Primary component carrier assignment in LTE-A

Abstract

Bandwidth requirement for mobile data traffic is on the rise because of increasing number of mobile users. To answer the requirement, Carrier Aggregation is proposed. With Carrier Aggregation and MIMO, operators can provide up to 3 Gbps download speed. In Carrier Aggregation, several component carriers from multiple bands are assigned to users. The assigned Component Carriers are classified as Primary and Secondary Component Carriers. The Primary Component Carrier (PCC) is the main carrier and only updated during the handover and cell reselection but Secondary Component Carriers (SCC) are auxiliary carriers to boost data rates and can be activated/deactivated anytime. During the carrier assignment operations, PCC reassignment can lead packet interruptions because reassignments of PCC to users can lead SCCs reassignment. Several methods have been proposed to increase the efficiency of the carrier assignment operations. However, none of them shows the system performance if LTE-A can have a procedure which allows one of SCCs to handle the duties of PCC during the PCC reassignment to eliminate packet transfer interruption. Therefore, we have used four different carrier assignment methods to investigate the performance of LTE-A with and without the procedure. Results show that distinct carrier assignment methods are differently affected by the procedure. Our results and analysis will help service providers and researchers to develop efficient carrier assignment methods.