Small cells using low power nodes are considered promising to cope with rapid mobile traffic increase, especially for hotspot deployments in indoor and outdoor scenarios. A low-power node refers to a node whose transmission (Tx) power is lower than macro node and BS classes. A small cell has a range of 10 meters to 1 or 2 kilometers whereas the macrocell may have a range of a few tens of kilometers. Small cells encompass femtocells, picocells, and microcells. Small cell enhancements for an Evolved-Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and an Evolved-Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) focus on additional functionalities for enhanced performance in hotspot areas for indoor and outdoor using low power nodes.
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) discusses Small cell enhancements and is expected to address the deployment scenario in which different frequency bands are separately assigned to macro layer and small cell layer, respectively. Small cells are an integral part of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. In 3G networks, small cells are viewed as an offload technique.
Small cell enhancement is expected to support significantly increased user throughput for both downlink and uplink with main focus on typical user throughput given a reasonable system complexity. In addition, small cell enhancement is expected to target the capacity per unit area (e.g., bps/km2) to be as high as possible, for a given user and small cell distribution, typical traffic types and considering a reasonable system complexity. The small cell enhancements study is also expected to evaluate the impact of the actual backhaul delays and provide solutions with the aim of improved system performance. Other aspects, for example service quality of Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) (e.g., a Mean Opinion Score (MOS), and the like) and delay/jitter impacts on services (i.e., video streaming, video calls, and the like), could also be addressed in follow-on studies.
When there is a large deployment of overlapping small and macro cells, there is a potential to enhance the overall throughput as experienced by the UE with the possibility of the UE associating itself with two or more cells for possible simultaneous reception/transmission of data streams.
Currently in the cellular network behavior, if there is an additional eNB connection request and when there is already an existing connection from another eNB, the core network considers this as a “Cloned SIM” or the UE lost connection in the previous eNB.
In order to allow for dual connectivity between eNBs, a need exists for a method and a system for initiating and establishing dual connectivity for simultaneous data transmission and reception for a UE via two or more eNBs establishing one or more Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearers per eNB simultaneously.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.