anced in Releases 8-11 Antti Toskala Introduction Releases 8 and 9 LTE LTE Advanced in Releases 10 and 11 UE Capability in Releases 8-11 Conclusions References 2.1 Introduction This chapter presents the principles of first LTE version in Release 8 as well as the first development step with LTE Advanced in Releases 10 and 11. First the fundamental principles of LTE in Release 8 are covered, including the key channel structures as well as the key physical layer procedures. Then the enhancements in Releases 10 and 11 are introduced including the principles of carrier aggregation, enhanced multi-antenna operation as well as Co-operative Multipoint (CoMP) transmission principles. This chapter is concluded with the UE capabilities until Release 11. Releases 8 and 9 LTE Release 8 work was started in the end of 2004 and was finalized towards the end of 2008 with the introduction of the first full set of LTE specifications. The first LTE Release 8 was already a high-performance radio system that could deliver high capacity and data rates beyond 100 Mbps, as has been proven in the field as well. While the multiple access principle was new LTE Small Cell Optimization: 3GPP Evolution to Release 13, First Edition. Edited by Harri Holma, Antti Toskala and Jussi Reunanen. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LTE Small Cell Optimization Table 2.1 LTE Releases 8 and 9 physical layer parameters for different bandwidths Bandwidth 1.4 MHz 3.0 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 15 MHz 20 MHz Sub-frame duration Sub-carrier spacing 15 kHz FFT length Sub-carriers Symbols per slot 7 with short CP and 6 with long CP Cyclic prefix 5.21 or 4.69 us with short CP and 16.67 us with long CP compared to earlier system in 3GPP, there were several advanced technologies that had been taken into use from the development work done for the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) [1] technology over the past decade, including base station-based scheduling, link adaptation, physical layer retransmission and many other advances in the field of 