SK Telecom and Ericsson claim to have solved the main cause of signal degradation in a small-cell environment, developing a technology that could eliminate the need for handover in LTE-A networks.
The technology enables multiple base stations to broadcast the same signal to terminals at a cell edge, removing the need for inter-cell handover.
SK Telecom said the 'Handover-Free Cell' technology can improve transmission rates by 1.5 to 2 times, and total cell system capacity by 5%-10%. The operator plans to incorporate it into its own network in the first half of next year.
It uses the core LTE-A technology Transmission Mode 9 (TM-9), which was first demonstrated by SK Telecom and Ericsson in January.
TM-9 allows base stations to send different demodulation reference signals to each mobile device located within a coverage area, and enables each base station to use its unique channel information reference signal to communicate with terminals.
SK Telecom and Ericsson also demonstrated a successor to the SK Telecom-developed LTE-A technology enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC), addressing the issue of additional transmission power consumption in small cell networks.
Reduced-Power Subframe (RPS) can improve cell system capacity by as much as 62% compared to its predecessor eICIC, the companies said.