Uplink Control Channel in E-UTRA, Radio Link and Radio Network Evaluation

Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA) is specified by the Third generation partnership project, 3GPP. E-UTRA is designed to efficiently and flexibly utilize different spectrum bands supporting high physical bit rate and short radio link delay. A reliable control channel is a key component for short delay and high bit rate on higher layers. For user peak bit rate, a low HARQ NACK error ratio is crucial. HARQ ACK/NACK for downlink is sent on the Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH). In this paper the PUCCH performance is evaluated by means of simulations. Results on both link and network level in a multi-cell environment show that the PUCCH is robust and designed for 1-reuse frequency plans. Good performance is shown for different channel types and for high speed mobiles. For up to 12 scheduled users per sub-frame the NACK error rate is maintained well below le-4.