ETSI NFV and 3GPP 5G

July 1, 2019

A Press Release, from ETSI, emphasizes the role of NFV in addressing the variety of applications expected to run on top of the 5G system. It looks also at how ETSI’s NFV ISG work to support network slicing, including ‘Management over multi-administrative domains’ (GS NFV-IFA 030) and ‘Multi-site network connectivity’ (GS NFV-IFA 032), is helping the 3GPP management system to interact with the NFV MANO system - for resource management of the virtualized 5G network.

One of the highlights of ETSI NFV Release 3 is set to be the work on defining an external touchpoint between the NFV’s Network Service and network slicing (GR NFV-IFA 024) - in which the Network Service becomes a composite element of the 3GPP SA5 working group’s network slice subnet construct (TS 28.530) – intended to allow implementations to easily combine the 3GPP Network Resource Model (NRM) with the ETSI NFV Information Model.

New CT Chair looks to boost cooperation

April 26, 2019

Lionel Morand is the new Chair of 3GPP Core Network and Terminals (CT) Technical Specification Group (TSG). In taking up this new leadership post, he will relinquish Chairmanship of the CT4 Working Group – a role he has occupied since July 2016.

In this short interview, we ask for his thoughts on the progress made in TSG CT and the prospects for 5G Core protocol work.

Early progress on Rel-16 bands for 5G

April 2, 2019

By Xutao Zhou, Samsung, 3GPP RAN4 Chairman

- RAN Working Group 4 has been focusing on ensuring the stability and compatibility of the Release 15 specifications as it draws to a successful completion. Now, the focus shifts to work on Release16, where RAN4 has made tremendous early progress on new 5G NR bands and band combinations. 

Due to practical reasons the Release 16 version of RAN4 specifications will only be created in June 2019 RAN Plenary. In the meantime, the completed Release 16 band specifications are maintained in RAN4 as a set of endorsed Change Requests. Note that band specifications have always been release independent. Consequently, from a specification perspective Release 16 NR bands and combinations can be supported by Release15 User Equipment (UE) and network.

3GPP Elects Plenary Leadership for the next 2 years

March 21, 2019

The 83rd Plenary meetings of the project, held in Shenzhen, China, have completed elections for each of the three Technical Specification Groups – CT, RAN and SA.

First up was the Core Network and Terminals (CT) Group, where Lionel Morand of Orange was elected Chair by acclamation. Lionel has been the TSG CT Working Group 4 (CT4) Chair since July 2016, after serving as Vice-Chair from 2012 to 2016. As Orange's lead representative for more than fifteen years, he has been an active member and a key contributor in the CT4 work.

5G for Control Applications in Vertical Domains

March 7, 2019

By Michael Bahr, Siemens AG, 3GPP 'cyberCAV' Rapporteur

3GPP Working Group SA1 has recently concluded its work on 5G service requirements for cyber-physical control applications in vertical domains (cyberCAV) with the approval of Technical Specification (TS) 22.104 - preparing the way for more detailed work in 3GPP Release 16.

cyberCAV efforts in SA1 are focusing on cyber-physical control applications in various vertical domains, especially in industrial automation and energy automation. 5G ultra-reliable ultra-low-latency communication (URLLC) is needed for sharing real-time information, for example, between machines at various steps in a production cycle.

TS 22.104 also contains the service requirements, such as on clock synchronization for time-sensitive networking, for cyberCAV using LAN-type services.