March 23, 2016

Last week, in Macau, 3GPP RAN leaders presented to the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Next Generation Standing Committee, briefing them on the 3GPP work done in Release-13 for LTE-WLAN Aggregation (LWA) and LTE WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP).

The presentation was given to stimulate further discussions on collaboration between IEEE and 3GPP.

 

This was achieved, with the three representatives from 3GPP RAN - Richard Burbidge ( 3GPP RAN2 Chairman), Philippe Reininger (3GPP RAN3 Chairman) and Sasha Sirotkin (3GPP LWA Rapporteur) - presenting to the IEEE 802.1CF OmniRAN Task Group* and the IEEE 802 5G Standing Committee (5G EC SC) in addition to the main presentation to the 802.11 Working Group.

In his response to the 3GPP presentations, Adrian Stephens - IEEE 802.11 Working Group Chair - noted that the "Continued and increased cooperation between IEEE 802.11 and 3GPP during the standards development process should be beneficial to enhance the user experience enabled by both sets of technologies", asking 3GPP to let IEEE 802.11 WG know how best to "facilitate the communication on technical interests." to that end.

The 3GPP presentation covered the following topics:

• LTE-WLAN Aggregation (LWA)
• LTE WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP)
• Next steps: Test cases for LWA, Enhanced LWA in Rel-14 (uplink support, enhanced mobility, optimizations for high data rate 802.11 technologies), 5G requirements on interworking with non-3GPP RATs

Further reading:

Download a PDF of the Presentation given by Richard Burbidge ( 3GPP RAN2 Chairman) - LTE-WLAN Aggregation (LWA) and LTE WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel (LWIP)

Related 3GPP Specs:

LWA

• Stage-2 high level description – TS 36.300, section 22A.1
• Stage-3 data plane (PDCP) – various sections in TS 36.323
• Stage-3 data plane (LWAAP) – TS 36.360
• Stage-3 control plane (RRC) – various sections in TS 36.331
• Stage-3 control plane network interface (Xw) – TS 36.463, TS 36.462, TS 36.461
• Stage-3 data plane network interface (Xw) – TS 36.465. TS 36.464
• Stage-3 security aspects – TS 33.401, section X (section number to be allocated)

LWIP

• Stage-2 high level description – TS 36.300, section 22A.3
• Stage-3 control plane (RRC) – various sections in TS 36.331
• Stage-3 data plane – TS 36.361
• Stage-3 security aspects – TS 33.401, section Y (section number to be allocated)

Specifications are available for download here: http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/latest/Rel-13/

Rel-14 eLWA Work Item Description (WID) - RP-160600

* OmniRAN is the IEEE 802.1 Network Reference Model and Functional Description of IEEE 802 Access Network task group

 

Contact for this article: Kevin FLYNN, Marketing and Communications Officer, 3GPP