GERAN is a result of over a decade of radio interface evolution that is still ongoing. While GERAN is or is being deployed worldwide also in emerging markets, evolving further the GERAN radio interface needs to be studied to ensure not only that the same services are available regardless of the underlying radio technology UTRAN or GERAN, but essentially that service continuity exists across these radio technologies supported by core network evolution e.g. IMS. Such an evolution is also needed to maintain GERAN competitiveness as well as UTRAN competitiveness.

The present document is an output of the 3GPP work item "Future GERAN Evolution" [1]. The scope of this document is to capture the results of the feasibility study on the GERAN, the objectives of which are to: increase capacity, coverage and data rates; reduce latency; and enhance service continuity with other RATs; while minimising impacts to infrastructure.

The following documents contain provisions which, through reference in this text, constitute provisions of the present document.

• References are either specific (identified by date of publication, edition number, version number, etc.) or non specific.
• For a specific reference, subsequent revisions do not apply.
• For a non-specific reference, the latest version applies. In the case of a reference to a 3GPP document (including a GSM document), a non-specific reference implicitly refers to the latest version of that document in the same Release as the present document.

For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply: ACP ACR AGI AMR AOA BEP BLEP BLER BN BTS CDCU CDF CIR CR DA DARP DSR EDA EFL EGPRS GEV HOMTC HSN IM IR IRC LQC MCS MDSR MIP MRC MSRD OOR PA PAR RMS SAIC SF TTI TU VSRB