TSG#23 Highlights

What is a Release? | What's in Release 5?| What's in Release 6?
| TSG T | TSG CN | TSG SA | TSG RAN | 

Previous Highlights: TSG#15  | TSG#16 | TSG#19 | TSG#20 | TSG#21 | TSG#22

Welcome!

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 in March 2004 in Phoenix, USA.

3GPP has five TSGs: CN (Core Network); RAN (Radio Access Network); T (Terminals); SA (Services and Systems Aspects); and GERAN (GSM EDGE Radio Access Network). This summary reports on the first four of these, as GERAN meetings take place separately from the other TSGs.

Please note, these summaries to 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.

What's in Release 5?

For an overview of 3GPP Release 5 please have a look at this document which has been produced by the ETSI Mobile Competence Centre and which is a summary of all Release 5 Features>

What's in Release 6? What's the schedule? What follows that?

The expected contents of Release 6 (and even what lies beyond Release 6) can be found in the 3GPP workplan .

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TSG-CN (Core Network)

General:

The TSG CN meeting #23 took place in sunny Phoenix, USA, from 10^th to 12^th March 2004. A total of 56 participants were registered and 155 documents were presented in a busy three day meeting.

Output:

The following Release-5 issues were completed:

• CAMEL4 prepay support for SCUDIF

Change Requests:

The approved Change Requests (CRs) to TSG CN specifications are summarized in the following table:

Work Items:

The following new or updated WIDs were agreed:

Specifications:

No TS/TRs were placed under change control at this meeting.

CN agreed positions

CN and SA took several positions in this meeting regarding the working relationships with eternal groups:

• IMS Messaging, Group Management, and Presence Overlap with OMA: CN endorsed the CN1 position in NP-040012 as a CN position – This specifies that CN will continue to work on the IMS messaging, presence, group management scheduled for Release 6. It is unknown what will happen after Release 6.

• TISPAN collaboration on IMS for NGN: CN sent a LS (via SA) to TISPAN [NP-040151] – CN welcomes further work with TISPAN on NGN and is willing to consider NGN motivated enhancements to IMS (via the normal work item process).3GPP is willing to participate in a workshop on NGN with TISPAN.

• Liberty Alliance Specification reuse for GUP: NP-040143 – 3GPP takes a working assumption that GUP CN4 work will reference the Liberty Alliance specifications.A collaboration agreement is needed to allow 3GPP companies to actively participate in the relevant LAP work, have access to relevant LAP documents, and address IPR incompatibilities between the organizations.

• H.323 over GPRS: CN endorsed the CN1 position in NP-040017 as a CN position – H.323 may be supported transparently over GPRS.No work is currently envisioned to integrate H.323 with GPRS to provide an additional IP multimedia solution.Any changes to GPRS must be done in 3GPP specifications.

• Diameter Codes:It was agreed that CN4 will coordinate the various Diameter codes for 3GPP.This will be documented in a separate specification.

There was considerable discussion of the use of RAT in PLMN.A CN working assumption was agreed that RAT was to be used in the PLMN background scan.This position is documented in LS to SA (NP-040152).An analysis of the implications of this assumption and additional work that might be needed in other WGs is included in NP-040129.To allow time for these implications to be considered, no CRs were approved at this plenary.The goal is to approve CRs clarifying the working assumption at the CN#24.Should it still not be possible to get agreement in CN1 on a single set of CRs, then alternative CRs will be voted on at CN#24.

Activities by WG:

The following are the actions requested by the CN and SA plenaries for the CN WGs.

CN1:

A LS was sent from SA [SP-040219] to GSM-IREG indicating that 3GPP saw no problems with providing 2G/3G subscriber distinction and roaming restriction as long as it could be satisfied using reject cause code #15 based on LA or RA.  If this was not sufficient, then it could require substantial work.

Complete ADD/ADC CRs for CN#24 (Stage 2 CR approved by SA#23)

The list of SIP/SIPPING/SIMPLE/XCON IETF dependencies is very long.  It was suggested that the list should be prioritized.  Suggestions for prioritization are appreciated.

CN3:

It was agreed that CN3 is responsible for the Gx and Rx interfaces.

Elections to be held in May for new CN3 chair.

CN4:

CN4 is to provide CRs related to routing of emergency calls based on geographic location for R99 and later since this is a regulatory matter.  These CRs are expected at CN#24.  If this requires revising the Rel 6 solution for consistency, then this is acceptable.

It was agreed that CN4 will coordinate the various Diameter codes for 3GPP.  This will be documented in a separate specification.  SA supported this decision and requested its WGs to go through CN4 for Diameter code allocation.

Complete ADD/ADC CRs for CN#24 (Stage 2 CR approved by SA#23)

CN5:

CN5 to continue addressing the topic of High Availability and try to come to consensus on the outstanding issues described in SP-040184.  SP-040199 (the SA1 CR on High Availability) was approved by SA.

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TSG-RAN (Radio Access Network)

The TSG RAN meeting #23 took place in Scottsdale, Arizona, US, from 10^th  to 12^th March 2004. 87 participants were registered and 138 documents were presented.

The meeting was scheduled for 3 days, shorter than the usual 4. The workload was heavy and several discussions took considerable time. 

The approved Change Requests (CRs) to TSG RAN specifications are summarized in the following table:

RAN Working Groups WG2 and WG3 have agreed to hold additional meetings as follows:

• RAN WG2 Ad Hoc meeting on MBMS, 20 - 22 April 2004.
• RAN WG3#41 bis meeting, 30 March - 1st April 2004.

The revised Work Item Description Sheet proposed by the Mobile Competence Centre (MCC) was agreed.

Release 99, Release 4 & Release 5

CRs to Technical Specification 25.214 for the clarification of High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel (HS-DPCCH) transmission under reconfiguration events were presented directly at this meeting as company contributions, after long discussions in WG1 email reflector. A list of events, where Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) should be used instead of carrying on the ACK/NACK and Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) reporting, was debated but no agreement was reached on which events would be in the list. WG1 will continue to study the issue.

The freezing of the Abstract Syntax Notation No. 1 (ASN.1) in Technical Specification TS25.331 was discussed. It was agreed that the ASN.1 will be frozen in June 2004 and that ALL Release 5 CRs should include isolated impact analysis.

A proposal was presented to create a Technical Report to list and identify functional errors in a given Release of the which, due to their late discovery and inessential nature, have not been corrected until a later Release. The concept was contested by some User Equipment manufacturers that objected the creation of a document parallel to the specification that developers would need to take into account for their implementation. An alternative approach was agreed, the following statement would be added to the CRs that implement corrections that would have been introduced in a previous Release if discovered on time: Implementation of this CR by a Release XX UE will not cause compatibility issues.

The pending issue of IP-ATM interworking option 3 was revised. WG3 had technically endorsed 3 sets of CRs that presented the following options:

• IP/ATM interworking is ensured by application of ITU-T protocol Q.2631.1 for connection control signalling.
• Connectivity for ATM nodes over IP networks in the context of interworking option 1 (dual stack) is ensured by means of PWE3 (pseudo wire emulation).
• The 3rd set of CRs represents a technically endorsed alternative that removes the third interworking option from the respective specifications.

A debate took place around the 3rd proposal, which was eventually the subject of a show of hands. No clear majority appeared, so the discussion ended and companies were asked to reach agreement off line before the next RAN plenary.

There was discussion around a new requirement agreed in RAN WG4 for Transmit Power Control (TPC) commands combining when in Soft Hand Over. WG4 had technically endorsed the CRs but the Release could not be agreed and was left to be decided in TSG RAN. Some companies objected that the corrections are not justified for Release 99, given that terminals are on the market or at a very advanced development stage. It was proposed that manufacturers would be required to fulfil the new requirement "at the earliest pragmatic opportunity", this was found acceptable by all participants and the CRs, starting at Release 99, were accepted.

WG4 is still studying the issue of Power Back off in the UE when HS-DPCCH is transmitted, which was presented in last TSG RAN. A draft for a new requirement was introduced, according with the latest conclusions in WG4. It proposes to introduce one or two back off levels, which will be triggered depending on the Peak to Average Ratio of the signal, derived from the relation of ß gains between the dedicated, control and HS-DPCCH channels. Some companies however objected that the solution may have system impacts yet uncovered. It was agreed to task WG4 to perform the necessary system level simulations and to study these impacts before the CRs can be agreed.

Release 6 and beyond

The Work Item for the introduction of UMTS in the 1.7/2.1 GHz band was finished, all the CRs were presented

TR 25.806 v1.0.1 "UMTS 1700/2100 MHz Work Item Technical Report" was presented and approved.

TR25.862 v1.0.0 "RAB support for IMS" was presented for information (RP-040122).

The Work Item "Improved access to UE measurement data for CRNC to support TDD RRM" was finished, CRs were presented.

TS25.346 v2.6.0 "Introduction of the Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) in the Radio Access Network (Stage-2)" was presented and approved.

RAN WG2 will hold an Ad Hoc meeting dedicated to MBMS from 20th to 22nd  April.

TR25.887 v2.0.0 "Beamforming Enhancements" was presented and approved. This TR was used during the work on Work Item "Beamforming enhancements", finished in December 2003.

The scope of the Study Item on Radio Link Performance Enhancements was discussed. It was agreed that the work on Transmission diversity under this item should be moved to the Multiple Input/Multiple Output antennas (MIMO) work and that the Power Control Enhancements, where progress has been lacking for a number of meetings, will be removed from the study; only High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) enhancements will remain under this Study Item. The Description Sheet will be revised in WG1.

TR25.892 v1.1.0 "Feasibility Study for OFDM for UTRAN enhancement" was presented for information.

The Study on Uplink Enhancements for Dedicated Transport Channels was finished. A Work Item was agreed based on the conclusions of this study (see below).

TR 25.896 v2.0.0 "Feasibility Study for Enhanced Uplink for UTRA FDD" was presented and approved.

The Study on the "Evolution of UTRAN Architecture" was discussed (sec. 8.11.6). Some companies requested to close it due to the lack of agreement for a number of meetings, others opposed that many contributions are still being presented. It is finally agreed to maintain the Study, but work in WG3 will be put on hold until Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) is finished.

The Study on Low Output Powers for general purpose Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) Base Stations (BS) was finished, with the conclusion that the best way to make the BS aware of additional equipment at the antenna port is to do it through the Operation & Maintenance (O&M) system and not with new Information Elements in the Node B Application Part (NBAP); this eliminates the impact to the specifications and hence no Work Item follows the Study.

TR 25.807 v1.0.0 "Low Output Powers for general purpose FDD BSs" is presented, approved and put under change control as v6.0.0.

The following work items were approved:

• FDD Enhanced Uplink (RP-040081). Based on the results of the "Uplink Enhancements for Dedicated Transport Channels" study, which has shown that a number of techniques can be used to improve uplink dedicated channels. This feature will cover the Stage 2 and additional Blocks for Stage 3 below, one per WG. Stage 2 is expected to be completed by September 2004, Stage 3 by December 2004.
• Optimisation of downlink channelisation code utilisation (RP-040136). Completion date December 2004. WG1 is the leading group, and is tasked to revise the Description Sheet.
• Optimisation of channelisation code utilisation for TDD (RP-040130). Completion date December 2004. WG1 is the leading group, and is tasked to revise the Description Sheet.

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TSG-T (Terminals)  

At its recent meeting in March 2004 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, TSG-T has been working on the maintenance of the existing Releases, and has continued work on Release 6. Work on testing always follows the main specification task, and this is so for User Equipment (UE) testing, which is ongoing for Release 99, Release 4, and for Release 5 (see the "Testing" section below).

Maintenance work was performed on the existing Releases of Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) specifications and some new functionality has been added to Release 6. MMS Release 6 will add new functionality to the existing MMS standard in several areas which will further enhance the user experience. Good progress was reported on the work item on handling of private addressing schemes in MMS. The functional enhancements approved at this meeting are the introduction of a new interface for on-line charging and the addition of the support of hyperlinks in MMS.

The Bearer Independent Protocol (BIP) is the preferred solution as the high bandwidth bearer for communication between the Universal Subscriber Identity Module Application Toolkit (USAT) and the appropriate network element. An Liaison Statement was sent from TSG-T to Working Group SA1 in document TP-040060 to verify common understanding.

The work on Generic User Profile (GUP) is progressing. Technical Specification TS 23.241 Generic User Profile (GUP) – Stage 2; Data Description Method was approved. The document describes the Data Description Method (DDM) and the Datatype Definition Method (DtDM) of the 3GPP Generic User Profile. It specifies the method for describing the logical structure of the data description, Generic User Profile, Profile Components, methods for describing Datatypes and other constructs for use in 3GPP. It is planned to complete this specification by March. GUP will provide easy access and sharing of end-user profile data, including data about the user's devices, services enabled, billing arrangements, address, calendar and preferences. This will lead to better service experience for the user.

An optional procedure for confirming the existence of an Short Message Service (SMS) interworking agreement was added to the SMS core specification 23.040.

The future organisation of Working Group T2’s work was discussed  in the context of a possible transfer of non-network dependant MMS work to the Open Mobile Alliance after MMS Release 6. A decision was not made yet as some companies felt it was too early to make a decision at this point in time.

Several Change Requests were approved on (Universal) Subscriber Identity Module (SIM/USIM) related subjects.

A new Work Item on Alignment with requirements regarding Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) usage was approved (document TP-040069).

A new Work Item for a test specification for (U)SIM API for Java Card™ was approved (document TP-040032).

3rd Form Factor (3FF): Technical Specification TS 21.111 has been updated with respect to the third form factor for (U)SIM which has been introduced by the ETSI Project: Smart Card Platform. The Change Request specifies that the formats specified in TS 31.101 shall be adopted. In TS 31.101 the 3FF is adopted by reference to TS 102 221.

Technical Report TR 31.919, “2G/3G Java Card API based applet interworking” was approved.

Testing

Progress was reported on the area of Tree & Tabular Combined Notation (TTCN) test case development. 88 (89%) Batch 1 test cases completed, 59 (65%)  Batch 2 test cases completed. 

The proportion of complete Radio Resource Management (RRM) tests is approximately 40%. Outstanding RRM test cases is still a cause for concern in T1 as completion within 6 months is necessary for subsequent validation/ approval by the Global Certification Forum, GCF, before the end of 2004.  

Introduction of RCM (Release and Configuration Manager) has seen a huge improvement in the availability of verified test cases.

The updated Mobile Competence Centre task 160 Terms of Reference were approved (document TP-040062). The reasons for updating were to set a new Frequency Domain Duplex (FDD) target for completion of prioritized packages and to introduce Low Chip Rate Time Division Duplex (LCR TDD) into work programme. A reference to GCF was added. It is the intention to keep FDD & TDD in the same task force (TF) 160.

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 TSG-SA

Work Management

The first subject addressed by SA#23 was a joint contribution (SP-040014) from three companies proposing to identify what is essential, desired or not desired for the content of Release 6. This resulted in a draft meeting chaired by Siemens (report provided in SP-040214), which addressed, in addition to this “prioritisation”, the possible freezing dates of Releases 6 and 7. It resulted that September or December were anticipated for Release 6, with a clear preference for September if feasible. Later on, while reviewing the Work Plan (SP-040223), SA confirmed that September is the target date for freezing Release 6.

On Release 6 content, the conclusion was to try to rather extend by consensus, in the forthcoming months, the list of items which can be moved out of Release 6, as only two items have been identified as such so far.

With respect to Release 7, June 2005 has been set as the freezing date for the stage 1 requirements. Note that it was thought that setting this date as early as at SA#23 will encourage companies to propose new Features to belong to Release 7 and facilitate to move out of Release 6 the non-urgent ones.

Some other related contributions were presented, not challenging these principles (SP-040210, SP-040211, SP-040213 and SP-040222).

Next came the report of Nortel’s led e-mail activity on how to decrease the time between the completion of a Feature and its implementation in the system, in particular when the feature is stable for some time but belongs to a “long-to-be-frozen” Release, as Release 6 (tdocs SP-040052 and 53). Out of the 3 analysed approaches, it resulted that the preferred one is the so-called “Early Implementation of Features”, meaning the identification of the (potentially missing) Project Management mechanisms which will enable to implement an individual feature before the corresponding Release is approved. So the next step is now to identify these mechanisms, and this has to be discussed by e-mail before next SA meeting.

Cooperation with external fora

The issue of PLMN selection for 3GPP2/3GPP multi-mode terminals was addressed in a draft Liaison Statement (LS) from GERAN to 3GPP2 in tdoc SP-040012. SA used this information to generate the LS to 3GPP2 in SP-040226, underlying some related problems and principles, and proposing to 3GPP2 to work with them on the development of an overlay functionality for system selection.

The mapping between ITU-T and 3GPP QoS Classes and Traffic Descriptors was raised in tdocs SP-040009 and 24, but this was quickly forwarded to SA2. The same happened with SP-040013, a reply LS from ITU-T SG16 to SG 11 on Signalling Requirements for IP-QoS.

A request for a close cooperation on future “Next Generation Network” standardisation was issued by ETSI TC-TISPAN (SP-040150), given that TISPAN chose to base NGN on IMS. A draft answer was proposed by CN in SP-040182. SA revised this draft to SP-040218, to state that 3GPP (mainly SA2) is willing to organize a workshop to discuss the NGN requirements, architecture, and timelines.

CEPT/ECC provides a consultation on use of short codes in SP-040055. SA understood that they are not supposed to reply, the LS is rather to be checked by 3GPP individual companies.

The LS in SP-040010 informs 3GPP and 3GPP2 about OMA’s plenary plan on Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). This plan is to ask post-rel-6 Requirements for the bearer agnostic elements of the MMS to be transferred to OMA, and to start working on IPR and Copyright Issues to improve the effectiveness of the move. This is noted by SA.

Other LSs from OMA are SP-040015 on Digital Rights Management for PSS and MBMS streams (this is an issue to be handled by SA4 and SA3), and SP-040016 on Push-to-talk Over Cellular (PoC) principles for avoiding 3GPP/OMA overlapping issues (see SA2’s answer in SP-040025).

GSMA/IREG communicates with 3GPP on “3gppnetwork.org” domain name management in SP-040171 (answered by CN) and on 2G/3G subscriber distinction and roaming restriction, in

SP-040172. IREG asks SA to ensure that the new "Administrative restriction feature" are mandatory to vendors, that the specifications will be made so that operators who do not want to make 2G/3G distinction do not have to change their present implementation, and SA is asked to confirm that a VPLMN can specify different roaming authorizations for his 2G and 3G coverage, even if combined 2G/3G network elements are used. SA answers in SP-040219 that the requirements have to be deepen, e.g. by defining what is a 2G and a 3G subscription, as the impact might be quite important on some CN specifications as 24.008 (23.060 might also be impacted). It was noted that RAN has to be involved.

The last point addressed by GSMA/IREG was on IPv4/v6 IMS roaming and interworking, in SP-040177. IREG ask SA2 to standardize in priority a solution to ensure that IPv6 IMS will interwork with IPv4 IMS, in a transparent way for the end user. Initial comments are that IPv4-based IMS is not yet defined, so this is a task to be performed first. SA approved by consensus that there is a clear need to support IPv4-based IMS. The need to support the IPv4/v6 IMS interworking is thus confirmed. The actual work is to be started by SA2 (see TR 23.881 in SP-040048), and this will be a Release 6 item (not Release 5). This might lead to extra interworking work, but it keeps the stability of Release 5.

The relationship between 3GPP and the Liberty Alliance Project (LAP) related to the GUP work was wondered in CN4’s LS SP-040021, asking CN and SA to clarify the nature of the relationship, in particular with respect to the possibility to access and use Liberty Alliance’s specification text in 3GPP and related IPR implications. SA finally forwarded the problem to PCG in SP-040220.

SA also noted the LS from GSMA in SP-040187, mainly addressed to SA2, on operator requirements for WLAN Stage 2 Scenario 3, as well as the one in SP-040017, on the use of UTRAN for I-WLAN.

WGs progress

SA1

The SA WG1 report was provided in SP-040081.

The study on a Generalised Privacy Capability (Rel-6) was completed in TS 22.949, which might have a potential impact regarding LCS and emergency calls (the EC notwithstanding).

The changes related to Requirements for WLAN interworking (Rel-6) were approved in TS 22.234, and this is a different approach to the way WLAN is specified in SA1.

No particular controversial CR from SA1 was presented. Some WIDs have been updated, but no new one was proposed. The revised WIDs are SP-040102 (GUP), SP-040103 (Multimedia Priority Service) and SP-040104 (USSD message delivery and transfer to USIM).

 SA2

The SA2 report was provided in SP-040030, providing a very useful list of what is completed and what is not from an SA2’s perspective (essential information to check what could be finished by September and December from the Stage 3 perspective).

Two new WIDs were proposed and approved: SP-040044 on “Combining CS bearers with IMS” and SP-040042 on “3GPP Access Class Barring and Overload Protection”, revised to SP-040208 as the SA2’s completion date in the original version was unrealistic (moved from June to September, which is still quite optimistic).

Several WIDs were revised: SP-040041 on “Flow Based Charging”, SP-040043 on “Circuit Switched Video and Voice Service”, and SP-040045 on “Network sharing stage 2”.

SA2 presented several TRs for approval (version 2.0.0): TR 23.976 on "Push Architecture" (SP-040046, see also related text below), TR 23.877 on "Speech Enabled Services" (SP-040047), and TR 23.851 on “Network sharing; Architecture and Functional Description” (SP-040051), as well as one TS, TS 23.125 on “Overall High Level Functionality and Architecture Impacts of Flow Based Charging” (SP-040050). On this last point, note that the corresponding TR is abandoned (TR 23.825).

Also TR 23.881 on “Interworking aspects and migration scenarios for IPv4 based IMS Implementations” was presented for information in version 1.0.0 in SP-040048.

TS 23.234 on "3GPP WLAN interworking" in SP-040049 was finally approved: it reached version 2.5.0.

The most controversial issue was on Network Requested PDP Context Activation (NRPCA). Tdoc SP-040185 and 149 were pushing in favour of having it in the system, whereas SP-040146 (NTT DoCoMo) was against this idea. Several other companies (as Siemens, Nortel, Nokia, Telia) shared the opinion that NRPCA is a too complex mechanism compared to what it allows, in particular compared to Push Services using SMS. SA concluded not to have NRPCA in the system.

There was no other controversial point from SA2.

SA3

The SA3 report was provided in SP-040151.

There was no particular controversial issue raised by SA3, and no new WID. 

SA4

The SA4 report was provided in SP-040061.

SA4 submitted for approval one TS, TS 26.244 on “Transparent end-to-end packet switched streaming service; 3GPP file format", in SP-040065, which was approved.

They also provided for information TS 26.243 on "Software documentation for fixed-point DSR Extended Advanced Front-end" in SP-040064, and TR 26.935 on "Packet switched conversational multimedia applications; Default codecs; Performance characterization" in SP-040063.

Two WIDs were revised: the one on “Codec Enhancements for Packet Switched Conversational Multimedia Applications” (SP-040066) and the one on “3G-324M updates” (SP-040067).

Finally, a series of report were provided on the tests on 3G PS conversation tests, on Audio codec selection, and on SES codec selection.

There was no controversial CR.

 SA5

The SA5 report was provided in SP-040105.

SA5 presented for SA approval nine Release 6 Telecom Management and Charging specifications in the 32 series, which were all approved. The approved specifications covered Notification logging, File Transfer, Communications Surveillance, Performance Management, Circuit Switched Charging, Charging Data Records and Integration Reference Point Concepts and definitions.

A further seven new Release 6 specifications in the Telecom Management & Charging area were also delivered for SA information.