Performance comparison between UTRA-TDD high chip rate and low chip rate operation

The standardization of UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) in time division duplex (TDD) mode includes two different transmission modes at the physical layer. They differ in their chip rate and with it their bandwidth requirements and characteristics vary. This paper provides a description of the main differences between the high chip rate (HCR) and low chip rate (LCR) options and presents a basic performance comparison of these two modes applied in a microcellular urban environment for a single operator in a licensed 3G band.