LTE Long Term Evolution
Standardized in 3GPP Release 8, LTE introduces a network which is based purely on IP as the transport mechanism. That is, all traffic, including voice, will be passed across the E-UTRAN as an IP datagram. Moreover, all of the network nodes within LTE use IP to carry signalling between one another. Termed the EPS (Evolved Packet System), the end to end LTE network is comprised of the E-UTRAN (Evolved - Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network) and the EPC (Evolved Packet Core).
