This white paper highlights some of the key aspects and architecture options available for aggregating HSPA and LTE carriers.
Individually within both the HSPA and the LTE evolution, downlink and uplink carrier aggregation as well as co-site and inter-site aggregation have been considered. For both radio access technologies, the co-site aggregation has been standardized first and inter-site aggregation is currently being worked on.
The HSPA+LTE aggregation is a potential 3GPP Release 12 topic, and at the time of writing, there is yet no official commitment or ongoing work related to any Release 12 items ongoing in the standards body.
Hence the contents of this white paper can be seen more as visionary and exploratory than describing a feature already existing, or being worked on in the standard.
This white paper originally posted on 4G Americas