3GPP Rel-19: Maturing 5G-Advanced

Published in

rimedolabs

4 min readJan 8, 2024

Introduction

3GPP Release-19 is the second release of the 5G-Advanced standard. Early workshops on this release were held in June 2023 discussing hundreds of submissions. For the RAN part, a summary of the Release-19 workshop can be found in [1]. The original assumption was that 3GPP Rel-19 would primarily focus on investing in the 5G-Advanced commercial deployments to further improve performance and address critical needs by continuing balanced evolutions between:

mobile broadband evolution vs. further vertical domain expansion,
immediate vs. longer-term commercial needs,
device vs. network evolution.

During the plenary TSGs #100 (Technical Specification Groups) meetings, 3GPP started the process of deciding what will be worked on within Rel-19. The content of Rel-19 was decided at the December 2023 TSGs (#102) [2].

The currently included items (both work- and study items, WIs/SIs) cover, among others, topics like:

Mobile metaverse and extended reality (XR);
AI/ML model transfer;
Edge computing and mission-critical communications;
Satellite access, UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), and FMRCS (Future Mobile Railway Communications System) communications extensions;
Ambient IoT and integrated sensing;
Energy efficiency enhancements;
Network sharing and NPN (Non-Public Network);
Multiple studies on security (e.g., for NPN, RTC — Real Time Communications, satellite access, and zero trust);
Multiple studies on management aspects (e.g., NTN — Non-Terrestrial Network, IAB — Integrated Access and Backhaul, network sharing, RedCap — Reduced Capability, and Digital Twin).

In this post, we’re elaborating on the contents of the selected WIs and SIs to be incorporated within 3GPP Rel-19 as of December 2023.

3GPP Timeline

The current 3GPP releases with an “open” status (i.e., subject to active 3GPP work) are [3]:

Release 18, whose start date was 09.2019, and the end date is scheduled on 06.2024 (i.e., to be completed on SA#104);
Release 19, with a start date of 06.2021, and a completion date of 12.2025 during SA#110.

Both of them relate to the 5G-Advanced system. A more detailed schedule can be found in [2], with the following dates and corresponding meeting IDs:

RAN1 completion (functional freeze) of Rel-18 during RAN1 #101 in Q3 2023, and targeting the completion of Rel-19 features by RAN1 #108 in Q2 2025;
RAN2/3/4 completion (functional freeze) of Rel-18 during RAN2/3/4 #102 in Q4 2023, and targeting the completion of Rel-19 features by RAN2/3/4 #109 in Q3 2025;
SA (System Architecture)/CT (Core Network and Terminals) completion (functional freeze) of Rel-18 during SA/CT #103 in Q1 2024, and targeting completion of Rel-19 features by SA/CT #109 in Q3 2025;
ASN1 freeze of Rel-18 in Q2 2024 (SA#104) and Rel-19 ASN1 freeze in Q4 2025 (SA#110).

3GPP Rel-19 Features

As of December 2023/January 2024, there are quite a bunch of items being worked on in 3GPP for Rel-19, with a full list available in [4]. See Fig. 1 for the WI list of Rel-19.

Let me now touch upon some of those items with more details. The descriptions of the below Study Items (i.e., feasibility studies/technical analysis on a particular topic) and Work Items (i.e., normative specification work) are based on SIDs and WIDs (Study / Work Item Description) from [3].

Indirect Network Sharing ( NetShare) [13]
Indirect network sharing relates to supporting RAN sharing without a direct connection between the shared NG-RAN and the operator’s core network. This WI complements the SI FS_NetShare (see above) and aims to define normative requirements for indirect network sharing, covering mobility, network access control, regulatory services, and charging aspects.

Summary

Summing up the above, the general direction of 3GPP Rel-19 is expansion towards vertical applications. The set of features could be grouped into several main topics:

5G support for cutting-edge use cases and services, like XR or metaverse;
5G architectural aspects for industrial scenarios and service robots;
Enhancements of the architecture for Satellite and UAV support, as well as novel network-sharing scenarios;
AI/ML enhancements to be supported within the 5G system;
Energy efficiency is a big topic itself, with the recent items targeting encapsulating service criteria;
Support for IoT-related features, like ambient devices and integrated communications and sensing;
Advancements in various aspects of security for, e.g., NPN or mission-critical services.

In those topics, you could find enhancements to the already settled functionality, as well as new topics that provide further advancements to the 5G-Advanced system.

If you are interested in our coverage of Rel-18 (first release of 5G-Advanced) features from the perspective of RAN and SA, have a look at the previous posts on this topic: 3GPP Rel-18: The Preliminary Discussions, 5G-Advanced: 3GPP Rel-18 SA2 Features, and 5G-Advanced: 3GPP Rel-18 SA2 Features.

References

[1] https://www.3gpp.org/FTP/Meetings_3GPP_SYNC/Workshop/2023_06_RAN_Rel19_WS/Docs/RWS-230488.zip
[2] Release 19 (3gpp.org)
[3] 3GPP Portal > Home
[4] https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/information/Work_Plan
[5] SP-220085
[6] SP-230509
[7] SP-230750
[8] SP-230516
[9] SP-230518
[10] SP-230520
[11] SP-231198
[12] SP-220087
[13] SP-230511
[14] SP-230512
[15] SP-230514
[16] SP-220447
[17] SP-230233
[18] SP-230229
[19] SP-221263
[20] SP-230523
[21] SP-230988
[22] SP-231159

Originally published at https://rimedolabs.com on January 8, 2024.