mobile radios to what is
arguably the most sophisticated and complex man-made system on the planet with
over two-thirds of the world population being subscribers and the number of devices
exceeding the world’s population.3 People can communicate almost anywhere and to
almost anyone in the world with a few keystrokes. Things, or IoT-capable devices, can
likewise communicate to servers or to someone anywhere in the world.
These systems have been brought to you by a dedicated group of engineers with a
vision to better communicate, who do research, design, standardization, product devel-
opment, testing, and whatever else is needed to bring these systems to fruition.
I now turn the story of 5G over to the four authors of this book: Wanshi Chen, Peter
Gaal, Juan Montojo, and Haris Zisimopoulos. They are eminently qualified. All have
been involved with 3GPP for many years and together have close to 70 years of experi-
ence designing cellular communications systems.
Ed Tiedemann
Concord, Massachusetts

3
 GSM Association, “The Mobile Economy 2020.”

[Link] 12 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the motivation and help from many
colleagues and our families.
As a former 3GPP TSG RAN1 ([Link]
ran-plenary/ran1-radio-layer-1/home) Chair (from August 2017 to May 2021), Wanshi
Chen is, in particular, grateful for the experiences of managing and driving one of the
key 3GPP working groups—the physical layer group—for the standardization of 5G
from its first release. Newly appointed to the post in August 2017, he had the chal-
lenging task to execute on the 5G standardization acceleration which had been agreed
upon in March 2017 by delivering the early drop (also known as the non-standalone
version of 5G, or architecture option 3) of the first 5G release, due in December 2017.
The pressure was overwhelming—enormous workload, tight deadlines, hundreds of
delegates and thousands of contributions per meeting, controversial discussions going
until midnight almost daily, and difficult but necessary compromises offline and online.
Even now when looking back, we are still amazed at the progress that 3GPP, as a group
and as a community of experts, made in the past several years for 5G standardiza-
tion. All the progress would not have been possible without the dedication and the
constructiveness of the participants in 3GPP. Therefore, we are deeply grateful to all
of them, our colleagues inside and outside our own company. In March 2021, Wanshi
was elected 3GPP TSG RAN Plenary ([Link]
ran-plenary/ran-plenary) Chair and is looking forward to continuing working with all
3GPP colleagues to further enhance 5G and to build a solid foundation for future 6G
standardization.
When approached about writing a 5G book, we were a bit hesitant, primarily due to
the workload we have every day—3GPP standardization continues to evolve without
any gaps. It was very hard to make room for any additional time to write a book. We
were, thus, very thankful for the support from Baaziz Achour, Lorenzo Casaccia, Durga
Malladi, John Smee, and Ed Tiedemann, who encouraged us to embark on this project.
We are also very thankful to Lara Zoble of McGraw Hill for her support and patience
throughout the publication process.
We deeply appreciate the reviews and comments from our colleagues, who
spared their precious time during their daily busy activities, particularly their 3GPP
standardization–related work. This greatly helped improve the quality of the book.
In particular, we would like to acknowledge the help from Albert Rico Alvarino,
Sudhir Baghel, Luca Blessent, Yiqing Cao, Lena Chaponniere, Kausik Ray Chaudhuri,
Aleks Damnjanovic, Adrian Escott, Stefano Faccin, Valentin Gheorghiu, Miguel Griot,

xiii

[Link] 13 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 xiv Acknowledgments

Georg Hampel, Chenxi Hao, Gavin Horn, Kianoush Hosseini, Tingfang Ji, Masato
Kitazoe, Eddy Kwon, SooBum Lee, Jing Lei, Le Liu, Tao Luo, Alexandros Manolakos,
Ozcan Ozturk, Shailesh Patil, Gabi Sarkis, Joseph Soriaga, Sebastian Speicher, Jing Sun,
Fred Takeda, Xiaofeng Wang, Yongbin Wei, Huilin Xu, Wei Yang, Juan Zhang, Xiaoxia
Zhang, Yu Zhang, and Yan Zhou. Special thanks to Ed Tiedemann for, in addition, writ-
ing the Foreword for this book and to Luis Lopes, who contributed material for the 5G
RAN architecture.
We would also like to thank Qualcomm executives Steve Mollenkopf, Cristiano
Amon, Jim Thompson, Alex Rogers, and Don Rosenberg for their support and encour-
agement in getting this work completed. Once the manuscript was ready for publica-
tion, the Qualcomm legal team, especially Melissa DeVita and Chris Smith, provided
invaluable support to get us through final production.
Last but not least, this book would not have been possible without the support of
our families. Many times, we had to sacrifice late evenings, early mornings, weekend
hours, and vacation time to gradually write the book piece by piece. The understand-
ing and the encouragement we received from our families were crucial in making the
book happen.
Wanshi Chen, Ph.D.
Peter Gaal, Ph.D.
Juan Montojo, Ph.D.
Haris Zisimopoulos, [Link].

[Link] 14 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 Introduction

I
t is not a straightforward decision to write a 5G book. All of us have been actively
involved in standardization for wireless communications, particularly in 3GPP (3rd
generation partnership project; [Link] for more than 10 years.
Our involvement is full-scale and systematic, starting from the initial design often
requiring extensive analysis and evaluations, to forming detailed proposals in 3GPP
for a potential study item (a necessary phase for the eventual standardization) and sub-
sequently for a potential work item leading to the final 3GPP specifications, and to
maintaining the specifications and participating in the implementation efforts resulting
in commercial deployments. It is relatively straightforward for us to introduce what
has been standardized in 3GPP particularly for 5G, also known as new radio or NR and
5G Core (5GC). However, such description, at least in our views, only brings limited
benefits for the readers. Therefore, this book is NOT intended to merely provide an
introduction to 5G in terms of 3GPP specification details.
Given our firsthand and rich experiences in the standardization process, we would
rather prefer to focus on how and why 5G is standardized, i.e., the stories behind the
decisions. Standardization of a set of features in 3GPP is generally driven by commercial
needs. Each feature is often associated with a certain set of use cases (e.g., smartphones,
vehicles, industrial internet of things (IIoT), augmented reality, cloud gaming) and
under a set of deployment scenarios (e.g., outdoor, indoor, macro cells, small cells). For
each potential enabling technique, there are usually multiple possible design options,
each with its pros and cons from performance and complexity perspectives. Extensive
analysis and evaluations are necessary in order to converge to a particular design
providing a best tradeoff for commercial deployments. This is particularly necessary
since in 3GPP all decisions are consensus driven. In other words, any particular design
requires consensus from the entire group (i.e., no sustained objections), which consists
of hundreds of members participating in the standardization process. To achieve such
consensus, it often takes a long time, sometimes even more than one year, for the dis-
cussion via various means, e.g., face-to-face meetings, emails, and to a much less extent,
conference calls. It is typical that the final design may not be the same as any of the
originally proposed design options by each individual proponent, but a solution that
is a result of compromise based on two or more originally proposed design options. It
is hard to imagine the difficulty in achieving consensus when in a same meeting room,
there are hundreds of delegates with diverging views and sometimes diverging incen-
tives involved in the decision process. This is possible largely because of a common
goal shared by all 3GPP participants: being constructive and dedicated to in-time and
quality delivery of 3GPP specifications to enable successful commercial deployments.

xv

[Link] 15 27-05-2021 10:18:04

 xvi Introduction

Although it is quite involved, we decided to write this book with the goal of not
only describing the new 5G standards, but also telling the reasons and stories behind
them. One difference of 5G compared to other wireless communication standards is
that it offers an end-to-end possibly turnkey system that covers all the aspects of the
network deployment, from physical layer to core network, from the radio network
architecture and protocol to regulatory services support. We aim therefore to provide
an end-to-end picture of how 5G works as a complete system, with focus on the archi-
tecture and physical layer related design and specifications.
Mobile communications have made a leap approximately every 10 years (as shown
in Fig. 1), starting from the 1st generation (1G) in the years of the 1980s enabling mobile
voice communications, followed by the 2nd generation (2G) in the years of the 1990s
improving voice communication efficiency and reachability. The focus started to shift to
mobile data communications in the 3rd generation (3G) in the years of the 2000s, when
wireless internet became a reality. Mobile broadband took off in the 4th generation (4G),
also known as the long-term evolution (LTE), achieving unprecedented wireless com-
munications speeds and driving the proliferation of smartphones. 4G LTE also wit-
nessed the emerging expansion of wireless communications into other fields. 5G is built
on top of these previous generations, driven by continuous research and innovations.
5G is designed to be a common communication fabric connecting everything to
everything from the very beginning, supporting diverse services, diverse spectrum,
and diverse deployments, as illustrated in Fig. 2.
5G was conceived from the beginning to be a unified future-proof platform. Figure 3
illustrates the timeline for 5G NR in 3GPP. The pioneering event for 5G is the first 5G
workshop in September 2015 [1]. Similar to IMT-2020 [2], three emerging high-level use
cases were identified [1]:
• Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB),
• Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), and
• Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC).

Mobile voice Efficient voice to Focus shifts Mobile broadband and A unified future-proof
communication reach billions to mobile data emerging expansion platform

1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s

Analog voice Digital voice Wireless internet Mobile broadband Wireless edge
AMPS, NMT, D-AMPS, GSM, CDMA2000/EV-DO LTE, LTE Advanced, 5G New Radio
TACS IS-95 (CDMA) WCDMA/HSPA+, Gigabit LTE (NR)

Figure 1 The five generations of wireless communications.

[Link] 16 27-05-2021 10:18:05

 Introduction xvii

Enhanced mobile
broadband High- bands
Above 24 GHz (mmWave)

Mid- bands
5G 1 GHz to 7 GHz

NR
Low- bands
Mission- critical Massive Internet Below 1 GHz
services of Things

Diverse services Diverse spectrum Diverse deployments

Scalability to address an extreme Getting the most out of a wide From macro to indoor hotspots, with
variation of requirements array of spectrum bands/types support for diverse topologies

Figure 2 5G: a unified connectivity fabric for existing, emerging, and unforeseen connected services.

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Release 15 SI Release 15 WI

1st 5G
Workshop NSA Drop SA Drop Late Drop

Release 16 SI/WI

Release 17 SI/WI

Figure 3 The timeline for 5G NR in 3GPP.

It was generally agreed during the workshop that 5G NR should support a vari-
ety of new services, such as automotive, health, energy, manufacturing, etc. Compared
with 4G LTE, 5G NR would be a new and a non-backward-compatible radio access
technology (RAT). It was envisioned at the very first workshop that the design of 5G
NR should be forward compatible, so that additional use cases and requirements can be
gradually introduced later in a compatible and optimal manner.
One important difference of 5G compared to previous generations of wireless stan-
dards is that it provides the option of a staggered evolution in radio and core network
deployments. This effectively allows not only the deployment of NR with an old core
network (Evolved Packet Core as in LTE), but also a later migration to a new core net-
work (i.e., 5GC). The staggered evolution would accelerate availability of 5G products
into the market. This concept was first agreed in a joint RAN (Radio Access Network)
and SA (System Architecture) plenary session in June 2016 [3]. Figure 4 shows the origi-
nal RAN-SA workplan agreement [4]. After a few twists and 9 months later after the
joint session, 3GPP agreed to a final workplan proposal [5] for 3GPP 5G NR specifica-
tions as the global 5G standard. This way forward was the result of months of online
(i.e., official decision-making sessions) and offline discussion and involved a coalition
of 47 companies! The final timeline that had emerged from these discussions is shown
in Fig. 3.

[Link] 17 27-05-2021 10:18:07

 xviii Introduction

7. TSG#80, June 2018: Release 15 stage

3 freeze for NR and NexGen, including
2. TSG-SA#74, Dec/2016:
Standalone.
NexGen TR completion
Approval of SA2 WID
6. RAN#78/RAN#79:Stage-3
freeze for Non-Standalone higher
layers (including components
1. TSG-RAN#73, common with standalone).
September 2016: Completion target TBD.
5G NR Requirements
TR completion 4. TSG-SA#77 or TSG-SA#78:
NexGen stage-2 freeze.

2016 2017 2018

5. TSG-RAN#78, December 2017:

3. CHECKPOINT: TSG#75: March 2017:
- Stage 3 freeze of L1/L2 for common
- Completion of NR SI with corresponding performance aspects of NSA (focused on licensed
evaluation and concepts; bands) and SA NR;
- Approval of RAN WID(s);
- Principles agreed for SA-specific L1/
- Report from RAN1/RAN2/RAN3/RAN4/SA2 on fwd L2 components.
compatibility of NSA and SA NR;
- Report from SA2 on migration;
- SA and CT timeline coordination;
- Reconfirmation of NR and NexGen timeplan, including Note: SA: Standalone
completion target for NSA higher layer components (box 6) NSA: Non-standalone

Figure 4 The original RAN-SA workplan agreement (as in [4]).

It is obvious that any standardization work has to be done in a phased approach.

The standardization work requires extensive evaluations, careful analysis, meticulous
end-to-end system design including handling possible error cases, practical perfor-
mance characterization and testability, and reconciliation of various views from all par-
ticipating parties. In addition, standardization work in 3GPP is increasingly witnessing
close interaction and cooperation among different standardization organizations, most
notably due to the expansion of wireless communications into other vertical domains,
such as automotive industry, smart factory, satellites, usage of unlicensed or shared
spectrum, etc. As one example, liaisons are often being used by 3GPP to communicate
to and from standard bodies such as 5GAA ([Link] for V2X (vehicle to every-
thing) related topics, and IEEE ([Link] particularly for the coexis-
tence between 3GPP specified operation and Wi-Fi in unlicensed or shared spectrum.
Moreover, new information such as new use cases, additional deployment scenarios,
new commercial or regulatory requirements, etc., may be identified later, which would
drive continuing evolution of standardization.
In 3GPP, the phased approach is managed using a terminology called a release.
Each release usually lasts 1 to 2 years. The releases in 3GPP are indexed contiguously.
After GSM Phase 1 and Phase 2 and the first 3GPP release called Release 99 (which

[Link] 18 27-05-2021 10:18:07

 Introduction xix
was named by the year of the anticipated release), starting from Release 4 in the year
2000, the releases in 3GPP were indexed with a specific number, incremented after each
release. For 5G NR, there have been three releases so far, namely:

• Release 15: from 1Q 2016 to 4Q 2018, first 5G release,

• Release 16: from 3Q 2018 to 1Q 2020, second 5G release, and
• Release 17: From 2Q 2020 to 2Q 2022, third 5G release.

This is illustrated in Fig. 3. The prolonged duration of Release 17 is due to inevi-

table impact from COVID-19. Note that it is typical that a release may consist of a study
phase and a specification phase (also known as work items in 3GPP). After the end of
each release, the resulting specifications may undergo a series of corrections and fixes,
often lasting several months or even longer.
As the first release of 5G, Release 15 was done in a very short time—a 1-year study
item from 1Q 2016 to 1Q 2017, followed by a 9-month work item for a first drop of the
release focusing on non-standalone (NSA) deployments using the EPC (what is com-
monly known as architecture option 3; see Chap. 2 for more details). Then, this was
followed by another 6 months for standalone (SA) deployments using the new core
network (5GC) (what is commonly known as architecture option 2; see Fig. 5), and
yet another 6 months for a late drop delivering additional use cases and additional
architecture options including connecting evolved LTE to the new 5G core (what is
commonly known as architecture options 5 and 7). Yet, the first 5G release delivers an
overwhelmingly large set of features—it not only covers almost all the features offered
by 4G LTE, which were developed and standardized in a 10-year period, but also pro-
vides support of additional use cases, additional deployment scenarios, additional
spectrum ranges, and a bouquet of different architecture options as mentioned above.
This was deemed by many as a “mission impossible” task, but was successfully com-
pleted only after the constructive and goal-oriented cooperation among thousands of
delegates spending extra hours with creative ways of working (e.g., to use a projector
for offline discussion projecting onto a wall, the back of a sofa, or a ceiling). For both the
second and third 5G releases, while there are continued evolutions for the traditional
eMBB, expansion of 5G into vertical domains is addressed in Release 16 (e.g., V2X, Non-
Public/Private Networks, URLLC and IIoT, support of 5G in unlicensed and shared
spectrum), and is further accelerated in Release 17 (e.g., additional V2X/URLLC/IIoT
enhancements, support of non-terrestrial networks, support for proximity services,
multicast-broadcast).
Figure 5 shows the system architecture of 5G NR revised based on the ones in [6],
which consists of:

• NG interface, connecting 5GC (e.g., functions such as access and mobility

management and user plane, with more details in Chap. 3) and gNB (next
generation node B) or ng-eNB (next generation evolved node B);
• Xn interface, connecting among gNBs and/or ng-eNBs (more details can be
found in Chap. 3);
• Uu interface, the over-the-air connection between eNBs and user equipments
(UEs), comprising Downlink (DL) and Uplink (UL); and
• PC5 interface, connecting among UEs, also known as sidelink (SL).

[Link] 19 27-05-2021 10:18:08

 xx Introduction

5G Core
5GC

NG
NG
NG

NG
NG
NG

NG

NG
Xn NG-RAN
gNB gNB
Xn

Xn
Xn
Uu
ng-eNB ng-eNB
Uu
Uu
Uu

PC5

Figure 5 System architecture for 5G NR (using option 2 as an example).

A UE may be configured with a single carrier, or multiple carriers in the form of

carrier aggregation (CA) or dual-connectivity (DC) [6], where the former assumes a
tight coordination among the carriers and the latter assumes a non-ideal link between
the multiple carriers (e.g., limited capacity, non-negligible latency). When multiple car-
riers are configured for a UE, a UE is configured with a primary cell (Pcell), and one
or more secondary cells (Scells). The UE may be additionally configured with a master
cell group (MCG) and a secondary cell group (SCG), where the management of the two
cell groups is generally separate especially from Downlink control and Uplink control
perspectives. More details can be found in Chap. 3.
In comparison, Fig. 6 shows the system architecture of 4G LTE revised based on the
ones in [7], which consists of:

• S1 interface, connecting EPC (e.g., functions such as mobility management

entity and serving gateway, with more details in Chap. 3) and eNB (evolved
node B);
• X2 interface, connecting among eNBs (more details can be found in Chap. 3);
• Uu interface; and
• PC5 interface.

[Link] 20 27-05-2021 10:18:08

 Introduction xxi

Evolved Packet Core

EPC

S1

S1
S1

S1
X2
eNB X2 eNB
E-UTRAN
X2
Uu Uu
eNB Uu

PC5

Figure 6 System architecture for E-UTRAN (4G LTE).

Throughout the book, we will use 4G, LTE, and 4G LTE interchangeably. Similarly,
we will also use 5G, NR, and 5G NR interchangeably.
The development of 5G is not coming from scratch. Instead, it is a natural evo-
lution from 4G LTE. In 2008, 4G LTE completed its first release (Release 8), enabling
mobile broadband services in an unprecedented manner. The offered speed by 4G LTE
started with tens of Mbps, and gradually upgraded to hundreds of Mbps and even up
to several Gbps covering both indoor and outdoor scenarios. 4G LTE enjoys enormous
commercial success, particularly in terms of driving the proliferation of smartphones.
One natural question would then be:
With 4G LTE being extremely successful, why do we still need 5G?
In other words, is it possible to do a small surgery of 4G LTE specifications to
accommodate the 3 pillars of 5G high-level use cases (eMBB, URLLC, and mMTC)? It
is clear that when 4G LTE was first standardized, there were certain assumptions and
techniques not friendly to introducing new features, e.g.:

• An always-on cell-specific reference (CRS),

• A fixed frame structure,
• A fixed transmit time interval (TTI) for scheduling packets, and
• A fully-frequency-distributed control channel over the entire cell bandwidth.

Therefore, even if additional evolutions for 4G LTE are possible to accommodate

some use cases identified for 5G NR, the design is subject to the existing restrictions in
order to minimize any impact to legacy operations and to maintain the existing struc-
ture. It is worth noting that some of the restrictions in LTE were recognized toward the
end of the first LTE release, although not addressed primarily due to the late stage of
the release, as detailed in Chaps. 1 and 5.
On the other hand, the expertise in 4G LTE in the last decade was proved to be
invaluable for the design and standardization of 5G NR. This is particularly possible
because both 4G LTE and 5G NR are OFDMA-based. The accelerated pace to standard-
ize the first release of 5G NR would not have been possible if 4G LTE design had not

[Link] 21 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 xxii Introduction

been leveraged to the maximum extent. The detailed comparison of 4G LTE and 5G NR
is provided in Chap. 1. While there are many similarities between 4G LTE and 5G NR,
there are some key differences in which Chap. 1 will present and discuss. Most of the
differences between 4G and 5G stem from the fact that the same radio interface will be
used for a large and diverse number of use cases in 5G while 4G LTE primarily targeted
mobile broadband originally. Moreover, 5G NR is defined for operation in a large fre-
quency range unprecedented in comparison to previous wireless generations which
aimed at operation in much more limited range of spectrum. 5G NR not only defines
operation in existing and newly defined bands in the range from 410 MHz to 7.125 GHz
or the so-called Frequency Range 1 (FR1), but also defines operation in completely new
bands for wireless cellular operation in frequencies from 24 GHz to 52.6 GHz or the
so-called Frequency Range 2 (FR2). Release 15 has introduced FR1 and FR2 as defined
above but further extension to other frequencies is introduced in subsequent releases
of NR. For these reasons, at least from the lower-layer perspective, the OFDM-based
access introduced in LTE gets generalized in 5G NR to multiple numerologies and
multi-beam operation. Special emphasis to forward compatibility also modulates some
aspects of the air interface of 5G NR as it is getting developed.
Chapter 2 on deployments scenarios contains an introduction of basic deployment
scenarios, such as SA and NSA modes, focusing on the spectrum allocation perspective.
Target spectrum types and frequency ranges considered for the 5G NR design, includ-
ing some basic characteristics of the different frequency ranges impacting the design,
are described.
Chapter 3 discusses architecture options for 5G including all the architecture options
for 5G NSA and SA, the “disaggregated” RAN architecture options and all the options
enabling evolved LTE to connect to 5GC. The motivation for introduction of 5GC is
explained and an introduction of the main 5GC functionalities is provided. In the end,
explanation on the possible migration options for mobile network operators (MNOs)
among the different specified 5G architecture options is provided.
Evolution of 5G architecture is addressed in Chap. 4. It introduces the evolution of 5GC
in Release 16 providing an overview of the full set of system functionalities such as non-
public networks/private networks, V2X, cellular IoT, support for big data, and URLLC.
A short introduction of the 5G system features planned for Release 17 is also given.
Chapter 5 is dedicated to introducing numerology and slot structure for 5G. It starts
with an introduction of 4G LTE numerology and slot structure, and the lessons learned
from 4G standardization, which helped the corresponding 5G standardization. We will
discuss the flexible SCS, frequency range, bandwidths, and bands for NR, and the chan-
nel bandwidth from the cell perspective and from the UE perspective (also known as a
bandwidth part or BWP). In the time domain, we will detail the design considerations
for symbols, slots, subframes, and frames for NR. Finally, considerations of the slot
structure and forward compatibility are given.
Chapter 6 provides an overview of the procedures related to initial access and
mobility. Initial access is the procedure enabling UEs to acquire the system to the
point that they can receive the system information from the network, starting from a
so-called “cold start” where no synchronization means have been established between
the network and the UEs. The acquisition of the system information will, in turn, enable
UEs access the network via another procedure, the so-called random access procedure,

[Link] 22 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 Introduction xxiii
which is also described in this chapter. Mobility procedures and associated physical
layer measurements are introduced and discussed in this chapter.
Downlink control is an integral part of 5G. Chapter 7 first summarizes the Downlink
control operation in 4G LTE, necessary to show the evolution of the design consid-
erations from 4G to 5G. For 5G Downlink control, we will detail the control region
management, PDCCH (physical Downlink control channel) structure, search space
management, DCI (Downlink control information) formats, and the physical layer
block diagram for PDCCH. We will also introduce the related power saving consider-
ations, a new feature introduced in Release 16.
Chapter 8 on Downlink data operation contains a comprehensive overview of
procedures for DL data transmission and reception on the physical Downlink shared
channel (PDSCH). The chapter includes descriptions of aspects specific to the DL and
additionally aspects common to the DL and UL, such as channel coding. Design con-
cepts of the PDSCH and the corresponding reference signals are discussed. The chapter
also includes descriptions of other signals and procedures that are used in support of
PDSCH reception, such as those used for frequency and time tracking, phase noise esti-
mation, and channel state information feedback. Finally, the chapter includes a descrip-
tion of the basic concepts of DL beam management.
Uplink control for 5G is introduced in Chap. 9. Considering the natural evolu-
tion, we start by introducing the Uplink control operation in 4G. This is followed by
the details of 5G Uplink control information (UCI) types and payload sizes, physical
Uplink control channel (PUCCH) formats, PUCCH resource determination, UCI on
physical Uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and channel coding for UCI.
Chapter 10 on Uplink data operation includes an overview of procedures for UL
data transmission and reception on the PUSCH. Design concepts of the PUSCH and
corresponding reference signal structure are discussed. The chapter also contains
descriptions of other signals and procedures that are used in support of UL reception,
such as phase tracking, power control, and UL timing adjustment. A description of the
basic concepts of UL beam management is given as well.
Chapter 11 on coexistence of 4G and 5G includes a description of coexistence sce-
narios on the system level, such as same channel and adjacent channel coexistence. It
also contains an overview of procedures introduced in support of coexistence of LTE
and NR in the same device when NSA mode is used, including aspects of power shar-
ing and switched UL operation.
One important aspect for a wireless communication system is the frequency sup-
port required for it to operate. While cellular wireless operations have traditionally
relied on licensed spectrum, 3GPP introduced the possibility for LTE to operate in unli-
censed spectrum in Release 13. 3GPP defined unlicensed operation in LTE is always
linked to a cellular anchor which manages the overall connection4. This allowed an
additional 20 MHz of spectrum to be available, enabling higher Gbps data rates in
some and which enabled the proliferation of Gbps LTE in commercial networks. To
that end, in Chap. 12 we introduce 5G in Unlicensed and Shared Spectrum which is
being enabled in Release 16. Unlike LTE-based access to unlicensed operation, which
is based on Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) in the form of carrier aggregation of Scells
on unlicensed spectrum linked to a Pcell on licensed spectrum, 5G NR enables more

4
 The MulteFire Alliance ([Link] developed a version that did not require an anchor.

[Link] 23 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 xxiv Introduction

diverse deployment scenarios either license-assistance based, reusing the CA or DC

framework, or stand-alone unlicensed not requiring a licensed carrier as an anchor.
As one of the vertical domain expansions, URLLC can be found in many use cases
and deployment scenarios, and is covered in Chap. 13. After a brief presentation of the
efforts in 4G regarding latency and reliability handling, we provide the detailed consid-
erations for URLLC design in terms of resource management, link efficiency optimiza-
tion, dynamic Downlink resource sharing, and dynamic Uplink resource sharing for
different service types and from both the cell and the UE perspectives. Finally, addi-
tional design aspects are introduced including the support of time-sensitive networks
(TSN) for IIoT and multi-TRP (Transmit and/or Receive Points).
Chapter 14 focuses on the support of machine type communications (MTC), another
vertical domain expansion. After a brief introduction of the efforts in 3GPP on MTC, we
provide detailed design considerations for eMTC (evolved MTC), covering the technol-
ogy enablers to achieve low cost/complexity, extensive power savings, and extreme
coverage extension. Similar presentation is also done for another variation of MTC,
namely NB-IoT (narrow-band internet of things), by emphasizing the differences in
design compared with eMTC. The integration of eMTC and NB-IoT, originally stan-
dardized in 4G LTE, into 5GC is then introduced. Finally, we discuss some future trends
for MTC.
Chapter 15 covers another important vertical expansion of cellular operations,
namely, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. In this chapter, we provide a
brief introduction on how V2X was introduced in LTE during Releases 14 and 15. Then,
we look into the ways that the Release 16 project on NR V2X complements it. The sup-
port of V2X brings the sidelink capability to NR which is expected to go beyond vehicu-
lar applications starting in Release 17.
Chapter 16 includes an overview of various broadcast and multicast modes, focus-
ing on multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) content delivery. It also includes
a brief introduction of the evolution of physical layer channels used for the delivery
of MBMS data. The chapter closes with a discussion of future directions of evolving
broadcast multicast in 5G NR.
After the initial version of NR in Release 15, where the entire radio air interface,
internode protocols and architecture were developed in a single project, 3GPP has
fanned out its evolution of NR into multitude projects from Release 16. While we cover
many of the Release 16 projects in either dedicated chapters or embedded into some
other fundamental chapters of this book, there are a number of projects that we believe
are important to mention and for which we do not have dedicated chapter. To that end,
Chap. 17 provides an overview of some miscellaneous topics for 5G which did not get
treated in dedicated chapters.
Chapter 18 on typical 5G commercial deployments includes an initial overview of
possible topologies for 5G deployments. The description focuses on options for provid-
ing coverage and capacity at the same time, such as combining spectrum in different
frequency ranges while also providing solutions for mobility.
The final chapter of this book, Chap. 19, attempts to present how the authors see 5G
evolving in future 3GPP releases. While we first cover the Release 17 projects that are
still ongoing at the time this book goes to press, we also venture into what we expect
future releases of 3GPP will focus on and how those areas will bridge into 6G.
We hope this book can provide a good introduction of how and why 5G is standard-
ized, for both the traditional broadband and the expanded industries. We hope this

[Link] 24 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 Introduction xxv
book can be useful for people in both industrial and academic fields, to learn the stories
behind the standardization, to always aim for optimizing every single bit or a small
fraction of dB while ensuring reasonable complexity and commercial achievability, to
be ready for compromise and cooperation with all engineers working toward the same
goal, and to get motivated to contributing, either for the first time or with more efforts,
to 5G or future generations of standardization for wireless communications.

References
[1] 3GPP RAN Chairman, “Chairman’s Summary Regarding 3GPP TSG RAN Workshop
on 5G,” RWS-150073, RAN-workshop on 5G, Phoenix (US), September 2015.
[2] ITU-R, “IMT Vision: Framework and Overall Objectives of the Future Development
of IMT for 2020 and Beyond,” M.2083, September 2015.
[3] 3GPP RAN chair, SA chair, “Tasks from Joint RAN-SA Session on 5G Architecture
Options,” RP-161269, 3GPP TSG RANP#72, June 2016.
[4] Nokia Networks, “Combined NR / NextGen Time Plan,” SP-160465, 3GPP TSG
SAP#72, June 2016.
[5] Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai-Bell, Alibaba, Apple, AT&T, British Telecom, Broadcom,
CATT, China Telecom, China Unicom, Cisco, CMCC, Convida Wireless, Deutsche
Telekom, DOCOMO, Ericsson, Etisalat, Fujitsu, Huawei, Intel, Interdigital, KDDI,
KT, LG Electronics, LGU+, MediaTek, NEC, Nokia, Ooredoo, OPPO, Qualcomm,
Samsung, Sierra Wireless, SK Telecom, Sony, Sprint, Swisscom, TCL, Telecom Italia,
Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Telstra, T-mobile USA, Verizon, vivo, Vodafone, Xiaomi,
ZTE, “Way Forward on the Overall 5G-NR eMBB workplan,” RP-170741, 3GPP TSG
RANP#75, March 2017.
[6] 3GPP, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio
Access Network; NR; NR and NG-RAN Overall Description; Stage 2 (Release 16),”
38.300, v16.0.0, January 2020.
[7] 3GPP, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio
Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall description; Stage 2
(Release 16),” 36.300, v16.0.0, January 2020.

[Link] 25 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 About the Authors
Wanshi Chen, Ph.D., Sr. Director, Technology, at Qualcomm Inc.,
is 3GPP TSG RAN Plenary Chair, elected in March 2021. Formerly
3GPP RAN1 Chair and Vice Chair, he has successfully managed a
wide range of RAN1 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G New
Radio (NR) sessions. He has over 20 years of experience in telecom-
munications at leading telecom companies, including operators,
infrastructure vendors, and chipset vendors.

Peter Gaal, Ph.D., VP, Technical Standards, at Qualcomm’s Corporate

Standards group, has been with Qualcomm since 1999. Initially, he
was involved in cdma2000 standardization. Since 2007, he has been
attending 3GPP meetings, first in the RAN4 group and since 2010 in
the RAN1 group.

Juan Montojo, Ph.D., VP, Engineering, at Qualcomm’s Corporate

Standards group, joined Qualcomm in January 1997 and has worked
in the system design and standardization of various communication
systems, including Globalstar, 3G, 4G, 5G, and WiFi, as part of the
corporate R&D and Standards groups.

Haris Zisimopoulos, [Link]., Sr. Director, Technical Standards, at

Qualcomm’s Corporate Standards group, joined Qualcomm in
September 2012. Since then, he has been participating in 3GPP
System Architecture WG2, i.e., the 3GPP group related to 3GPP sys-
tem architecture. He has been rapporteur of various 3GPP projects,
namely Proximity Services/D2D, Next Generation eCall, Unlicensed
Spectrum System optimizations, and Radio Capabilities Signaling
optimization.

[Link] 26 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 Acronyms
3GPP 3rd Generation Partner Project
5GC 5G Core
5GS 5G System
AC Authentication Confirmation
AI Artificial Intelligence
AL Aggregation Level
AMBR Aggregate Maximum BitRate
AMF Access and Mobility Function
ANDSP Access Network Discovery and Selection Policy
APN Access Point Name
BG Base Graph
BLER BLock Error Rate
BM Beam Management
BWP BandWidth Part
C-V2X Cellular V2X
CA Carrier Aggregation
CAG Closed Access Group
CB Code Block
CBG Code Block Group
CBR Channel Busy Ratio
CBRA Contention-Based Random Access
CC Component Carrier
CCA Clear Channel Assessment
CCS Cross-Carrier Scheduling
CDD Cyclic Delay Diversity
CDM Code Division Multiplexing
CF Correction Field
CFRA Contention-Free Random Access
CG Configured Grant
CGS Computer Generated Sequence
CLI Cross-Link Interference
CM Connection Management
CN Core Network
CoMP Coordinated Multiple Point (transmission/reception)
CORESET COntrol REource SET
COT Channel Occupancy Time
xxvii

[Link] 27 27-05-2021 10:18:09

 xxviii Acronyms

CP Cyclic Prefix or Control Plane (depending on the context)

CQI Channel Quality Indicator
CRI CSI-RS Resource Indicator
CRS Common Reference Signal
CSI Channel State Information
CSI-RS Channel State Information—Reference Signal
CSS Common Search Space
CW CodeWord or Contention Window (depending on the context)
D2D Device-to-Device
DAI Downlink Assignment Index
DC Dual-Connectivity
DCI Downlink Control Information
DCN Dedicated Core Network
DG Dynamic Grant (or Dynamically Granted)
DL DownLink
DM-RS DeModulation—Reference Signal
DNN Data Network Name
DPS Dynamic Power Sharing
DRX Discontinuous Reception
DSRC Dedicated Short-Range Communication
DSS Dynamic Spectrum Sharing
(e)CCE (enhanced) Control Channel Element
(e)MBB (enhanced) Mobile BroadBand
(e)MBMS (enhanced) Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services
(e)MTC (enhanced) Machine Type Communication
(e)PDG (evolved) Packet Data Gateway
(e)REG (enhanced) Resource Element Group
(E)-UTRA (Evolved) Universal Terrestrial Radio Access
EAP Extensible Authentication Protocol
ECP Extended Cyclic Prefix
ED Energy Detection
eIMTA enhanced Interference Management and Traffic Adaptation
eNB evolved Node B (an LTE base station)
EPC Evolved Packet Core
EPF Network Exposure Function
EPRE Energy Per Resource Element
EPS Evolved Packet System
FBE Frame Based Equipment
FDD Frequency-Division Duplex
FR1 Frequency Range 1
FR2 Frequency Range 2
GBR Guaranteed BitRate
gNB next generation Node B (a 5G base station)
GP Guard Period
HRLLC High Reliability Low Latency Communications
HSS Home Subscriber System
IAB Integrated Access and Backhaul
IIoT Industrial Internet of Things
IM Interference Measurement

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 Acronyms xxix
IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem
IoT Internet of Things
IS In Service
ITS Intelligent Transportation System
LAA License Assisted Access
LADN Local Area Data Network
LBE Load-Based Equipment
LBRM Limited Buffer Rate Matching
LDPC Low Density Parity Check code
LI Layer Indicator
LIPA Local IP Access
LMF Location Management Function
LTE Long-Term Evolution
MBR Maximum BitRate
MBSFN Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Network
MCG Master Cell Group
MCL Maximum Coupling Loss
MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme
MDBV Maximum Data Burst Volume
MIB Master Information Block
MICO Mobile Initiated Connectivity Only
MIMO Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output
MME Mobility Management Entity
mMTC massive Machine Type Communication
mmW milli-meter Wave
MNC Mobile Network Code
MNO Mobile Network Operator
MPR Maximum Power Reduction
MRTD Maximum Receive Timing Difference
MTTD Maximum Transmit Timing Difference
N3IWF Non-3GPP InterWorking Function
NAICS Network-Assisted Interference Cancellation and Suppression
NAS Non-Access Stratum
NB-IoT Narrow-Band Internet of Things
NCP Normal Cyclic Prefix
NCT New Carrier Type
NEST NEtwork Slice Types
NG Next Generation
NID NPN ID
NIDD Non-IP Data Delivery
NOMA Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access
NPN Non-Public Networks
NR New Radio
NR-U NR access to Unlicensed spectrum
NRF Network Repository Function
NSA Non-StandAlone (deployments)
NSSAI Network Slice Selection Assistance Information
NSSP Network Slice Selection Policy
NWDAF NetWork Data Analytics Function

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 xxx Acronyms

NZP Non-Zero Power

OCC Orthogonal Cover Code
OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
OOS Out Of Service
OSI Other System Information
OTA Over-The-Air
PAPR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio
PBCH Physical Broadcast CHannel
Pcell Primary cell
PCF Policy Control Function
PCFICH Physical Control Format Indicator CHannel
PCI Physical Cell ID
PD Preamble Detection
PDB Packet Delay Bound
PDCCH Physical Downlink Control CHannel (Note: ePDCCH stands for
enhanced PDCCH; MPDCCH stands for MTC PDCCH; NPDCCH stands
for NB-IoT PDCCH)
PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol
PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared CHannel (Note: NPDSCH stands for NB-IoT
PDSCH)
PDU Protocol Data Unit
PER Packet Error Rate
PHICH Physical HARQ Indicator CHannel
PI Pre-emption (or Priority) Indicator
PMI Precoding Matrix Indicator
PO Paging Occasion
PPPP ProSe Per Packet Priority
PRACH Physical Random Access CHannel (Note: NPRACH stands for NB-IoT
PRACH)
PRB Physical Resource Block
PRI PUCCH Resource Indicator
PSCCH Physical Sidelink Control CHannel
PSD Power Spectral Density
PSM Power Saving Mode
PSS Primary Synchronization Signal (Note: NPSS stands for NB-IoT PSS)
PSSCH Physical Sidelink Shared CHannel
PT-RS Phase Tracking Reference Signal
PUCCH Physical Uplink Control CHannel
PUR Pre-configured Uplink Resource
PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared CHannel (Note: NPUSCH stands for NB-IoT
PUSCH)
QCI QoS Class Identifier
QCL Quasi-Co-Location
QFI QoS Flow ID
QoE Quality of Experience
QoS Quality of Service
RAN Radio Access Network
RAR Random Access Response

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 Acronyms xxxi
RAT Radio Access Technology
RB Resource Block
RBG Resource Block Group
RE Resource Element
RI Rank Indicator
RIM Remote Interference Management
RLC Radio Link Control
RLF Radio Link Failure
RLM Radio Link Management
RM Registration Management or Rate Matching or Reed-Muller (depending
on the context)
RMSI Remaining Minimum System Information
RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier
RRM Radio Resource Management
RSRP Reference Signal Received Power
RSRQ Reference Signal Received Quality
RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator
RSU RoadSide Unit
RTT Round Trip Time
RV Redundancy Version
SA StandAlone (deployments)
SC-FDMA Single-Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SC-PTM Single Cell Point-To-Multipoint
SCEF Service Capability Exposure Function
Scell Secondary cell
SCG Secondary Cell Group
SCS SubCarrier Spacing
SD Slice Differentiator
SD-CDD Small Delay Cyclic Delay Diversity
SDL Supplemental DownLink
SFBC Space-Frequency Block Codes
SFI Slot Format Indicator
SFN Single Frequency Network
SFTD SFN and Frame Timing Difference
SI Study Item or System Information (depending on the context)
SIB System Information Block
SIDF Subscription Identifier De-concealing Function
SINR Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio
SLA Service Level Agreements
SLIV Start and Length Indicator Value
SMF Session Management Function
SMTC SS/PBCH block Measurement Time Configuration
SNPN Standalone Non-Public Networks
SPS Semi-Persistent Scheduling
SR Scheduling Request
SRI SRS Resource Indicator
SRS Sounding Reference Signal
SS Synchronization Signals

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 xxxii Acronyms

SSB Synchronization Signals Block

SSBRI SSB Resource Indicator
SSC Session and Service Continuity
SSS Secondary Synchronization Signal (Note: NSSS stands for NB-IoT SSS)
SST Slice/Service Type
sTTI short Transmit Time Interval
SUL Supplemental UpLink
SUPI SUbscriber’s Permanent Identifier
TA Timing Advance
TAG Timing Advance Group
TB Transport Block
TBCC Tail-Biting Convolutional Code
TBS Transport Block Size
TCI Transmission Configuration Indicator
TDD Time-Division Duplex
TDRA Time Domain Resource Allocation
TL Threshold Level
TPC Transmit Power Control
TPMI Transmit Precoding Matrix Indicator
TRP Transmit and/or Receive Point
TRS Tracking Reference Signal
TSN Time Sensitive Networking
TTI Transmit Time Interval
UAC Unified Access Control
UCI Uplink Control Information
UDM Unified Data Management
UDR User Data Repository
UDSF Unstructured Data Storage Function
UE User Equipment
UL UpLink
ULSUP UL Sharing from the UE Perspective
UP User Plane
URLLC Ultra Reliability Low Latency Communication
URSP UE Route Selection Policy
USS UE-specific Search Space
V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure
V2N Vehicle to Network
V2P Vehicle to Pedestrian
V2V Vehicle to Vehicle
V2X Vehicle to Everything
VoIP Voice over IP
VRB Virtual Resource Block
WI Work Item
WLANSP WLAN Selection Policy
WUS Wake-Up Signal
XR eXtended Reality
ZP Zero-Power

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 CHAPTER 1
5G versus 4G: What’s New?

1.1 Overview
From the radio perspective there are many similarities between 4G (LTE) and 5G (NR)
but there are some key differences to note. The objective of this chapter is to cover these
differences and provide a rationale behind each of them. For the core network architec-
ture, a detailed analysis of the similarities and differences between 4G (EPC) and 5G
(5GC) is described in Chap. 3.
5G, from its inception, has been meant to address three major types of applica-
tions: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low-latency communications
(URLLC), and massive machine type communications (mMTC).
The first 3GPP release of NR was Release 15 and the main focus was eMBB. In order
to address future applications, NR was designed from day one with forward compat-
ibility in mind. Forward compatibility is addressed in multiple ways. First, NR intro-
duced the concept of reserved resources which are meant to be ignored by the UEs.
NR design has also drastically reduced reliance on “always on” channels and signals,
which largely reduces the network requirements for having to be “ON” to transmit
some determined channels or signals in certain parts of the frame. Lastly, unlike LTE,
the underlying frame and slot structure, as well as the timing relationships involving
action/reaction in NR, are flexible, enabling the possibility of moving transmissions/
receptions around for the potential future introduction of new channels and/or signals.
While URLCC support was in the scope of Release 15, only a limited set of features
were introduced motivated by this type of application, namely:

• Low latency: mini-slot scheduling (scheduling or mapping type B in the

specifications), Capability 2 for shorter processing times at the UE
• High reliability: set of MCS and CQI tables tailored for 10–5 error rate operation

Chapter 13 provides more details on how URLLC is enabled by NR in both Release

15 and Release 16. By way of a high-level introduction, it is important to note that
URLCC is not enabled by one particular feature or functionality in the NR specifications.
Rather, different levels of low-latency and reliability are enabled by different function-
alities. In addition, there are features introduced to enable the coexistence in a network
and within a terminal of services of different latency and reliability requirements.
On mMTC, it is important to realize that mMTC has not been explicitly addressed
by NR Release 15, Release 16, or even Release 17. 3GPP made the conscious decision
to avoid further fragmenting the IoT market by developing yet another Low Power
Wide Area (LPWA) solution just a couple of releases after the initial introduction of

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 2 Chapter One

eMTC and NB-IoT in Release 13. Instead, mMTC communications are supported by the
LTE developed features eMTC (or LTE-M) and NB-IoT, which can be fully embedded
inside an NR carrier and connected to the 5G Core (5GC) from Release 16. Chapter 14,
in turn, gives an overview of these systems and how they have evolved over the vari-
ous releases from their inception in Release 13. Chapter 4 provides an overview of the
mMTC functionalities provided by 5GC.

1.2 LTE: A Success Story

There is no doubt that LTE has been a success story for wireless communications. It is
fair to say that smartphones proliferated with LTE networks. The overall user expe-
rience for data communications increased considerably with the advent of these net-
works. LTE enabled high speed mobile broadband performance away from home,
which – together with new phone form factors, with larger and touch screens – changed
forever the way people interact with their mobile devices. Having access to web brows-
ing, video streaming, video conferencing, gaming, and other endless number of “Apps”
at your fingertips inside and outside home was hard to imagine a few years earlier.
At the same time all operators provided services that were using the circuit switched
(CS) domain (such as voice, SMS) and regulatory services (such support for E911 emer-
gency calls, public warning system, etc.) have been successfully migrated through the
evolutions of LTE and EPC to the packet switched (PS) domain and IP Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS). One can say that eventually LTE/EPC in 2020 in most operator net-
works is a fully packet switched cellular system.
When LTE was designed and standardized, there was a clear intent to “keep it
simple” and “try to minimize options.” This was after the learnings from 3G UMTS
over-configurability and associated complexity. That complexity and tool-box approach
became manifested especially at the time of the first system deployments which took
a long time to mature. Initial 3G UMTS user equipment implementations also suffered
from poor performance and battery life.
As a result, LTE is a fairly lean and simple design avoiding unnecessary options and
configurability. Note that these design principles were not present in the development
of NR, which is designed for a variety of use cases requiring substantially different
configurations.
LTE was introduced in Release 8 of 3GPP and still evolves today with the corre-
sponding Release 17 work. The amount of work and functionality that 3GPP has added
over the releases to the LTE platform is phenomenal. It is noticed that there is a large
gap with respect to the features offered by the LTE standards and those which got com-
mercially deployed. There are some very important additions after Release 8 which saw
broad commercial success, voice over IMS (Release 9), E911 and LCS for E911 (Release 9),
Transmission Mode 8 (TM8 in Release 9), carrier aggregation (Release 10), eMTC and
NB-IoT (Release 13), LAA (Release 13), cellular-V2X (Release 14) to name a few.
There were some revolutionary changes in the migration from 3G networks to 4G
networks. The most relevant change from the radio perspective was the change of wave-
form from CDMA to (a) OFDMA in the Downlink and (b) SC-FDMA in the Uplink. Note
that the LTE waveforms never changed after the original waveform choice in Release
8 despite the failed attempt to introduce OFDMA in the Uplink during Release 10 dis-
cussions in the context of LTE-advanced. Figure 1.1 shows a high-level comparison of
CDMA, OFDMA, and SC-FDMA transmitters.

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 3

Mod Pulse
Spread
symbols Shape

Mod
S|P IFFT CP
symbols

Mod Freq
S|P DFT IFFT CP
symbols Map

Figure 1.1 CDMA/OFDMA/SC-FDMA transmitter comparison.

CDMA transmitters expand the transmission bandwidth via a spreading function

which typically leads to increased inter symbol interference (ISI). The spreading func-
tion enables a processing gain at the receiver which makes CDMA communications
particularly adequate for low or very low SNR regime. At high SNRs, CDMA systems
need to resort to equalization techniques, which are typically of high complexity. In
contrast, OFDMA and SC-FDMA parallelize the transmission into multiple frequency
subchannels, effectively elongating the symbol duration and, hence, becoming more
resilient to channel dispersion and reducing the need for complex equalization.
The main reasons for the change of waveforms in the 3G to 4G transition were the
scalability to larger bandwidths, the reduced receiver complexity, and the increased
suitability for multiple-input, multiple output (MIMO) operation.
Receiver complexity for CDMA receivers stems from two major reasons:

• Finger management of RAKE receiver

• Equalization complexity for higher spectral efficiencies

RAKE receivers resort to multiple “fingers” latching to individual paths. The path
resolution for a CDMA system is inversely proportional to the channel bandwidth.
Hence, the path resolution for W-CDMA 3.84 Megachips per second (Mcps) is roughly
three times that of IS-95 or cdma2000 1.2288 Mcps system. For CDMA systems with
increased bandwidth, the multi-path resolution increases and, hence, more fingers are
required for tracking. Also, since there are more resolvable paths, the energy per path
drops making it harder to track them. One time-sample (or chip) duration in W-CDMA
is 260.41 ns which makes path tracking already challenging. Scaling up the channel
bandwidth from the 5 MHz of W-CDMA to say 20 MHz via direct up-sampling of the

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 4 Chapter One

CDMA transmitter would make path tracking even more challenging. That was the
reason for looking into carrier aggregation solutions of the 5 MHz W-CDMA system to
offer 20 MHz bandwidth operation in the study phase of LTE.
CDMA systems were initially envisioned for voice applications with relatively low
spectral efficiency requirements and relying on processing gain inherent to CDMA for
boosting the SNRs to positive values at the receiver side. Applications requiring higher
spectral efficiencies require much larger SNRs, typically not achievable by a mere
RAKE receiver leading to the resorting to equalization at the receiver. Equalization,
even though it can be fairly effective, comes at the price of complexity. Various types of
equalization were heavily studied and implemented in CDMA networks ranging from
linear to nonlinear interference cancelation based. Everything looked so much simpler
when turning into OFDM.
From the network perspective, 4G removed the concept of macro-diversity and
migrated to a flatter architecture model. Note that this fundamental change remains in
the 5G architecture. As we will see later, LTE eventually introduced coordinated multi-
point (COMP) transmissions which, to some extent, re-introduced the macro-diversity
concept in 4G but without the need of a base station controller (BSC) node to manage it.
COMP is also present in 5G.
Some other aspects did not change in the 3G to 4G transition; notably, the channel
coding remained turbo codes for data channels. There were some adjustments made
to the coding of control channels where the regular Convolutional Codes of 3G were
replaced by tail-biting convolutional codes in LTE.
From core network and system perspective overall as mentioned previously, EPS is
the first fully packet switched system designed by 3GPP. The original goal was to pro-
vide all services in PS domain. This goal was watered down due to the introduction of
CS Fallback (CSFB) in order to provide support for voice and SMS through transition-
ing to 2/3G CS. Progressively the majority of operators migrated to support Voice over
IMS. In order to support this goal, every 4G LTE UE when it attaches to the network
gets an IP address, unlike UMTS where usually the IP address was obtained after appli-
cation/user’s interaction. This “always on” IP connectivity is one of the major enablers
of the internet connected “apps” that we are all enjoying in our phones every day.
Another major evolutionary step in EPS was a great simplification in the NAS and
RRC protocols Finite State Machine (FSM) through, e.g., removal of URA-PCH and
“suspended” state that existed in 2/3G. The QoS framework was also greatly simplified
since the numerous QoS parameters that existed in UMTS QoS causing interoperabil-
ity issues in real-life networks were replaced with only a handful. The main one is the
QoS class identifier (QCI) that is a scalar value, which maps to the packet delay budget
(PDB), packet error rate (PER), and priority of the specific EPS bearer.

1.3 Physical Layer Changes in 5G

At high level, Table 1.1 summarizes the differences at the physical layer between NR
and LTE.

1.3.1 Frame Structure

LTE originally defined two frame structures: frame structure type 1 for FDD operation
and frame structure type 2 for TDD operation. In Release 13, with the standardization

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 5

Concept 4G LTE 5G NR
Frame FS type 1: Frequency division duplexing Single and highly configurable frame
structure (FDD) structure for all use cases. Notion of
(FS) FS type 2: Time division duplexing (TDD) DL, UL, and Flexible resources.
FS type 3: Unlicensed operation
Scheduling 1ms subframe based Slot based (type A scheduling)
flexibility Release 15 introduced sTTI for shorter Mini-slot based (type B scheduling)
scheduling units
Waveform DL: OFDM DL: OFDM
UL: SC-FDMA UL: SC-FDMA* & OFDM
15 kHz SCS FR1: 15 kHz, 30 kHz, 60 kHz (data)
15 kHz, 30 kHz (SSB)
FR2: 60 kHz, 120 kHz (data)
120 kHz, 240 kHz (SSB)
(*) SC-FDMA for single-layer
transmissions.
Forward Limited via MBSFN subframes and Reserved resources
compatibility almost blank subframes
(MBSFN subframes with very limited
control information and including CRS)
“Always on” CRS (every DL slot) No CRS
signals SSB (5 ms period) SSB (20 ms period default)
Transmission TM 1-7 (Release 8) Single-transmission mode for data
modes TM8 (Release 9) channels
TM9 (Release 10) Transparent TxDiv scheme
TM10 (Release 11)
SFBC TxDiv for control channels
Multi-beam N/A FR1: Up to 8 SSB beams
operation FR2: Up to 64 SSB beams
Channel Data: Turbo codes Data: LDPC codes
coding Control: TBCC, as well as repetition, Control: Polar codes
simplex, and Reed-Mueller coding for Coding for control channels with less
small payload sizes. than 13 bits of information remain
the same as in LTE, i.e., repetition,
simplex, and Reed-Mueller.
Bandwidths BWs: 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz BWs:
& bandwidth BWP: N/A FR1: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50,
part concept 60, 80, 90, 100 MHz
FR2: 50, 100, 200, 400 MHz
BWP: Up to 4 configured BWPs.
Single-active BWP.
Additional BWs could be added in
future releases of NR.

Table 1.1 Summary of Physical Layer Differences Between NR and LTE

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 6 Chapter One

DL
DL Data Gap UL
Ctrl

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

DL
Gap UL Data
Ctrl

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Figure 1.2 Exemplary NR slot configurations enabling DL and UL transmission in a same slot.

of unlicensed operation for LTE (LAA), frame structure type 3 was introduced in the
LTE specifications.
Frame structure type 1 consisted of all DL subframes for the DL frequency and all
UL subframes for the UL frequency. Frame structure type 2 introduced the concept of
special subframes on top of the DL subframes and UL subframes. The special subframes
had a duration of 1 ms and consisted of a portion of DL symbols at the beginning of
the subframe, a portion of UL symbols at the end of the subframe, and a guard period
in between. Release 8 introduced seven different frame structure type 2 configurations
with 5 ms and 10 ms DL/UL switching periodicities. In addition, Release 8 introduced
nine possible configurations of the special subframe with various durations of the DL
portion (3, 9, 10, 11, 12 symbols), the UL portion (1 or 2 symbols), and the guard period
(minimum 1 symbol).
In contrast, NR defines a single-frame structure without distinction of FDD, TDD,
or unlicensed operation. Indeed, the definition of the slot format is so flexible in NR that
a single definition enables a large variety of frame and slot formats. Figure 1.2 shows an
illustration of two possible NR slot configurations.
NR slot format configuration is achieved by semi-static configuration (common
plus possibly dedicated RRC configuration) in conjunction with the possibility of
dynamic configuration for a given period of time. The designation of resources can be
Downlink (D), Uplink (U), or Flexible (F) resources. One or two patterns can be created
from a sequence of DL only slots at the beginning of the pattern (possibility for 0 DL
only slots is also possible), a sequence of UL only slots (possibility for 0 UL slots is also
possible) at the end of the pattern, and a slot with individual symbol configuration for
D, U, and F resembling the special subframes in LTE. One important difference is that
LTE originally had nine special subframes and NR has defined a table with 256 entries
in Release 15 with “only” 56 being defined for Release 15 [1] (more details can be found
in Chap. 5).
In case of two patterns configured, their concatenation and subsequent repetition
creates the overall frame and slot configuration.
Dedicated semi-static configuration can only override Flexible resources. Dynamic
slot format indication (SFI) is conveyed via Downlink control information (DCI) and
consists of a pointer to a semi-statically configured slot configuration. This dynamic SFI
is not expected to conflict with the semi-static configuration. Note that a link direction

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 7

ls
bo
m

ls
ls

sy

bo
bo

le

m
m

ib

sy
sy

x
#Full Downlink slots #Full Uplink slots

le

L
L

#U
#D

#F
Switching slot
DL-UL Transmission Periodicity

Downlink symbol Uplink symbol Flexible symbol

Figure 1.3 Exemplary frame and slot configuration.

Each Id represents one higher layer

configured slot format combination
DCI Format 2_0 Slot Format Indicator
Slot Formats
Format Symbols
Id 0 0 DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Slot Format 1 UUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Id 1
1 0 2 FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Slot Format Id 511
2 6 3 DDDDDDDDDDDDDF
1 0 Slot Format
… … … …
2 0 1 17
N 1 55 DDFFFUUUDDDDDD
… … 2 2
N 1 … … D: Downlink symbol
N 11 U: Uplink symbol
F: Flexible symbol

Figure 1.4 Exemplary slot format indication.

denoted as “F” in dynamic SFI is not deemed as in conflict with “D” or “U” in the semi-
static configuration.
Figure 1.3 illustrates an exemplary frame and slot configuration resorting to full
DL slots, full UL slots, and a slot with one switching point between DL and UL with a
guard in-between.
Figure 1.4, in turn, illustrates an exemplary slot format indication by the combi-
nation of a RRC configuration and an indication by means of DCI format 2_0 of the
corresponding slot format.

1.3.2 Scheduling Flexibility

Another aspect that NR has introduced relates to the scheduling flexibility. The sched-
uling unit or transmission time interval (TTI) was a very rigid quantity in WCDMA
(3G) and LTE (4G). In 3G days, the Release 5 High Speed Downlink Packet Access
(HSDPA) definition introduced 2 ms TTI for the “HS” channels, while Release 6 High
Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) resorted to 2 ms and 10 ms TTIs for the related
UL channels. Note that 10 ms TTI for the UL was to match the link budget of the cir-
cuit switch channels. In LTE Release 8, a single TTI of length 1 ms was defined for all
the Physical layer channels. LTE Release 15 introduced the notion of short TTI (sTTI),
enabling for the first time in LTE the scheduling units of less than 1 ms.

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 8 Chapter One

NR, in turn, introduces the concept of slot-based scheduling and non-slot–based

scheduling, or mini-slot scheduling from its first release. The specifications denote
slot-based scheduling as mapping Type A, and mini-slot–based scheduling as map-
ping Type B (more details in Chap. 8). Therefore, the TTI for the data channels in NR
becomes a much more flexible concept. While in Release 15 there are some limitations
with mapping Type B, namely only lengths of 2, 4, and 7 OFDM symbols are supported,
this restriction gets alleviated in Release 16 with all duration from 2 through 13 symbols
are supported for mapping Type B.

1.3.3 Waveform
OFDMA is introduced for the Uplink of NR on top of the LTE-defined SC-FDMA. Note
that, SC-FDMA, also known as DFT-spread-OFDMA, is only supported for single-layer
transmissions in NR. The use of SC-FDMA in the Uplink is called out in the specifi-
cations alluding to the use of “transform precoding.” Therefore, the introduction of
OFDMA in the Uplink of NR has not really caused much difficulty in the specifications.
Note that the use of SC-FDMA in the UL enables running the UE’s power amplifier
(PA) at a higher efficiency (less power back-off to accommodate the peak-to-average of
the underlying transmission). Therefore, it has a direct impact on the UL coverage. On
the other hand, the use of OFDM waveform facilitates the gNB’s receiver implementa-
tion for multi-layer (MIMO) transmissions.
In OFDM systems, the key parameters are the subcarrier spacing and the cyclic pre-
fix (CP) duration. While in LTE, only 15 kHz subcarrier spacing was supported, NR has
parameterized the subcarrier spacing to various values depending on the frequency range
of operation. Larger subcarrier spacings entail shorter OFDM symbols, which are good for
low-latency communications. Shorter OFDM symbols are also better to cope with Doppler
and the increased phase noise (PN) of transmissions at higher frequencies especially
mmWave. Figure 1.5 illustrates the various subcarrier spacings introduced in NR Release 15.
NR has introduced two frequency ranges for operation:

• Frequency Range 1 (FR1): for NR operations between 425 MHz and 7.125 GHz.
This is often denoted as “sub 6” because the original upper bound was set to be
6 GHz which got increased to 7.1 GHz to include the 6 GHz unlicensed band.
The data channels in FR1 can use 15, 30, or 60 kHz subcarrier spacing, whereas
the sync channels are defined for 15 and 30 kHz.
• Frequency Range 2 (FR2): for NR operations between 24.25 GHz and 52.6 GHz.
This frequency range is often denoted as “mmWave” or, simply, “mmW.” The
data channels in FR2 can use 60 kHz or 120 kHz subcarrier spacing, whereas the
sync channels are defined for 120 kHz and 240 kHz.

LTE defined normal CP and extended CP. The normal CP in LTE has an average
duration of 4.76 µs and incurs a 6.66% CP overhead, whereas the extended CP has a
duration of 16.66 µs and incurs a 20% CP overhead. In NR, the normal CP duration
applies to all the subcarrier spacings with a duration scaled with the symbol dura-
tion so that the same CP overhead is incurred for all the different numerologies, i.e.,
6.66%. In NR, the extended CP duration applies only to the 60 kHz subcarrier spacing
duration.
There is no known LTE deployment employing the extended CP, and the extended
CP duration for NR has been designated as an optional feature for the UE.

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 9

15 kHz SCS 30 kHz SCS 60 kHz SCS 120 kHz SCS 240 kHz SCS

Figure 1.5 Illustration of various NR subcarrier spacings.

1 ms subframe
OFDM
symbol Subframe

15 kHz SCS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
500 μs
30 kHz SCS Slot Mini-slot

250 μs
60 kHz SCS Slot
125 μs
120 kHz SCS Slot

Figure 1.6 Illustration of various NR slot durations corresponding to different numerologies.

The scheduling of LTE, from its inception, was centered around the 1 ms subframe
consisting of 14 OFDM symbols. NR reuses the concept of subframe to designate a dura-
tion of 1 ms. However, it introduces the concept of 14 OFDM symbol slot as the default
scheduling unit across numerologies. As a result, the slot duration for 15, 30, 60, and
120 kHz corresponds to 1 ms, 500 µs, 250 µs, and 125 µs slot durations, respectively.
Chapter 5 provides a more in-depth treatment of the NR numerology and slot structure.
NR also reuses the concept of resource block (RB) introduced in LTE. One RB con-
sists of 12 subcarriers in a given numerology or subcarrier spacing. As a result, the
bandwidth spun by an RB goes from 180 kHz for 15 kHz subcarrier spacing and scales
in powers of 2 for increased subcarrier spacings. Figure 1.6 introduces the concept of
radio frame, subframe, slot, and mini-slot which will be elaborated in more detail in
Chap. 5.

1.3.4 Forward Compatibility

As discussed earlier, forward compatibility was a design goal for 5G NR from the start.
Forward compatibility is achieved by making sure that the inclusion of features in the
future will not adversely degrade operation or performance of legacy devices. This is
achieved by defining reserved resources in the time-frequency grid of resources. The
basic time unit for reservation is one OFDM symbol while the basic frequency unit
for reservation is typically one resource block. Note that a finer frequency granularity
of resource reservation corresponding to individual subcarriers or resource elements
(REs) can be achieved for some limited patterns and only for 15 kHz subcarrier spacing,
as discussed later.
Reserved resources should be discarded and not processed (received) at the UE
receiver. It is assumed that UL transmissions by the UE will be naturally governed
by the corresponding dynamic or configured grants, as well as by semi-static RRC

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 10 Chapter One

configurations [e.g., random access (PRACH) resources] and UL control (PUCCH)

resources.
Resource reservation is achieved in two ways via slot format indication and its
“Flexible resources” as discussed earlier, or via rate matching configuration as dis-
cussed hereafter. Additionally, timing relationships in NR can be flexible/configurable,
making it easier to schedule transmissions around certain resources. The timing rela-
tionships in question are the timing between the DL control sending a DL data assign-
ment and its associated DL data transmission (denoted by N0 symbols or K0 slots), the
timing between the DL control sending a DL data assignment and its associated HARQ-
ACK feedback (denoted by N1 symbols or K1 slots), and the timing between the DL
control sending the UL data grant and its associated UL data transmission (denoted by
N2 symbols or K2 slots). The timing relationship between the DL control triggering the
transmission of CSI-RS or SRS [and the actual CSI-RS or SRS transmission] can also be
configurable in NR. Note that all these timing relationships in LTE are fixed.
The network can reserve resources via the configuration of two or three bitmaps.
The first two bitmaps designate reserved radio resources for individual OFDM symbols
and individual RBs, respectively, creating a two-dimensional map of resources that are
to be rate-matched around for transmission at the gNB and corresponding reception
at the UE. The third bitmap can selectively repeat the pattern created by the first two
bitmaps over a longer time duration up to 40 ms. A bit in the DCI scheduling the cor-
responding PDSCH can selectively enable/disable a given reservation scheme for the
associated scheduled DL transmission.
In addition, for 15 kHz subcarrier spacing, an additional RE level pattern can be
configured with the objective to rate match NR DL data (PDSCH) transmissions around
LTE CRS resource elements. The configuration enables the possibility to configure the
number of CRS ports (up to 4), the frequency shift for the transmission of CRS, and the
center carrier frequency and bandwidth.
Note that in addition to the forward compatibility, the resource reservation schemes
introduced by NR enable backwards compatibility with LTE and what is being broadly
denoted as dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS). Chapter 11 presents this feature of NR in
detail.
Looking into the opportunities for forward compatibility that LTE has, the story is
quite different because of the rigidity of LTE and the inability to completely blank out
portions of the frame for legacy operation to ignore, while enabling new implementations
to use those portions of the frame for something else. Indeed, LTE only has the possibil-
ity to configure the so-called MBSFN subframes without actually transmitting eMBMS
(broadcast), which was the original intent for this type of subframes in LTE. The sub-
frames configured as MBSFN subframes (and without the corresponding eMBMS trans-
mission) will only have the control region corresponding to the first one or two OFDM
symbols of the corresponding MBSFN subframe occupied, while the corresponding data
portion of the subframe will be left empty. Note that in the control region of the MBSFN
subframes, at the very least the REs corresponding to CRS will have to be transmitted.
In addition, that control region could carry UL grants for corresponding UL subframes.

1.3.5 Minimizing “Always On” Channels

LTE Downlink has the common reference signals (CRS) transmitted in every Downlink
slot. This physical signal is used by the UE receiver for multiple purposes: time and

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 11
frequency tracking, channel state information measurement, and mobility (RRM) mea-
surements, in addition to providing the phase reference for the demodulation of the DL
control and data channels (Transmission Modes 1 through 6). There is no CRS equivalent
in NR. Instead, NR resorts to channel specific demodulation reference signals (DMRS)
which were also introduced in LTE for Transmission Modes 7 through 10. DMRS trans-
mission is embedded within the resource allocation of the corresponding NR physical
layer channel [physical broadcast channel (PBCH), physical Downlink control channel
(PDCCH), physical Downlink shared channel (PDSCH), physical Uplink control chan-
nel (PUCCH), physical Uplink shared channel (PUSCH)]. Note that incurring upfront
the overhead associated with the CRS transmission diminishes the benefits of having a
yet additional reference signal for demodulation. There are several benefits associated
with DMRS operation. DMRS-based operation enables beamforming of reference signal
in the same way as the associated control or data transmission, making the application
of the channel estimates obtained from DMRS to demodulate the corresponding control
or data straight forward. Also, the reference signal overhead for higher rank transmis-
sion in multi-layer MIMO transmissions is only incurred when needed (unlike CRS
which would require multiple antenna-port transmission all the time incurring always
the higher overhead). Also, not having to transmit CRS brings multiple benefits, espe-
cially to the network, as it enables lower network energy consumption and reduced
inter-cell interference.
In LTE, the synchronization signals are transmitted every 5 ms. In NR, in con-
trast, they are transmitted every 20 ms by default (longer and shorter periodicities are
allowed by the specifications). More details on the synchronization signals will be cov-
ered in Chap. 6.
As a result, transmission of “always on” signals in NR has been reduced consider-
ably. This is positive from the gNB energy efficiency perspective, as well as from the
generation of inter-cell interference perspective (oftentimes dominated by CRS interfer-
ence in lightly loaded LTE networks). However, the absence of a signal for the UE to
latch on makes it more difficult for it to track and measure. As a result, NR operation
is expected to possibly degrade UE power consumption and increase initial cell search
times versus regular LTE operation.

1.3.6 Transmission Modes

The first release of LTE defined seven transmission modes (TMs), TM1 through TM7,
for the transmission of the Downlink data channel (PDSCH) semi-statically configured
by higher layers. Release 9 introduced TM8 enabling dual-layer beamforming for LTE
TDD systems and which has been extensively used in LTE TDD deployments in China.
Two additional transmission modes were introduced in Release 10 and Release 11,
respectively. Table 1.2 provides a high-level view of the 10 transmission modes of LTE.
The real necessity of all the10 transmission modes for LTE was tested by what
was eventually adopted in actual network deployments. There are some transmission
modes that have not seen the light of a broad deployment or have never been deployed.
Only TM3, TM4, and TM8 have been broadly deployed in LTE networks.
This is probably one of the reasons where NR went for a radically simpler approach
and a single-transmission mode is defined for the Downlink data channel (PDSCH).
In addition, LTE introduced transmit diversity for DL control channels based on
space frequency block codes (SFBC). NR, in turn, has resorted to transparent transmit

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 12 Chapter One

LTE
transmission
mode # Description
1 Release 8 CRS based. Single-antenna port, port 0.
2 Release 8 CRS based. Transmit diversity (TxDiv).
3 Release 8 CRS based. Large delay CDD (TM1 fallback)
4 Release 8 CRS based. Closed-loop spatial multiplexing (TM1 fallback)
5 Release 8 CRS based. Multi-user MIMO (TM1 fallback)
6 Release 8 CRS based. Closed-loop spatial multiplexing with single layer (TM1
fallback)
7 Release 8 DMRS based. Single-antenna port, port 5 (TM1 or TM2 fallback).
8 Release 9 DMRS based. Dual-layer beamforming
9 Release 10 DMRS based. Multi-layer transmission (up to 8 layers)
10 Release 11 for support of coordinated multi-point (CoMP)

Table 1.2 LTE Transmission Modes

diversity schemes for control channels and sync signals. The transparency is from the
specification and receiver design perspective. The diversity, in turn, is achieved by the
use of small cyclic delay diversity schemes not requiring the specification for interoper-
ability between a transmitter and a receiver.

1.3.7 Multi-Beam Operation

Highly directional transmissions have been always used in mmWave systems to cope
with the harsh propagation conditions of this frequency regime. The high directionality
is typically achieved by an antenna array with a large number of elements, e.g., 128,
256, or even more. These transmissions achieve a respectable antenna and array gain
which will help “closing the loop” for the establishment of a communication link. In a
system beyond a single point-to-point link, a “codebook of beams” is necessary in order
to cover a given geographical coverage area.
In order to maximize the antenna and array gain of a given transmission, all
antenna elements contribute to the creation of the “codebook of beams” as illustrated
in Fig. 1.7. RFIC implementations of these large antenna arrays typically provide per-
element amplitude and phase control to yield the codebook of the so-called “analog
beams.” These beams can be typically very narrow (directive) but, unlike digitally cre-
ated beams, which can apply to a given limited frequency resource allocation, these
narrow beams, which are applied in the analog domain, apply to the entire transmis-
sion bandwidth. This is the reason why analog beamforming requires the concept of
“beam sweeping” in order to cover the aggregated area of the beams belonging to the
“codebook of beams” (see Fig. 1.7).
NR specifications have been developed for the two frequency ranges of operation
concurrently. The concept of multi-beam operation, therefore, appears not only in the
context of FR2 but also, albeit at a smaller extent, in the context of FR1 as well.
Synchronization signals themselves can be transmitted in up to 64 beams for FR2
and up to 8 beams in FR1. The acquisition of the synchronization signals in a given

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 13

e
Tim
Figure 1.7 Illustration of analog beamforming.

beam direction starts a bootstrap procedure for the UE to choose a given set of resources
so that the corresponding gNB’s reception is tuned at that corresponding beam direc-
tion. Once a connection is established, an entire beam management procedure is intro-
duced in NR, very much similar to the regular mobility procedure with measurements,
reports, and failures, but limited to the serving cell and staying at medium access con-
trol (MAC) level (unlike the regular mobility procedure which takes place at RRC).

1.3.8 Channel Coding

LTE (4G) did not change the channel coding for the data channels from those used for
3G (WCDMA and cdma2000) reusing the same turbo codes which had been introduced
in 3G UMTS. One change that LTE introduced was the simplification of the rate match-
ing procedure with the introduction of the “circular buffer” concept to determine the
coded bits to transmit for the different redundancy versions of the transmission. Note
that this circular buffer concept still applies to NR.
For control information, LTE introduced tail-biting convolution codes (TBCC)
replacing the regular convolutional codes that were in use in 3G to save the overhead
incurred by the tail bits, which were used to take the trellis for Viterbi decoding to the
all-zero state. TBCC is used in LTE for control payload sizes of more than 22 bits. For
smaller control payloads, repetition coding (for 1-bit of information), simplex code (for

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 14 Chapter One

2-bit of information), and Reed-Mueller codes (for 3 through 22 bits of information)

were supported.
In contrast, NR has changed the coding for control and data transmissions.
The tail-biting convolution codes have been replaced by polar codes. DL and UL
control channels, as well as the physical broadcast channel (PBCH) use polar codes as
described in more detail in Chap. 7.
On the other hand, for the data channels, the turbo codes have been replaced by
LDPC codes. Note that LDPC codes not only have superior performance but also enable
a higher level of parallelization at the decoder which is critical for Gbps applications.
More details on the coding for data channels will be presented in Chap. 8.

1.3.9 Bandwidths and Bandwidth Part Concept

LTE was defined, from its original version in Release 8, with the following possible chan-
nel bandwidths: 1.4 MHz (6 RBs), 3 MHz (12 RBs), 5 MHz (25 RBs), 10 MHz (50 RBs),
and 20 MHz (100 RBs). The spectrum utilization for LTE is 90% across bandwidths, e.g.,
18 MHz usable spectrum for 20 MHz channel bandwidth.
In contrast, NR defines the following channel bandwidths for FR1 and FR2,
respectively:

• FR1: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 90, 100 MHz
• FR2: 50, 100, 200, 400 MHz

The spectrum utilization of NR is considerably increased compared to LTE, i.e., levels

around 95% for many cases. More details are discussed in Chap. 5.
DL control transmission (in PDCCH) in LTE spans the entire system bandwidth.
This was the main obstacle to enable reduced bandwidth operation in LTE when it
was being devised for MTC applications. Indeed, the introduction of ePDCCH (for
relay operation) and MPDCCH (for eMTC operation) was mainly motivated to have
the opportunity to confine the transmission of the DL control channel within certain
(narrow) transmission bandwidth. In contrast, in NR, from the start, the transmission
of PDCCH is confined within a so-called CORESET or COntrol REsource SET. The
bandwidth of the CORESET is fully configurable as discussed in Chap. 7. In addition,
NR introduces the notion of bandwidth part (BWP) for DL and UL. The BWP concept
enables operation confined to the bandwidth of the BWP. In NR, there are up to four
configured BWPs but only one active BWP. Chapter 5 provides more details of the BWP
operation and how it enables reduced bandwidth operation at the terminal side, as well
as enabling load balancing at the network side.

1.4 Protocol Changes in 5G

Figures 1.8 and 1.9 illustrate the protocol stack of LTE for user plane and control plane,
respectively [2].
Figures 1.10 and 1.11, in turn, illustrate the protocol stack of NR for user plane and
control plane, respectively [3].
Clearly, the control plane protocol stacks of NR and LTE are, fundamentally, the
same. Note that the network nodes are called differently, namely, a base-station in LTE
is called an eNB, while in NR it is called a gNB. Also, NAS protocol is terminated at
the mobility management entity (MME) in LTE, while it is terminated at the access and

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 15

UE eNB

PDCP PDCP

RLC RLC

MAC MAC

PHY PHY

Figure 1.8 LTE user plane protocol stack. (PDCP: packet data convergence protocol; RLC: radio
link control; MAC: medium access control; PHY: physical)

UE eNB MME

NAS NAS

RRC RRC

PDCP PDCP

RLC RLC

MAC MAC

PHY PHY

Figure 1.9 LTE control plane protocol stack. (NAS: non-access stratum; RRC: radio resource
control)

mobility management function (AMF) in NR. More details on the internal split in NAS
in mobility management (MM) and session management (SM) and the CN termination
are provided in Chap. 3.
For the user plane, the NR protocol stack introduces a new layer above packet data
convergence protocol (PDCP), namely, service data adaptation protocol (SDAP). The
main services and functions of SDAP include:

• Mapping between a QoS flow and a data radio bearer

• Marking QoS flow ID (QFI) in both DL and UL packets

A single-protocol entity of SDAP is configured for each individual packet data unit
(PDU) session.
An example of the layer 2 data flow is depicted in Fig. 1.12 [3], where a transport
block is generated by MAC by concatenating two radio link control (RLC) PDUs from

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 16 Chapter One

UE gNB

SDAP SDAP

PDCP PDCP

RLC RLC

MAC MAC

PHY PHY

Figure 1.10 NR user plane protocol stack. (SDAP: service data protocol)

UE gNB AMF

NAS NAS

RRC RRC

PDCP PDCP

RLC RLC

MAC MAC

PHY PHY

Figure 1.11 NR control plane protocol stack.

radio bearer “RBx” and one RLC PDU from Radio Bearer “RBy”. The two RLC PDUs
from RBx each corresponds to one IP packet (n and n+1) while the RLC PDU from RBy is
a segment of an IP packet (m). Note, H depicts the headers and subheaders.

1.5 Main Physical Layer Features of LTE over Releases

Despite the accelerated schedule of the first release of NR, one can say that many of the
functionalities provided by seven releases of LTE (Release 8 through Release 14) went
into the first release of NR, namely, Release 15.
LTE grew in complexity over time with the addition of features in the course of the
seven releases which preceded the first release of NR, i.e., Release 8 through Release 14.
Table 1.3 summarizes the main features of LTE introduced after the first version in
Release 8.

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 5 G v e r s u s 4 G : W h a t ’s N e w ? 17

IP Packet IP Packet IP Packet

n n+1 m

RBx RBy
SDAP H SDAP SDU H SDAP SDU H SDAP SDU ...

PDCP H PDCP SDU H PDCP SDU H PDCP SDU ...

RLC H RLC SDU H RLC SDU H SDU Segment H SDU Segment ...

MAC H MAC SDU H MAC SDU H MAC SDU H MAC SDU ...

MAC PDU – Transport Block

Figure 1.12 A data flow example. (PDU: packet data unit; SDU: service data unit)

Modulation # Layers
Release DL UL DL UL #CCs Salient features of the release
Rel-8 64-QAM 64-QAM 1 1 1 First release
Rel-9 64-QAM 64-QAM 1 1 1 Positioning, TM8, eMBMS
Rel-10 64-QAM 64-QAM 5 4 5 TM9, CA, UL-MIMO, eICIC, Relays,
HeNBs
Rel-11 64-QAM 64-QAM 5 4 5 TM10 (CoMP), FeICIC, EPDCCH, IDC
Rel-12 256-QAM 64-QAM 5 4 5 D2D, MTC, FDD-TDD CA, DC, eIMTA,
NAICS, WLAN traffic offloading
Rel-13 256-QAM 64-QAM 32 4 32 D2D+, LAA, LWA, eMTC, NB-IoT, FD-
MIMO
Rel-14 256-QAM 256-QAM 32 4 32 eLAA, eMTC+, NB-IoT+, V2x, eFD-
MIMO, MUST, EnTV
Rel-15 1024-QAM 256-QAM 32 4 32 sTTI, drones, evolutions of other
items

Note: CC: component carrier; CA: carrier aggregation; eMBMS: evolved multimedia broadcast/multicast ser-
vice; ICIC: inter-cell interference coordination; eICIC: enhanced ICIC; FeICIC: further enhanced ICIC; HeNB:
home eNB; EPDCCH: enhanced PDCCH; IDC: in-device coexistence; D2D: device-to-device; DC: dual con-
nectivity; eIMTA: enhanced interference mitigation and traffic adaptation; NAICS: network-assisted interfer-
ence cancellation and suppression; WLAN: wireless local area network; LAA: license-assisted access; eLAA:
enhanced LAA; LWA: LTE WiFi aggregation; eMTC: enhanced MTC; NB-IoT: narrow-band internet of things;
FD-MIMO: full dimension MIMO; V2x: vehicle to everything; eFD-MIMO: enhanced FD-MIMO; MUST: multi-
user superposition transmission; EnTV: enhanced television; sTTI: short TTI.

Table 1.3 Summary of Physical Layer LTE Features over 3GPP Releases

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 18 Chapter One

Notably, some of the missing functionality of NR Release 15 is alleviated in Release

16 and Release 17. In summary:

• NR Release 16 incorporates support of positioning, sidelink for V2X, relays

(IAB), Multi-TRP (non-transparent CoMP), unlicensed support, eMTC/NB-IoT
connected to 5GC.
• NR Release 17 is expected to incorporate support of broadcast/multicast,
evolved sidelink for V2X and sidelink beyond V2X.

References
[1] 3GPP, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio
Access Network; NR; Physical layer procedures for control (Release 15),” 3GPP TS
38.213, v15.8.0, January 2020.
[2] 3GPP, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio
Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall description; Stage
2 (Release 15),” 3GPP TS 36.300, v15.8.0, January 2020.
[3] 3GPP, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access
Network; NR; NR and NG-RAN Overall Description; Stage 2 (Release 15),” 3GPP
TS 38.300, v15.8.0, January 2020.

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