Customer Reviews

3G Evolution, Second Edition: HSPA and LTE for Mobile Broadband

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an implementation engineer, I needed to understand in detail each and every aspect of LTE specification. My job is to design the network stack of LTE (both base station and mobile station). When I started reading 3GPP LTE specification(36 series) 4 months ago, I found several sore concepts sticking out. Then I read the first edition of this book and found several concepts cleared. However the first edition had very few pages on LTE and focused more on WCDMA.

Then came this edition. I ordered this book from Amazon and it came within 2 weeks. This book makes understanding of LTE very easy. For instance I had several doubts in the RLC spec of 3gpp. Then I read the RLC content of this book and got all my doubts cleared.

The best thing about this book is that unlike other books, the contents of this book are not directly picked up from specification. It seems the authors of the book have a good grasp of what they are writing and have spent enough time to make it easy to read. Language is very succint. Each line makes sense, is relevant and helps increase understanding of LTE.

Overall this is probably the best book for LTE(and I have read several books). The book has been written in a fluid way and the flow of thought is connected. I have still not read the book completely, but I find myself going to the book again and again(in my free time or bedtime) just because it is a pleasant read.

Cons: At $120 I could not buy the book myself and had to ask my employer to purchase it. I wish they reasonably price it so that I can get a personal copy(and be able to underline several important things).

It is very difficult to find technical books that are rigorous and yet concise, clear - in other words written keeping the reader in mind and what he may be looking for. This book does exactly this - as you go through the book it provides excellent guidance in understanding the key drivers behind the new technologies, what the key strengths are, and what are the main paths in the evolution of technologies.

The book is well written, concise and consistent. It has none of those filler chapters on applications, on regulation, or on devices, that many books that focus on the network architecture often have.

Highly recommended for those out there trying to make sense of HSPA and LTE.

(There are some references to WiMAX, but the authors still talk about fixed WiMAX [16d] in the future tense, even though products have been available for several years now - but they are overall fair to WiMAX even though they belong to the HSPA/LTE camp)

3G Evolution takes an incredibly complex subject (as well as many related subjects) and presents them in a very straight-forward, yet enjoyable to read format. While portions of this book are highly technical, to say the least, you are never far away from a practical explanation in down-to-earth terms from one of the authors. While this may not be considered a "page turner", it is very approachable when broken into individual chapters. You will likely find yourself re-reading many sections of the book to understand concepts that may have escaped your grasp earlier on, but everyone needs to learn at their own pace, and sometimes it is easier to set aside particular topics to come back to them later on. The individual chapters make learning in this fashion highly manageable, since they tend to stick pretty close to a specific subject.

If you only buy a single book on 3G or LTE technology, this should definitely be the one that you spend your money on.

I have not finished the book as yet, but felt a need to get this review out ASAP. So far the content is quite good. I suspect that by the time I get to the end of the book I will be quite impressed. But, I am going crazy with this "English as a second language" grammar. The editor of this book ought to get into another line of work. This book is tedious to read with pointless punctuation, excessive passive voice and unnecessary words plugged-in all throughout the text.

For example: page 19, "Since it is impossible to know what services that will be poplar and since service possibilities and offers will differ with time and possible also with country...".

Yikes what does this mean exactly?

Engineering books are not exactly "page-turners" and tend to be a little monotonous at best - that is the nature of the beast. But excessive use of passive voice makes the book exceptionally tiresome.

For example: page 17, "In parallel to the technical development of the mobile devices, the mobile communication technologies are developed to meet the demands of the new services enabled".

Versus something like this:

Mobile communication technologies are developed in parallel with mobile device technologies to meet the demands of new services.

At any rate these are a few samples of this tiresome writing style. Buyer beware...

Modern cellular wireless system is very complex, many different technology areas e.g. RF, DSP, digital communication, protocol stack and network are 'tangled' together, this set a high barrier for beginners and graduates into this field. Most of the books in this area are written by PhDs with in-depth technical knowledge but sadly to say, their writings are quite difficult for normal folk to understand. Many books jump straight to explaining the standards or throwing readers with lots of acronyms, without explaining what are them or why are them be done in such a way.

The brilliance of the authors are shown not showing off how many jargons they can tell off, but by taking it slowly to first explaining the underlying technologies to increase the data rate. Instead of just saying things like HSPA+ could achieve maximum data rate of 42Mbps by using 64QAM and MIMO, the authors explained why higher order modulation and multiple antennas could lead to higher throughput.

The concept of HSPA and LTE are well explained and should equip the readers with the essential knowledge in these areas. However, although there are sub chapters dedicated for "details of xxx" and "fine details of xxx", the details is really isn't enough for a practical engineer. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book as the very first book in HSPA/LTE.

3G Evolution 2nd Ed does a great job at walking you through what's coming in mobile broadband with enough detail to allow an engineer to develop and design next generation products. It's pricy, but's it's a cross between a Comm Engineering textbook and a desktop reference guide which pretty much means if you want anything worthwhile you'll be $100+.

This book isn't entry level so if you're a new manager and need to understand where you are going this isn't what I'd recommend.

I ordered this book for my wife who is in early stages of career in wireless technology. Below is the review from her as part of the Vine commitment:

"Audience: This book has been an excellent read ever since I got my hands on it. It's been a while I have come across one that is good for both wireless professionals and Computer Science students. I recently started my career in the growing wireless industry and needed a reference book that could give me a clear picture of the existing 3G technologies and also the history behind them. It is tricky to cater to an audience that needs a high level understanding without getting into too much detail and yet successfully explain the concepts. This book achieves this and eventually helps get a better view of the 3G picture. Similar approach is applied on understanding the LTE network.

Content: The authors had a clear vision with this book. They start be providing some background information and move on to presenting the justification behind the need for an evolution in the wireless network world. What brought about a need to increase the data rates in mobile communication and importance of concepts like OFDM modulation, spread spectrum, multi-antenna techniques, downlink/uplink scheduling along with protocol description in achieving the desired speed. Each of the above mentioned concepts are not merely touched. An entire chapter is devoted to each of them and details with diagrams are provided for a clear understanding. Evolution of both 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards based networks and concepts involved are described in fluent language.

From an LTE perspective, the book covers design targets, RATs, Radio architecture, transmission schemes, bandwidth details etc. It concludes by covering a chapter on the performance of 3G and LTE, an important metric to gauge the success of the access technologies.

With this level of information, it becomes easy to understand what LTE/ SAE is expected to achieve. Since LTE has attracted both GSM and CDMA proponents, this book will be useful to anyone interested in the future growth of mobile-communication system.

In summary, the book covers protocols in detail and tries to build a sound base for the overall picture.

About the Authors:

This is the first book I have read written by the authors Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, et. al. However, a quick search shows that they have other good selling books on wireless communications to their credit. I found their method of explaining, easy to follow.

Not covered: Security and QoS are some aspects I always am interested in. This book, however, misses that. So look elsewhere if that's what you are looking for."

This book caught my interest because it deals with mobile broadband. As an instructor of a wireless technologies survey course (mostly 802.11 varieties), I though this book could supplement my knowledge in the mobile/cellular areas. It has. The caveat here is that this book is highly advanced. Much of the material has to be distilled for my needs.

Allow me to give you an idea of what is contained in this book. It covers 3G, the motives for 3G, OFDM, MIMO, HSPA, Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services, LTE, CDMA, CDMA2000, WiMAX, and performance assessments of these technologies.

When I say that this book is advanced, I am referring to how these technologies are described, not the technologies themselves. It is great that these technologies are covered, as should be expected for a text on this subject matter. This book does an excellent job of that. The "advanced" aspect that I am referring to is the technical details that are presented. In other words, this is an engineer's book, rather than an introduction or survey of these technologies. This text is filled with charts, graphs, and calculations that go beyond the scope of my purposes. If you love math, then this book is for you!

With all of this said, this is an excellent text, and certainly covers an enormous amount of material in 600 pages. It provides just enought background for each topic and then delves into the highly technical details. If I had to place this book in a university curriculum, I'd say this is a great book for post-graduate technical networking courses.

This is essentially an engineering textbook dealing with the long term evolution of wireless communications. It brings us from the past of analogue devices to the present third generation digital broadband equipment. The theory of broadband is thoroughly presented. The tradeoffs of time and frequency packet access are well explored. I am not a communications engineer but found the book to be a good learning experience. The best part of the book is placed at the beginning, and that is the glossary of acronyms. Communication engineers use as many acronyms as teenagers sending text messages on 3G equipment,and it is important to know what they stand for. 3G refers to the third generation partnership project, an industry consortium working on standardizing and optimizing broadband communications. HSPA refers to high speed packet access, the mode by which 3G digital information is transmitted. LTE means long term evolution, which lets you know 3g is in a constant state of flux improving itself. The book also gets into the basics of matrix algebra in cellular communication and the equations needed to calculate bandwidth required for a signal to fall into the category called broadband. Although geared to engineers, the book is a useful asset to anyone who is thinking of investing in mobile communications because it gives you a good idea of where 3G is going and how it is able to transform the information society.

This text would be an interesting read for anyone with a serious interest in RF data communications, although it obviously has a central focus which drives its contents. If you are looking for information on similar technologies, such as WiMax, EVDO, or even EDGE, you will find only a brief discussion of each, located in the last chapter. I have no problem with this, as these modalities are not what the book is supposed to cover. The book does provide a very through treatment of LTE/HSPA. For those who have an interest in WiMax, you may wish to take a look at Fundamentals of WiMAX: Understanding Broadband Wireless Networking (Prentice Hall Communications Engineering and Emerging Technologies Series)

One thing I particularly like about this book is that it has come at a time when there isn't a lot of hardware out there. So often books devolve into becoming little more than cookbooks, discussing one or two chip sets, and pretending that they have covered the topic. Such books have their place, but they are usually not a real treatment of the topic, and they tend to quickly become obsolete. This book dodges that pitfall, and provides us with a through overall explanation of the subject. For once, no chapter paraphrased from an eval kit, or lifted sample code, is to be found.

If you are an engineer charged with implementing or evaluating these technologies, you will find this a valuable reference. If you are a skilled technician who seeks to know more than the basics, this book will also serve you well.

Kudos to the authors for a first class book.