e-UTRA is the air interface of 3GPP's Long Term Evolution (LTE) upgrade path for mobile networks. It is the abbreviation for evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access, also referred to as the 3GPP work item on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) also known as the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) in early drafts of the 3GPP LTE specification.
It is a radio access network standard meant to be a replacement of the UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA technologies specified in 3GPP releases 5 and beyond. Unlike HSPA, LTE's E-UTRA is an entirely new air interface system, unrelated to and incompatible with W-CDMA. It provides higher data rates, lower latency and is optimized for packet data. It uses OFDMA radio-access for the downlink and SC-FDMA on the uplink. Trials started in 2008.
Read more about E-UTRA: Features, Rationale For E-UTRA, Architecture, EUTRAN Protocol Stack, Physical Layer (L1) Design, User Equipment (UE) Categories, EUTRAN Releases, Frequency Bands and Channel Bandwidths, Technology Demos