Project MEVICO

Start date

MEVICO will research the network aspects of the 3GPP LTE-mobile broadband network for its evolution in the mid-term in 2011-2014. The goal is to contribute to the technical drive and leadership of the EPC network (3GPP), and thus support the European industry to maintain and extend its strong technical and market position in the mobile networks market. The results can be used as contributions for further development of the 3GPP standard on EPC in Rel11-Rel13. The scope of the project is mobile network evolution in the mid-term, whereas EU FP7 projects cover the Future Internet in the longer term.

The project is to follow an end-to-end system approach on evolution of the Evolved Packet Core network of the 3GPP. The focus will on the connectivity layers of the system, for example on the part of the future LTE network which provides the efficient packet transport and mobility support for the applications & end-user services accessed over the LTE and LTE-Advanced radio systems.

The target is to innovate and develop new network concepts for meeting the future requirements of a) the evolving LTE and LTE-A radio technologies and b) evolving usage and services of the Internet. The radio system evolution is already taking place with LTE-A both in research and in the standardization (3GPP, ITU-R), and hence call for related research on the network aspects. As for the latter driver, a strong increase in the number of mobile users and capacity needs in the network is foreseen. They require further optimization of the network for capacity and cost, as well as ways to provide end-user services with more individual experience.

The technical research areas of the project will cover relevant topics in the areas of network architecture, mobility & routing, packet transport, traffic management, network management & engineering and techno-economic aspects. The project will include both conceptual research and demo/trial system implementations.