Showing posts sorted by relevance for query release 17. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query release 17. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, 11 April 2022

3GPP Release-17 5G NR Reaches Completion

In the last week of March 2022, 3GPP Release 17 reached stage 3 functional freeze. Now the ASN work is ongoing and it will be frozen in June 2022. After that point, any changes will need to be submitted to 3GPP as CR (change request) and would have to be agreed by everyone (or unopposed).

Juan Montojo, Vice President, Technical Standards, Qualcomm Technoloigies, in his blog post reminds us:

Release 17 has been completed with its scope largely intact, despite the fact that the entire release was developed in the midst of a pandemic that hit the world, including 3GPP, right after the scope of the Release was approved in December 2019. 3GPP has been operating through electronic means from the latter part of January 2020 and has yet to get back to face-to-face meetings and interactions. The return to face-to-face meetings is not expected before June 2022. Release 17 completion not only marks the conclusion of the first phase of the 5G technology evolution, but it is a testament to the mobile ecosystem’s resiliency and commitment to drive 5G forward. I couldn’t be more proud of 3GPP, and our team, in particular, as Qualcomm Technologies led the efforts across a wide range of projects. Release 17 delivers another performance boost to the 5G system and continues expanding 5G into new devices, applications, and deployments.

The blog post briefly explains the 'New and enhanced 5G system capabilities' as well as features related to 'Expansion to new 5G devices and applications' as shown in the image on the top.

In addition, 3GPP Rel-17 has many other projects as can be seen in the image above. 3GPP TR 21.917: Release 17 Description; Summary of Rel-17 Work Items has a summary of all the items above but it is still undergoing revision.

Juan also did a webinar on this topic with Fierce Wireless, the video is embedded below:

The slides could be obtained from here.

Related Posts

Wednesday, 4 May 2022

ATIS Webinar on '5G Standards Development Update in 3GPP Release 17 and 18'

Our blog post on ATIS Release-16 webinar has been one of the popular posts so it's no brainer that people will surely find this Release 17/18 update useful as well. 

The moderator for this webinar was Iain Sharp, Principal Technologist at ATIS. The following were the speakers and the topics they spoke on:

  • Services: Greg Schumacher, Global Standards, T-Mobile USA
  • Systems Architecture and Core Networks: Puneet Jain, Principal Engineer and Director of Technical Standards at Intel Corporation, and 3GPP SA2 Chairman
  • Radio Access Network: Wanshi Chen, Senior Director,Technology at Qualcomm, and 3GPP RAN Chairman

Here is a summary of the webinar:

In Release 17, 3GPP delivered important updates to 5G specifications to broaden their range of commercial applications and improve the efficiency of networks. 3GPP is now starting standardization of Release 18. This webinar provides an up-to-date view of the completed 3GPP Release 17 work with a particular focus on how the work is expanding capabilities of 5G and enhancing the technical performance of the mobile system.

The webinar will cover:

  • The status of 3GPP's work and the organization's roadmap for the future
  • The main themes the delivered Release 17 features in 3GPP specifications
  • How enhancements to 5G are helping the 5G market proposition (e.g., through new service opportunities, or enhanced efficiency of 5G networks)

The webinar will give a technical overview of 3GPP's Release 17 content and its benefits to 5G networks. It is suitable for people in technical roles and technical executives who want to understand the current state of 5G standardization.

The video is embedded below and the slides are available here:

Glad to see that 3GPP Rel-19 work has already started as can be seen in the roadmap below.

(click to enlarge)

Related Posts

Tuesday, 18 June 2019

3GPP Release-16, Release-17 & Beyond...

6G Summit featured quite a few talks from people looking at evolution beyond Release-16. The future releases will still be 5G, maybe become 5.5G, like 3GPP Release-13 which was known as LTE-Advanced Pro officially was unofficially known as 4.5G.


Back at the 6G Summit in Finland, Dr. Peiying Zhu from Huawei looked at the topics being discussed for Release-17 and beyond.


Thanks to Mika Klemettinen for sharing the pictures on Twitter, as the presentation was not shared.

3GPP is working towards defining Release-16. TS 21.916 - Release description; Release 16 is still not yet available on the 3GPP reflector. Once that is available, we will know for sure about all the Rel-16 changes. Release-17 is long way away. Having said that, there is no shortage of discussions as some of these Rel-17 features were discussed in the recent RAN Plenary.
Jungwon Lee, VP, Samsung also shared a summary of 3GPP Release-16 and Rel-17 features at IEEE 5G Summit in San Diego recently. Quite a few interesting features in all the pictures above that we will no doubt look at in the future posts.

3GPP also shared a presentation recently (embedded below), looking at not only Release-15 & 16 but also looking at focus areas for Release-17




Related Posts and Articles:
  • The 3G4G Blog - Ultra Reliability: 5x9s (99.999%) in 3GPP Release-15 vs 6x9s (99.9999%) in 3GPP Release-16
  • The 3G4G Blog - Update from 3GPP on LTE & 5G Mission Critical Communications
  • 3GPP - Release 16
  • Light Reading - 5G Standards Group Struggles to Balance Tech With Politics
  • Eiko Seidel - 5G Mission Critical Networks (Proximity Services in Rel.17)
  • The 3G4G Blog - Slides and Videos from the 1st 6G Wireless Summit - March 2019
  • The 3G4G Blog - Couple of talks by NTT Docomo on 5G and Beyond (pre-6G)
  • The 3G4G Blog - China Telecom: An examination of the current industrial trends and an outlook of 6G
  • Mission Critical Communications: Mission-Critical Features for Release 17 Discussed at Latest 3GPP Meetings

Wednesday, 17 March 2021

Initiative to Remove Non-inclusive terms from 3GPP Specifications

3GPP just published 2nd issue of 3GPP highlights here. (Issue 1 is here). The contents of the newsletter includes:

  • TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS
    • A Release 17 update
    • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in NG-RAN: New Study in RAN3
    • 3GPP Multimedia Codecs, Systems and Services
    • Is healthcare the next big thing for 5G?
    • From IMT-2020 to beyond
  • PARTNER FOCUS
    • PCSE - Enabling Operational Mobility for European Public Safety Responders
    • WBA - One Global Network with OpenRoaming(TM)
    • ESOA - Fulfilling the promise of Anytime, from anywhere and on any device & networks (ATAWAD)
    • TCCA - Trusted standards mean trusted communications
    • GSA - mmWave bands for 5G
    • NGMN - Global alignment for the benefit of end users as new focus areas emerge
    • 5GAA - Study of Spectrum Needs for Safety Related Intelligent Transportation Systems – Day 1 and Advanced Use Cases
  • A LOOK INSIDE
    • Ensuring device compliance to standards
    • Release 17 timeline agreed
    • Initiative to remove non-inclusive terms in specifications
    • New Members listing
    • The 3GPP group structure
  • CALENDAR
    • Calendar of 3GPP meetings
  • NEWS IN BRIEF

In this post we are looking at the Initiative to remove non-inclusive terms in specifications. Quoting from the newsletter:

3GPP groups have started the process of replacing terminology in our specifications that is non-inclusive. The entire leadership proposed jointly a change request (CR) to the specification drafting rules (TR21.801), following an initiative led by several individual members.

In their joint proposal to the TSG SA#90-e meeting, the leaders wrote: “While there are potentially numerous language issues that could be considered offensive, there are two that are most acknowledged and focused on in the industry and applicable to the 3GPP Specifications. These terminologies are “Master / Slave” and “Whitelist / Blacklist” that are often used in 3GPP and other telecommunications technical documents.” 

What next? - Change requests will now follow on any Release 17 reports and specifications that need their content brought in line with this policy.

Further reading:

  • SP-201042: Tdoc from the leadership - Inclusive Language in 3GPP Specifications
  • SP-201142: Change Request to Specification drafting rules.
  • SP-201143: Liaison Statement on: Use of Inclusive Language in 3GPP.
  • TR21.801: 3GPP Specification drafting rules

The main page for 3GPP highlights is here.

Related Posts:

Friday, 3 February 2023

ATIS Webinar on "3GPP Release 18 Overview: A World of 5G-Advanced"

Yesterday, ATIS, one of the seven 3GPP Organizational Partner (OP), delivered on online webinar on 3GPP Release 18 Overview: The World of 5G-Advanced. A summary of the webinar according to ATIS as follows:

As the first release of 5G-Advanced, Release 18 has been progressing well despite the challenges in fully resuming 3GPP face-to-face meetings in 2022.

In this webinar, ATIS provides a high-level summary of 3GPP Release 18: the confirmed Rel-18 timeline, status for the ongoing study and work items, and the newly converted work items from the completed study items. We also give a brief introduction of the preparation for Release 19 aiming for approval of the package of projects in December 2023.

Distinguished speakers included:

  • Wanshi Chen (Qualcomm, Chair of 3GPP RAN Plenary) will provide a view on radio interface and RAN system aspects.
  • Puneet Jain (Intel, Chair of 3GPP System Architecture Group – SA2) will look at whole system capabilities and network aspects.
  • Moderator: Iain Sharp, Principal Technologist, ATIS

The recording of the webinar is embedded below and slides available here.

Just a reminder, 5G covers Release 15, 16 and 17. 5G-Advanced is Release-18 onwards. Ideally, 18, 18 and 20. 6G should start with Release 21. Based on the current industry adoption of 5G, there is no reason to push the next generation on the operators before it's mature and everyone is ready to take it onboard.

Related Posts:

Wednesday, 10 August 2022

AI/ML Enhancements in 5G-Advanced for Intelligent Network Automation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has been touted to automate the network and simplify the identification and debug of issues that will arise with increasing network complexity. For this reason 3GPP has many different features that are already present in Release-17 but are expected to evolve further in Release-18. 

I have already covered some of this topics in earlier posts. Ericsson's recent whitepaper '5G Advanced: Evolution towards 6G' also has a good summary on this topic. Here is an extract from that:

Intelligent network automation

With increasing complexity in network design, for example, many different deployment and usage options, conventional approaches will not be able to provide swift solutions in many cases. It is well understood that manually reconfiguring cellular communications systems could be inefficient and costly.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have the capability to solve complex and unstructured network problems by using a large amount of data collected from wireless networks. Thus, there has been a lot of attention lately on utilizing AI/ML-based solutions to improve network performance and hence providing avenues for inserting intelligence in network operations.

AI model design, optimization, and life-cycle management rely heavily on data. A wireless network can collect a large amount of data as part of its normal operations. This provides a good base for designing intelligent network solutions. 5G Advanced addresses how to optimize the standardized interfaces for data collection while leaving the automation functionality, for example, training and inference up to the proprietary implementation to support full flexibility in the automation of the network.

AI/ML for RAN enhancements

Three use cases have been identified in the Release 17 study item related to RAN performance enhancement by using AI/ML techniques. Selected use cases from the Release 17 technical report will be taken into the normative phase in the next releases. The selected use cases are: 1) network energy saving; 2) load balancing; and 3) mobility optimization.

The selected use cases can be supported by enhancements to current NR interfaces, targeting performance improvements using AI/ML functionality in the RAN while maintaining the 5G NR architecture. One of the goals is to ensure vendor incentives in terms of innovation and competitiveness by keeping the AI model implementation specific. As shown in Fig.2 (on the top) an intent-based management approach can be adopted for use cases involving RAN-OAM interactions. The intent will be received by the RAN. The RAN will need to understand the intent and trigger certain functionalities as a result.

AI/ML for physical layer enhancements

It is generally expected that AI/ML functionality can be used to improve the radio performance and/or reduced the complexity/overhead of the radio interface. 3GPP TSG RAN has selected three use cases to study the potential air interface performance improvements through AI/ML techniques, such as beam management, channel state information feedback enhancement, and positioning accuracy enhancements for different scenarios. The AI/ML-based methods may provide benefits compared to traditional methods in the radio interface. The challenge will be to define a unified AI/ML framework for the air interface by adequate AI/ML model characterization using various levels of collaboration between gNB and UE.

AI/ML in 5G core

5G Advanced will provide further enhancements of the architecture for analytics and on ML model life-cycle management, for example, to improve correctness of the models. The advancements in the architecture for analytics and data collection serve as a good foundation for AI/ML-based use cases within the different network functions (NFs). Additional use cases will be studied where NFs make use of analytics with the target to support in their decision making, for example, network data analytics functions (NWDAF)- assisted generation of UE policy for network slicing.

If you are interested in studying this topic further, check out 3GPP TR 37.817: Study on enhancement for data collection for NR and ENDC. Download the latest version from here.

Related Posts

Tuesday, 2 February 2021

NWDAF in 3GPP Release-16 and Release-17

We looked at Network Data Analytics Function, NWDAF, in detail here. While the 3GPP Release-16 work just starting back then, we have now completed Rel-16 and looking at Release 17. 

The 5G Core (5GC) supports the application of analytics to provide Intelligent Automation of the network, In Rel-16 the set of use cases that are proposed for the NWDAF has been widely expanded. 

In an earlier post, we looked at the ATIS webinar discussing Release-16 & forthcoming features in Rel-17. Puneet Jain, Director of Technical Standards at Intel and 3GPP SA2 Chairman talked briefly about NWDAF. The following is from his talk:

Release-16 provides support for Network Automation and Data Analytics.  Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) was defined to provide analytics to 5G Core Network Functions (NFs) and to O&M. It consists of several services that were defined in 3GPP Rel-16 and work is now going in Release 17 to further extend them. 

In release 16 Slice load level related network data analytics and observed service experience related network data analytics were defined. NF load analytics as well Network Performance analytics was also specified. NWDAF provides either statistics or prediction on the load communication and mobility performance in the area of interest. 

Other thing was about the UE related analytics which includes UE mobility analytics, UE communication analytics, Expected UE behavior parameter, Related network data analytics and abnormal behavior related network data analytics.

The NWDAF can also provide user data congestion related analytics. This can be done by one time reporting or continuous reporting in the form of statistics or prediction or both to any other network function. 

QoS sustainability analytics, this is where the consumer of QoS sustainability analytics may request NWDAF analytics information regarding the QoS change statistic for a specific period in the past in a certain area or the likelihood of QoS change for a specific period in future, in certain areas. 

In Release 17, studies are ongoing for network automation phase 2. This includes some leftover from Release 16 such as UE driven analytics, how to ensure that slice SLA is guaranteed and then also new functionality is being discussed that includes things like support for multiple NWDAF instance in one PLMN including hierarchies, how to enable real-time or near-real-time NWDAF communications, how to enable NWDAF assisted user pane optimization and last which is very interesting is about interaction between NWDAF and AI model and training service owned by the operator.

This article on TM Forum talks about NWDAF deployment challenges and recommendations:

To deploy NWDAF, CSPs may encounter these challenges:

  • Some network function vendors may not be standards compliant or have interfaces to provide data or receive analytics services.
  • Integrating NWDAF with existing analytics applications until a 4G network is deployed is crucial as aggregated network data is needed to make decisions for centralized analytics use cases.
  • Many CSPs have different analytics nodes deployed for various use cases like revenue assurance, subscriber/marketing analytics and subscriber experience/network management. Making these all integrated into one analytics node also serving NWDAF use cases is key to deriving better insights and value out of network data.
  • Ensuring the analytics function deployed is integrated to derive value (e.g., with orchestrator for network automation, BI tools/any UI/email/notification apps for reporting).

Here are some ways you can overcome these challenges and deploy efficient next-generation analytics with NWDAF:

  • Mandate a distributed architecture for analytics too, this reduces network bandwidth overhead due to analytics and helps real-time use cases by design.
  • Ensure RFPs and your chosen vendors for network functions have, or plan to have, NWDAF support for collecting and receiving analytics services.
  • Look for carrier-grade analytics solutions with five nines SLAs.
  • Choose modular analytics systems that can accommodate multiple use cases including NWDAF as apps and support quick development.
  • Resource-efficient solutions are critical for on-premise or cloud as they can decrease expenses considerably.
  • Storage comes with a cost, store more processed smart data and not more raw big data unless mandated by law.
  • In designing an analytics use case, get opinions from both telco and analytics experts, or ideally an expert in both, as they are viewed from different worlds and are evolving a lot.

This is such an important topic that you will hear more about it on this blog and elsewhere.

Related Posts:

Saturday, 24 December 2022

3GPP Release 17 Description and Summary of Work Items

An updated (looks final) version of 3GPP TR 21.917: Release 17 Description; Summary of Rel-17 Work Items was added to the archive earlier this month. It is a fantastic summary of all the Rel-17 features. Quoting the executive summary from the specs:

Release 17 is dedicated to consolidate and enhance the concepts and functionalities introduced in the previous Releases, while introducing a small number of brand new Features.

The improvements relate to all the key areas of the previous Releases: services to the industry (the "verticals"), including positioning, private network, etc.; improvements for several aspects of 5G supporting Internet of Things (IoT), both in the Core Network and in the Access Network, of proximity (direct) communications between mobiles, in particular in the context of autonomous driving (V2X), in several media aspects of the user plane related to the entertainment industry (codec, streaming, broadcasting) and also of the support of Mission Critical communications. Furthermore, a number of network functionalities have been improved, e.g. for slicing, traffic steering and Edge-computing.

The Radio interface and the Access Network have been significantly improved too (MIMO, Repeaters, 1024QAM modulation for downlink, etc.). While most of the improvements target 5G/NR radio access (or are access-agnostic), some improvements are dedicated to 4G/LTE access. Such improvements are clearly identified in the title and in the chapters where they appear.

Note: To avoid terminology such as "even further improvements of…", the successive enhancements are now referred to as "Phase n": "phase 2" refers to the first series of enhancements, "Phase 3" to the enhancements of the enhancements, etc. In this transition Release, the "Phase n" way of referring to successive enhancements has not always been used consistently nor enforced.

As for the new Features, the main new Feature of this Release is the support of satellite access, and a dedicated chapter covers this topic.

Note that the classifications, groupings and order of appearance of the Features in this document reflect a number of choices by the editor as there is no "3GPP endorsement" for classification/order. This Executive Summary has also been written by the editor and represents his view.

The following list is from the table of contents to provide you an idea and if it interests you, download the technical report here

5 Integration of satellite components in the 5G architecture
5.1 General traffic (non-IoT)
5.1.1 SA and CT aspects
5.1.2 RAN aspects
5.2 NB-IoT/eMTC support for Non-Terrestrial Networks

6 Services to "verticals"
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Generic functionalities, to all verticals
6.2.1 Network and application enablement for verticals
6.2.1.1 Enhanced Service Enabler Architecture Layer for Verticals
6.2.1.2 Enhancements for Cyber-physical control Applications in Vertical domains (eCAV)
6.2.1.3 Enhancements of 3GPP Northbound Interfaces and APIs
6.2.2 Location and positioning
6.2.2.1 RAN aspects of NR positioning enhancements
6.2.2.2 Enhancement to the 5GC LoCation Services-Phase 2
6.2.3 Support of Non-Public and Private Networks
6.2.3.1 Enhanced support of Non-Public Networks
6.2.3.2 Enhancement of Private Network support for NG-RAN
6.3 Specific verticals support
6.3.1 Railways
6.3.1.1 Enhancements to Application Architecture for the Mobile Communication System for Railways Phase 2
6.3.1.2 Enhanced NR support for high speed train scenario (NR_HST)
6.3.1.2.1 NR_HST for FR1
6.3.1.2.2 NR_HST for FR2
6.3.1.3 NR Frequency bands for Railways
6.3.1.3.1 Introduction of 900MHz NR band for Europe for Rail Mobile Radio (RMR)
6.3.1.3.2 Introduction of 1900MHz NR TDD band for Europe for Rail Mobile Radio (RMR)
6.3.2 Mission Critical (MC) and priority service
6.3.2.1 Mission Critical Push-to-talk Phase 3
6.3.2.2 Mission Critical Data Phase 3
6.3.2.3 Mission Critical security Phase 2
6.3.2.4 Mission Critical Services over 5GS
6.3.2.5 Enhanced Mission Critical Communication Interworking with Land Mobile Radio Systems (CT aspects)
6.3.2.6 Mission Critical system migration and interconnection (CT aspects)
6.2.3.7 MC services support on IOPS mode of operation
6.3.2.8 MCPTT in Railways
6.3.2.9 Multimedia Priority Service (MPS) Phase 2
6.3.3 Drone/UAS/UAV/EAV
6.3.3.1 Introduction
6.3.3.2 General aspects
6.3.3.2.1 5G Enhancement for UAVs
6.3.3.2.2 Application layer support for UAS
6.3.3.3 Remote Identification of UAS
6.3.4 Media production, professional video and Multicast-Broadcast
6.3.4.1 Communication for Critical Medical Applications
6.3.4.2 Audio-Visual Service Production
6.3.4.3 Multicast-Broadcast Services (MBS)
6.3.4.3.1 Multicast-broadcast services in 5G
6.3.4.3.2 NR multicast and broadcast services
6.3.4.3.3 5G multicast and broadcast services
6.3.4.3.4 Security Aspects of Enhancements for 5G MBS
6.3.4.4 Study on Multicast Architecture Enhancements for 5G Media Streaming
6.3.4.5 5G Multicast-Broadcast User Service Architecture and related 5GMS Extensions
6.3.4.6 Other media and broadcast aspects
6.4 Other "verticals" aspects

7 IoT, Industrial IoT, REDuced CAPacity UEs and URLLC
7.1 NR small data transmissions in INACTIVE state
7.2 Additional enhancements for NB-IoT and LTE-MTC
7.3 Enhanced Industrial IoT and URLLC support for NR
7.4 Support of Enhanced Industrial IoT (IIoT)
7.5 Support of reduced capability NR devices
7.6 IoT and 5G access via Satellite/Non-Terrestrial (NTN) link
7.7 Charging enhancement for URLLC and CIoT
7.8 Messaging in 5G

8 Proximity/D2D/Sidelink related and V2X
8.1 Enhanced Relays for Energy eFficiency and Extensive Coverage
8.2 Proximity-based Services in 5GS
8.3 Sidelink/Device-to-Device (D2D)
8.3.1 NR Sidelink enhancement
8.3.2 NR Sidelink Relay
8.4 Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X)
8.4.1 Support of advanced V2X services - Phase 2
8.4.2 Enhanced application layer support for V2X services

9 System optimisations
9.1 Edge computing
9.1.1 Enhancement of support for Edge Computing in 5G Core network
9.1.2 Enabling Edge Applications
9.1.3 Edge Computing Management
9.2 Slicing
9.2.1 Network Slicing Phase 2 (CN and AN aspects)
9.2.2 Network Slice charging based on 5G Data Connectivity
9.3 Access Traffic Steering, Switch and Splitting support in the 5G system architecture; Phase 2
9.4 Self-Organizing (SON)/Autonomous Network
9.4.1 Enhancement of data collection for SON/MDT in NR and EN-DC
9.4.2 Autonomous network levels
9.4.3 Enhancements of Self-Organizing Networks (SON)
9.5 Minimization of service Interruption
9.6 Policy and Charging Control enhancement
9.7 Multi-(U)SIM
9.7.1 Support for Multi-USIM Devices (System and CN aspects)
9.7.2 Support for Multi-SIM Devices for LTE/NR

10 Energy efficiency, power saving
10.1 UE power saving enhancements for NR
10.2 Enhancements on EE for 5G networks
10.3 Other energy efficiency aspects

11 New Radio (NR) physical layer enhancements
11.1 Further enhancements on MIMO for NR
11.2 MIMO Over-the-Air requirements for NR UEs
11.3 Enhancements to Integrated Access and Backhaul for NR
11.4 NR coverage enhancements
11.5 RF requirements for NR Repeaters
11.6 Introduction of DL 1024QAM for NR FR1
11.7 NR Carrier Aggregation
11.7.1 NR intra band Carrier Aggregation
11.7.2 NR inter band Carrier Aggregation
11.8 NR Dynamic Spectrum Sharing
11.9 Increasing UE power high limit for CA and DC
11.10 RF requirements enhancement for NR FR1
11.11 RF requirements further enhancements for NR FR2
11.12 NR measurement gap enhancements
11.13 UE RF requirements for Transparent Tx Diversity for NR
11.14 NR RRM further enhancement
11.15 Further enhancement on NR demodulation performance
11.16 Bandwidth combination set 4 (BCS4) for NR
11.17 Other NR related activities
11.18 NR new/modified bands
11.18.1 Introduction of 6GHz NR licensed bands
11.18.2 Extending current NR operation to 71 GHz
11.18.3 Other NR new/modified bands

12. New Radio (NR) enhancements other than layer 1
12.1 NR Uplink Data Compression (UDC)
12.2 NR QoE management and optimizations for diverse services

13 NR and LTE enhancements
13.1 NR and LTE layer 1 enhancements
13.1.1 High-power UE operation for fixed-wireless/vehicle-mounted use cases in LTE bands and NR bands
13.1.2 UE TRP and TRS requirements and test methodologies for FR1 (NR SA and EN-DC)
13.1.3 Other Dual Connectivity and Multi-RAT enhancements
13.2 NR and LTE enhancements other than layer 1
13.2.1 Enhanced eNB(s) architecture evolution for E-UTRAN and NG-RAN
13.2.2 Further Multi-RAT Dual-Connectivity enhancements
13.2.3 Further Multi-RAT Dual-Connectivity enhancements

14 LTE-only enhancements
14.1 LTE  inter-band Carrier Aggregation
14.2 LTE new/modified bands
14.2.1 New bands and bandwidth allocation for 5G terrestrial broadcast - part 1
14.3 Other LTE bands-related aspects

15 User plane improvements
15.1 Immersive Teleconferencing and Telepresence for Remote Terminals
15.2 8K Television over 5G
15.3 5G Video Codec Characteristics
15.4 Handsets Featuring Non-Traditional Earpieces
15.5 Extension for headset interface tests of UE
15.6 Media Streaming AF Event Exposure
15.7 Restoration of PDN Connections in PGW-C/SMF Set
15.8 Other media and user plane aspects

16 Standalone Security aspects
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Authentication and key management for applications based on 3GPP credential in 5G (AKMA)
16.3 AKMA TLS protocol profiles
16.4 User Plane Integrity Protection for LTE
16.5 Non-Seamless WLAN offload authentication in 5GS
16.6 Generic Bootstrapping Architecture (GBA) into 5GC
16.7 Security Assurance Specification for 5G
16.8 Adapting BEST for use in 5G networks
16.9 Other security aspects

17 Signalling optimisations
17.1 Enhancement for the 5G Control Plane Steering of Roaming for UE in Connected mode
17.2 Same PCF selection for AMF and SMF
17.3 Enhancement of Inter-PLMN Roaming
17.4 Enhancement on the GTP-U entity restart
17.5 Packet Flow Description management enhancement
17.6 PAP/CHAP protocols usage in 5GS
17.7 Start of Pause of Charging via User Plane
17.8 Enhancement of Handover Optimization
17.9 Restoration of Profiles related to UDR
17.10 IP address pool information from UDM
17.11 Dynamic management of group-based event monitoring
17.12 Dynamically Changing AM Policies in the 5GC
17.13 Other aspects

18 Standalone Management Features
18.1 Introduction
18.2 Enhanced Closed loop SLS Assurance
18.3 Enhancement of QoE Measurement Collection
18.4 Plug and connect support for management of Network Functions
18.5 Management of MDT enhancement in 5G
18.6 Management Aspects of 5G Network Sharing
18.7 Discovery of management services in 5G
18.8 Management of the enhanced tenant concept
18.9 Intent driven management service for mobile network
18.10 Improved support for NSA in the service-based management architecture
18.11 Additional Network Resource Model features
18.12  Charging for Local breakout roaming of data connectivity
18.13 File Management
18.14 Management data collection control and discovery
18.15 Other charging and management aspects

If you find them useful then please get the latest document from here.

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Tuesday, 23 November 2021

3GPP Presentations from CEATEC Japan 2021

3GPP and its Japanese Organizational Partners TTC (Telecommunication Technology Committee) and ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses) hosted a “3GPP Summit” online workshop at CEATEC 2021, back in October. The event was co-located with the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and 5G Mobile Communications Promotion Forum (5GMF) 5G day at the event. Here is a summary of the event from 3GPP news:

The “3GPP Summit” featured all three Technical Specification Group (TSG) Chairs and one Japanese leader from each group. After the presentations, they exchanged their views and expectations for 3GPP work – as the industry starts to look at research beyond 5G. The event attracted almost 700 people, keen to understand what is going on in 3GPP.

The first session covered Release 17 and 18 evolution, with each TSG Chair and a domestic leader jointly presenting. Wanshi Chen introduced the latest schedule of each release and potential projects for Release 18 with the result of 3GPP Release 18 workshop held in June. Then, Hiroki Takeda presented some key features on Release 17 such as Redcap, RAN slicing and evolution of duplex.

TSG SA Chair, Georg Mayer introduced the group’s latest activities alongside Satoshi Nagata, covering key Release 17 features, such as enhanced support on Non-public Networks, Industrial IoT and Edge computing.

Next up was the TSG CT Chair, Lionel Morand, presenting the latest activities and roadmap for Core Network evolution from Release 15 to 17. Hiroshi Ishikawa also presented, covering 5G core protocol enhancements and some activities driven by operators.

The second part of the session focused more on activities ‘Beyond 5G’. First, Takaharu Nakamura introduced the latest activities on the topic in Japan. A panel discussion followed, with Satoshi Nagata joining the other 3GPP speakers, to give feedback on 5G developments and future use.

You can download the PPT of presentations from 3GPP site here or get the PDF from 3G4G page here.

Please feel free to add your thoughts as comments below.

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Monday, 16 December 2019

5G Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) Enhancements in Rel-17


It's been a while since I last wrote about IAB on this blog here. At that time 3GPP Release-16 was being discussed. Since then things have moved on. While Release-16 is being prepared for final release soon, Release-17 study and work items have just been agreed upon.

IAB is included as part of Rel-16 but there isn't a comprehensive document or presentation easily available to details all that it will contain. Similarly the enhancements for Release-17 are available only superficially. Qualcomm is well known for making some really excellent presentations available on 5G. One of their presentations from January (here) has some details on IAB (pg. 32 - 35). There was also an excellent presentation by Navid Abedini, Qualcomm from IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, 2019 which is embedded at the end.


In a 3GPP RAN#84 discussion document RP-191181, Samsung has provided a comprehensive summary of what is being done as part of Rel-16 and what did not make in that:
  • Rel-16 IAB aims at basic operations
    • Architecture and protocol design
    • IAB integration procedure 
    • Routing, BAP and BH configuration
    • CP and UP data transmission  via IAB
    • Topology support: 
      • Spanning Tree (ST) and Directed acyclic graph (DAG) 
      • Intra-Donor adaptation is prioritized
  • The following cannot  be supported in Rel-16
    • Mobile IAB
    • Topology support: Mesh
  • Some functionalities in Rel-16 may not be completed due to time constrains e.g. 
    • Topology adaptation between IAB donors
    • Mechanisms for efficient control signaling transmission
Ericsson also provides a good summary in RP-190971 regarding Release 16 IAB and Rel-17 enhancements:
  • IAB Rel-16 provide basic support for multi-hop and multi-path relaying. 
  • The solution supports 
    • QoS prioritization of traffic on the backhaul link
    • Flexible resource usage between access and backhaul
    • Topology adaptivity in case link failure
  • In Rel-17 it would be possible to further evolve the IAB solution targeting increased efficiency and support for new use cases


Meanwhile in the recently concluded RAN#86, AT&T provided a good detailed summary on what enhancements are required for IAB as part of Rel-17 in RP-192709
  • Duplexing enhancements
    • Multiplexing beyond TDM (FDM/SDM/multi-panel Tx/Rx) including multi-parent scenarios, case 6/7 timing alignment, power control/CLI optimizations
  • Topology enhancements
    • Mobile IAB: CP/UP split + Group mobility 
    • Inter-CU topology adaptation
    • Mesh-connectivity between IAB nodes for local control/user plane routing
  • User plane enhancements
    • Multi-hop scheduling enhancement – exchange of benefit metric between IAB nodes to enable radio-aware multi-hop scheduling to improve throughput performance
  • Network Coding
    • Study benefits compared to duplication over redundant backhaul routes

We will have to wait and see what makes it into the enhancements and what don't. Meanwhile here is a video from Navid Abedini, Qualcomm from IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, 2019




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Tuesday, 25 January 2022

3GPP Release-18 Work Moves Into Focus as Release-17 Reaches Maturity

In early December 2021, 3GPP reached a consensus on the scope of 5G NR Release-18. With the 3GPP Rel-17 functional freeze set for March 2022, Release-18 work is moving into focus. This is being billed as a significant milestone marking the beginning of 5G Advanced — the second wave of wireless innovations that will fulfil the 5G vision. Release 18 is expected to build on the solid foundation set by 3GPP Releases 15, 16, and 17, and it sets the longer-term evolution direction of 5G and beyond.

(click on the image to enlarge - PDF here)

The 3GPP Release-18 page has a concise summary of all that you need to know, including the timeline. For anyone interested in going through features one-by-one, start navigating from here, select Rel-18 from the top.

For others who may be more interested in summary rather than a lot of details, here are some good links to navigate:

  • Nokia whitepaper - 5G-Advanced: Expanding 5G for the connected world (link)
  • Paper by Ericsson researcher, Xingqin Lin, 'An Overview of 5G Advanced Evolution in 3GPP Release 18' (link)
  • Marcin DryjaÅ„ski, Rimedo Labs - 3GPP Rel-18: 5G-Advanced RAN Features (link)
  • Bevin Fletcher, FierceWireless: Next 3GPP standard tees up 5G Advanced (link)

As always, Qualcomm has a fantastic summary of 5G evolution and features in 3GPP Release-18 on their page here. The image above nicely shows the evolution of 5G from Release-15 all the way to Release-18. The image below shows a summary of 3GPP Release-18, 5G-Advanced features.

They also hosted a webinar with RCR wireless. The webinar is embedded below.

The slides can be downloaded from GSA website (account required, free to register) here.

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Monday, 17 May 2021

3GPP RAN Plenary Update and Evolution towards 5G-Advanced

(click on image to enlarge)

ETSI recently held a webinar to provide a 3GPP RAN Plenary update by Wanshi Chen, Senior director of technology at Qualcomm Technologies, who was appointed as the RAN Chair not too long back. The webinar video is embedded below. The following is from the 3GPP summary of the webinar:

Wanshi Chen acknowledged that Release 17 - the third release of 5G specifications - has been under pressure due to COVID-19 restrictions, but despite making the move to e-meetings, he reported that the group’s experts have managed to ensure positive progress towards the freeze of the RAN1 physical layer specifications on schedule, by December 2021.

This is to be followed by the Stage 3 freeze (RAN2, RAN3 and RAN4) by March 2022 and the ASN.1 freeze and the performance specifications completion by September 2022 – On the timeline agreed back in December 2019.

This staggered timeline has been made achievable with careful planning and management, demonstrated to the webinar viewers via a complex planning schedule, with a slide showing the array of Plenary & WG meetings and Release landmarks - Interspersed with a series of planned periods of inactivity, to allow delegates some relief from 3GPP discussions.

Wanshi Chen noted that the efficiency of e-meetings has not been comparable with physical meetings, in terms of getting everything done. To compensate for that, the companies involved have planned two RAN1 meetings in 4Q21 and two meetings for each of the RAN working groups in the 1Q22. He observed: “We will monitor Release 17 RAN progress closely and take the necessary actions to make sure we can get the release completed on time.”

Release 18 Planning

Looking forward to Release 18 and the start of work on 5G-Advanced, Chen outlined the schedule for an online RAN workshop from June 28 – July 2, to define what will be in the release. The workshop will set the scene for email discussions about the endorsed topics for consideration. The work will culminate with Release 18 Package Approval, at the December 2021 Plenary (RAN#94).

The high-level objective of the workshop will be to gather company proposals in three areas:

  • eMBB driven work;
  • Non-eMBB driven functionality;
  • Cross-functionality for both.

Wanshi Chen concluded that during the Release 18 planning process, some capacity must be kept in hand; keeping around 10% of WG effort in reserve, for workload management and to meet late, emerging critical needs from commercial deployments.

The following Q&A topics were covered, along with the time stamps:

  • The effect of the pandemic and eMeeting management schedules and tools (19.25).
  • Balance between commercial needs and societal needs, emergency services, energy efficiency, sustainability (21.20).
  • The importance of the verticals in the second phase of 5G – With 5G-Advanced. How will this Rel-18 workshop compare in scale with the 5G Phoenix workshop in 2015? (23.00)
  • The job of the Chair is to be impartial…but Wanshi guesses that Antennas, MiMo enh., Sidelink, Positioning, xR, AI machine learning…. could come up in Rel-18! (26.15)
  • Will 5G-Advanced have a strong identity & support? (30.05)
  • The potential for hybrid meetings – No clear answers yet, but we have learnt a lot in the past year.(34.35)
  • The link between gathering new requirements and use cases in SA1 and RAN work and RAN1’s role in focusing these needs for radio work. (40.10)
  • Software-ization of the RAN. Do you see more open RAN work coming to 3GPP? (44.18)
  • Machine type communications and IoT – Where is IoT going in 3GPP RAN? (47.01)
  • Some thoughts on Spectrum usage from a 3GPP point of view, is that difficult to fathom for non-experts? (52.00)
  • Can Standards writing become more agile, less linear? (54.00)

If you want to get hold of the slides, you will have to register on BrightTALK here and then download from attachments.

Signals Research Group has a short summary of 3GPP RAN #91 electronic plenary held in late March. It is available to download after registration from here.

xoxoxoxoxoxo Updated later, 07 June 2021 oxoxoxoxoxoxox 

5G-Advanced logo is now available as shown above. Guidelines on how to use the logo is available on 3GPP here.

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