enhanced Public Warning System (ePWS) in 3GPP Release-16

I wrote about PWS 9 years back here. Since then there has been little chance to PWS until recently. According to 3GPP News:

Additional requirements for an enhanced Public Warning System (ePWS) have been agreed at the recent 3GPP TSG SA#79 meeting, as an update to Technical Specification (TS) 22.268.

3GPP Public Warning Systems were first specified in Release 8, allowing for direct warnings to be sent to mobile users on conventional User Equipment (PWS-UE), capable of displaying a text-based and language-dependent Warning Notification.

Since that time, there has been a growth in the number of mobile devices with little or no user interface - including wrist bands, sensors and cameras – many of which are not able to display Warning Notifications. The recent growth in the number of IoT devices - not used by human users – also highlights the need for an alternative to text based Warning Notifications. If those devices can be made aware of the type of incident (e.g. a fire or flood) in some other way than with a text message, then they may take preventive actions (e.g. lift go to ground floor automatically).

3GPP SA1 delegates also considered how graphical symbols or images can now be used to better disseminate Warning Notifications, specifically aimed at the following categories of users:

• Users with disabilities who have UEs supporting assistive technologies beyond text assistive technologies; and
• Users who are not fluent in the language of the Warning Notifications.

Much of the work on enhancing the Public Warning System is set out in the ePWS requirements specification: TS 22.268 (SA1). You should also keep an eye on the 3GPP protocol specifications (CT1, Stage 3 work) in Release 16, covering:

• Specifying Message Identifiers for ePWS-UE, especially IoT devices that are intended for machine type communications
• Enabling language-independent content to be included in Warning Notifications

The work on ePWS in TS 22.268 (Release 16) is expected to help manufacturers of User Equipment meet any future regulatory requirements dedicated to such products.

Related Specs:

• 3GPP TR 22.869: Feasibility study on enhancements of Public Warning System; Stage 1
• 3GPP TS 22.268: Public Warning System (PWS) requirements - Stage 1 for Public Warning System
• 3GPP TS 23.041: Technical realization of Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) - CT1 aspects of Stage 3 for Public Warning System 
• 3GPP TS 29.168: Cell Broadcast Centre interfaces with the Evolved Packet Core; Stage 3 - CT4 aspects of Stage 3 for Public Warning System

Further reading:

• 3GPP: Towards a better Public Warning System (ePWS)
• 3G4G Blog: Public Warning System (PWS) in Release-9

Tutorial on Network In a Box (NIB)

Made a short video explaining what Network In a Box is. Slides and video embedded below.

Beginners: Network In a Box (NIB) from 3G4G

100 Gbps wireless transmission using Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) multiplexing

From a press release by NTT Group:

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT, Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President and CEO: Hiroo Unoura) has successfully demonstrated for the first time in the world 100 Gbps wireless transmission using a new principle — Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) multiplexing — with the aim of achieving terabit-class wireless transmission to support demand for wireless communications in the 2030s. It was shown in a laboratory environment that dramatic leaps in transmission capacity could be achieved by an NTT devised system that mounts data signals on the electromagnetic waves generated by this new principle of OAM multiplexing in combination with widely used Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology. The results of this experiment revealed the possibility of applying this principle to large-capacity wireless transmission at a level about 100 times that of LTE and Wi-Fi and about 5 times that of 5G scheduled for launch. They are expected to contribute to the development of innovative wireless communications technologies for next-generation of 5G systems such as connected cars, virtual-reality/augmented-reality (VR/AR), high-definition video transmission, and remote medicine.


NTT is to present these results at Wireless Technology Park 2018 (WTP2018) to be held on May 23 – 25 and at the 2018 IEEE 87th Vehicular Technology Conference: VTC2018-Spring, an international conference sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to be held on June 3 – 6.

For more technical details look at the bottom of this link.

Related Post:

• 'Twisted Radio Waves': Could they be the way out of Spectrum Crunch?

MAMS (Multi Access Management Services) at MEC integrating LTE and Wi-Fi networks

Came across Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) a few times recently so here is a quick short post on the topic. At present MAMS is under review in IETF and is being supported by Nokia, Intel, Broadcom, Huawei, AT&T, KT.

I heard about MAMS for the first time at a Small Cell Forum event in Mumbai, slides are here for this particular presentation from Nokia.

As you can see from the slide above, MAMS can optimise inter-working of different access domains, particularly at the Edge. A recent presentation from Nokia (here) on this topic provides much more detailed insight.

From the presentation:

•        MAMS (Multi Access Management Services) is a framework for

-            Integrating different access network domains based on user plane (e.g. IP layer) interworking,

-            with ability to select access and core network paths independently

-            and user plane treatment based on traffic types

-            that can dynamically adapt to changing network conditions

-            based on negotiation between client and network

•        The technical content is available as the following drafts*

-            Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) Framework – https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kanugovi-intarea-mams-framework/

-            MAMS JSON definitions of Control Plane Messages: https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-agarwal-intarea-mams-protocol-json-00.txt

-            MAMS User Plane Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zhu-intarea-mams-user-protocol-02

*Currently under review, Co-authors: Nokia, Intel, Broadcom, Huawei, AT&T, KT,

The slides provide much more details, including the different use cases (pic below) for integrating LTE and Wi-Fi at the Edge.

Here are the references for anyone wishing to look at this in more detail:

• Multi Access Management Services (MAMS) Framework – https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kanugovi-intarea-mams-framework/
• MAMS JSON definitions of Control Plane Messages: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-agarwal-intarea-mams-protocol-json-00
• MAMS User Plane Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zhu-intarea-mams-user-protocol-02