The 4^th generation of cellular wireless technology is emerging on the horizon. It promises to usher in a broadband revolution, particularly in countries like India which rely mostly on wireless technology for telecom services. ITU is engaged in the exercise of evaluating candidate technologies for IMT-Advanced, which will then become the 4G standards. TCoE India is one of the 11 evaluation groups participating in this exercise. CEWiT and BWCI are collaborating with TCoE India. This workshop is brought to you by experts who are active in the standards bodies and IMT-A evaluation, and have deep knowledge of the emerging standards.

IEEE 802.16m (WiMAX) and 3GPP LTE-Advanced are the main candidates for IMT-Advanced. Both are likely to meet the requirements, and become part of the 4G family. They are both OFDM-based standards, with much that is similar, and aspects that are different. The evolution from 3G WCDMA to 4G OFDMA enables scalable bandwidth, best-band multi-user scheduling, advanced MIMO and interference suppression schemes, multiple time-frequency partitions each optimized for dynamically-varying sets of users, and the like. In addition, both the standards support FDD and TDD modes. The Core networks are also simultaneously evolving to a flat all-IP converged architecture, supporting multiple access technologies from LTE and WiMAX to the existing 2G/3G and WLAN networks. This represents a significant departure from the legacy core which is hierarchical with separate packet and circuit switched domains. An additional challenge is the evolution of mobile backhaul and transport networks to meet the performance demands of 4G networks.

This workshop is aimed at bringing out the key differentiators of 4G access technologies, as well as the commonalities and differences amongst the standards, particularly from the viewpoint of the service provider and subscriber. It will equally cover important aspects of the 4G core, the evolution paths from 2G/3G core networks, and convergence. The technical challenges that will be faced during deployment of 4G systems will also be highlighted.

Workshop at a Glance

The workshop is for technical and marketing personnel in industry, and for research scholars, who need to gain a perspective of what 4G will deliver, the evolutionary path from 2G and 3G, and the differentiation between WiMAX and LTE.

Speakers

Abhay Karandikar, Adrish Banerjee, Suvra Shekhar Das, K. Giridhar, R.D. Koilpillai, Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Nadeem Akhthar, Kiran Kuchi, Vinosh Babu James, Babu Narayanan,  M. Vinod Kumar.

Schedule

8:30 am onwards: registration

10 am – 11:30 am: IMT-A (4G) requirements, the move from 3G WCDMA to 4G OFDMA and what it delivers, common aspects of LTE and IEEE 802.16m, multiple standards from the user perspective

11:45 am – 1 pm: Core Network Evolution from 2G, LTE Enhanced Packet Core Network and WiMAX Core Network, convergence from operator perspective, transport network evolution, services over multiple technologies from a user perspective

1:45 pm – 3:00 pm : Specifics of LTE-A Air Interface with emphasis on unique aspects

3:15 pm – 4: 30 pm: Specifics of 802.16m Air Interface with emphasis on unique aspects

4:30 pm – 5:30 pm: Key Performance Indicators as submitted to IMT-A by the standards bodies, and TCOE India Evaluation Exercise

Concurrent Events of Interest

NCC2010 has several tutorials of interest on 29/1, in addition to plenary talks on both 29/1 and 30/1 by renowned experts. The schedule for tutorial is as follows:

Friday, January 29, 2010, Morning (9:30 am to 1:00 pm)

1. Metro Networks -- Business and Technology Case Study

2. Indian Language Support and User Experience on Digital Devices

3. Low-Complexity Algorithms for Large-Dimension Wireless Communications

4. An Introduction to Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition

Friday, January 29, 2010, Afternoon (2.00 pm to 5.30 pm):

1. Mobile Device Architechture for 3G and Beyond

2. Advances in Cooperative Wireless Communications

3. Computing over Communication Networks

4. Introduction to Computational Photography 

There are also several interesting research paper sessions on 30/1 and 31/1.

Details of the conference and the fee structure for various events can be found at http://www.ncc.org.in/ncc2010.

Registration

You can register for the Workshop (30/1) alone by paying Rs. 2500. You will also be permitted to attend the plenary talk “Shannonian Lessons for Wireless Multimedia Communications, The ‘World-Wide Wait’ and ‘Green’ Radios" by Prof. Lajos Hanzo, Univ. of Southampton, at 8:30 am on 30/1. You may also register for one or more tutorials and the Workshop together.

For on-line registration, please visit the conference sitehttp://www.ncc.org.in/ncc2010 and

1. fill out the registration form by Jan 15, 2010, specifying tutorials you wish to attend,

2. send registration fee in the form of a DD or NEFT (see the FAQ at the conference site for details) to reach us by Jan 20, 2010.