Previous Highlights:
Welcome to the latest edition of TSG Highlights! The aim is to provide you
with a concise summary of the decisions and actions of the most recent 3GPP
Technical Specification Group meetings.
TSG GERAN held
a
plenary meeting on February 13th, 2007 in Seoul, South Korea.
Please note, these summaries do not constitute formal, approved reports of the meetings – they are opinions only and also may not be complete. They are offered for guidance only.
562 Documents addressed, 185 Change Requests approved, 109 Delegates
REduced symbol Duration, Higher Order modulation and Turbo coding RED HOT
Dual carrier in the Downlink GDCDL
MS receive diversity Phase II MSRD2
Latency Reductions LATRED
Higher Uplink Performance for GERAN Evolution HUGE
Monitoring of LTE cells from GSM: is feasible in dedicated mode, but not always possible
Impacts and Constraints in defining Inter-RAT Handovers between GERAN and E-UTRAN:
all solutions impact GERAN to some extent.
Information provided at GERAN#33:
GSM OBA has held 5 meetings so far. The group is developing a Harmonised Standard (EN 302 480) and a Technical Specification for GSM onboard aircraft (GSM OBA) systems.
The Harmonised Standard, EN 302 480, identifies the essential requirements to demonstrate conformity to Article 3.2 of the R&TTE Directive and refers to existing GSM Base Station System technical specifications (for general characteristics, limits and methods of measurement of the GSM onboard base transceiver station) and to the technical specification under development within the GSM OBA group.
Future work will be to agree on a methodology to derive power values at the antenna output port of the GSM OBA system which can be used to demonstrate conformance to the e.i.r.p. limits defined outside the aircraft and associated test procedures.
PS Handover in A/Gb Mode : CRs TS 43.129 (Stage 2), TS 44.060 and TS 48.018 (Stage 3) approved
Generic Access to A/Gb Interface : CRs TS 43.318 (Stage 2), TS 44.014 (Stage 3 GAN Certificate testing) approved
CR TS 44.060 approved to ensure that the format of Packet Control Acknowledgement is four normal bursts when extended RLC/MAC control message segmentation is used
CR TS 48.018 approved : corrections of the IEI value (Ciphering Key Sequence Number)
TS 45.005 relaxations : a proposal to relax some of TS 45.005 specifications on BTS intermodulation, spurious emissions and blocking requirements was made at GERAN#32 to allow the introduction of BTS GSM multicarrier transceivers. System simulations were provided at GERAN#33 showing negligible impact of relaxations but propagation model was questioned. Potential issue with R-GSM still to be investigated.
Flexible Timeslot Assignment (FTA) : the concept of Flexible Timeslot Assignment was re-discussed and a Release 7 CR to TS 45.002 was approved to introduce FTA. In addition a CR to TS 44.060 was approved, CR to TS 24.008 endorsed and sent to CT1
PS Handover TS 43.129 (Stage 2)
Introduction of the Activity Status Indicator (Rel-7)
Introduction of Direct Tunnel Functionality (Rel-7) endorsed. SA2 to confirm if it is acceptable
DTM Handover Stage 3 CRs
Inter RAT DTM Handover from GERAN A/Gb mode to UTRAN (TS 44.018)
PS HO Request Procedure: use PS cause to define criticality of DTM Handover (TS 48.018)
Fast sending of DTM HO command (Rel-7)
Added as an implementation option for the BSS not to wait for a response from the PS CN for sending the DTM HO Command to the MS (TS 43.055 and TS 48.008)
A-GPS Minimum Performance requirements CR to TS 44.031 approved
New IE to define min response time for A-GPS
VGCS
TS 44.018 approved CR(s) on SMS support during ongoing group call and Causes for notification
TS 48.008 approved CR(s) on Correction and addition to Paging Information IE, Abnormal cases for A interface link sharing, Cell Id List Segment in VGCS/VBS Assignment Request, Clarification of the queuing procedure
LOCATION to allow MS to use also other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) than GPS and easily combine measurements from different satellite systems. Support for GNSS satellites and improved performance is enabled by introducing generic assistance data concept." and the way is now open for GERAN and RAN to continue the technical work on A-GNSS.
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), CR to TS 49.031, TS 48.008 and TS 48.018 approved
Galileo and in general GNSS will include the option to extend the satellite orbits beyond that provided by the native format
Extended orbits require a large amount of signalling (RRLP) in order to convey the necessary information to the MS i.e. size of the ephemeris and clock correction for each satellite (and for each constellation supported)
Further work needed to allow a comparison of the proposals in terms of performance and complexity
GAN Enhancements
TR 43.902 Enhanced Generic Access Networks Study (E-GAN) v. 1.1.0 was presented to TSG GERAN#33 for information
TSG GERAN has currently identified three potential solutions for the GAN enhancements:
Combined GANC/SGSN (section 5.1.2 of the TR)
Enhanced Up (section 5.1.1 of the TR)
GAN Iu mode (section 5.2 of the TR)
TSG GERAN believes that some parts of these solutions may impact Core Network, RAN, Terminals or System Architecture.
Each solution requires input from different TSG working groups and therefore 3GPP TSG GERAN has requested information from the other TSG WGs by TSG GERAN#34.
MS RX Diversity (MSRD, DARP Phase II) :
As reported to the last TSG SA meeting a CR to TS 45.005 Rel-7 introducing DARP Phase II requirements was approved at GERAN#32 but the values were left in square brackets.
Square brackets now removed in 45.005 (Rel-7).
Work still needed to extend legacy requirements to a terminal with two antennas.
Dual Carrier in the Downlink (DC) :
Approved CRs:
CR to TS 43.064 Removal of dependencies between uplink and downlink dual carrier configurations (Rel-7).
CR to TS 45.008 Introduction of downlink dual carrier (Rel-7) to clarify that channel quality reporting has to be performed on a per carrier basis.
CR to TS 45.002 Clarification of multislot capabilities for non-DCDL assignments (Rel-7).
CR to TS 44.018 and TS 44.060 to introduce the related procedures
Higher Uplink Performance for GERAN Evolution (HUGE) :
Stage 2 working assumptions discussed and some consensus achieved
Link performance update:
QPSK could be interesting at cell edge, but is not part of the work item at the moment.
Impact of smooth compression on EVM:
Compression allows higher transmitted powers (which improves link budget) but degrades EVM (which also degrades link budget). Both effects need to be assessed simultaneously in order to derive if compression brings a net gain. Analysis valid also for RED HOT.
New training sequences (also valid for RED HOT) proposed
Further investigations needed.
Normal burst formats for higher symbol rate (also valid for RED HOT) proposed:
Length of training sequence discussed
REduced symbol Duration, Higher Order modulation and Turbo coding (RED HOT)
Working assumptions for RED HOT have been discussed.
Details of possible physical layers were presented by a number of companies.
Latency Reductions :
FANR (Fast Ack/Nack Reporting):
Detailed set of working assumptions approved
Agreement to de-correlate (in the downlink) the PAN (Piggybacked Ack/Nack) from the payload. Identification of the "owner" of the PAN still open.
Decision to postpone approval of stage 3 CRs until a consistent set is available
A number of Stage 3 CRs reviewed and noted
General areas of work :
MS Conformance Testing DARP Phase II
Enhanced Dual Transfer Mode
Clean up of not needed PICS/PIXIT statements from 51.010-1
A-GPS Minimum Performance
Repeated FACCH and SACCH
Band Dependency
Completed areas of work
Enhanced Power Control
Test Case Numbering
GPRS and EDGE : as usual most of the inputs to the meeting where to make corrections to the existing test cases to align with Stage 3
A-GPS Minimum Performance
Location Service Enhancements
REduced symbol Duration, Higher Order modulation and Turbo coding for downlink
Higher Uplink performance for GERAN Evolution
Downlink Dual Carrier
Antenna Performance Evaluation Method and Requirements
Latency Reductions
Support for GNSS in GERAN
TSG GERAN #34 14 – 18 May 2007 China
TSG GERAN #35 27 – 31 August 2007 Ireland
TSG GERAN #36 12 – 16 November 2007 Canada
TSG GERAN #37 11 – 15 February 2008 TBD
TSG GERAN #38 12 – 16 May 2008 TBD
Elections of officials (except GERAN3) to be held at GERAN#34 (May 2007)