Performance analysis of LTE-A with 256-QAM

Long Term Evolution (LTE) developed by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), is the access part of the Evolved Packet System (EPS). LTE physical layer is based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) with Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). Although there has been lots of enhancements in the LTE physical layer, yet higher order modulation schemes were not introduced in the specification until Release 12. This paper investigates the performance of LTE with 256-QAM which was introduced in the 3GPP standard in release 12.3 aiming to enhance the spectral efficiency of the system and increase the peak data rates. Bit Error Rate (BER) values were populated for the probable Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) operating ranges. The results are based on a MATLAB system model simulation. The results demonstrate that LTE-A can adopt the 256-QAM higher order modulation especially for nomadic users.