5G Specifications (3GPP), 5G Radio Standard (IMT 2020) and Standard Essential Patents

Posted on by Alan Weissberger

by Yigang Cai, PhD

Introduction:

On July 3, 2020, 3GPP (the organization that generates all the specifications for cellular networks) announced that its Release 16 (R16) specification was frozen, and thereby declared the completion of the first evolution of “5G New Radio (NR).”  As 3GPP’s specs have “no official standing,” they must be transposed by SDOs, like ITU, ETSI, ATIS, TSDSI (India), etc.  The international standard for 5G Radio aspects is known as IMT 2020.specs, which includes the Radio Interface Technology (RIT) and Set of Radio Interface Technologies (SRIT) from various proponents, including 3GPP (IMT-2020/14, and /IMT-2020/13, respectively).

3GPP R16 is the first technical specification in the history of 3GPP that was reviewed and finalized through an e-meeting (due to the COVID-19 travel and meeting restrictions). The declared R16 completion was the result of collaboration and coordination amongst many global companies, government agencies and telecom regulators.

From the 3GPP website: “Rel-16 is now officially Frozen. Rel-15 and Rel-16 constitute the basis for 5G and this is a great achievement and recommended that delegates hold a personal celebration for this.”

The complete R16 spec not only enhances the functions of 5G, but also allows 5G to enter a new digital ecosystem. It takes into account factors such as cost and efficiency, so that the basic investment in wireless communications infrastructure can play a greater role and further help the digital transformation of the social economy.  Let’s examine 3GPP’s 5G NR in the context of R15 and R16:

  • “5G NR” in R15 was frozen in 2018. It strived to produce a “usable” specification for Physical (PHY) layer transmit/receive in 5G trials/pilots and early (pre-IMT 2020 standard) 5G networks.
  • In contrast, “5G NR” in R16 will achieve an “easy to use” and more robust 5G transmit/receive capability.
    3GPP R16 is a major release for the project as noted in an earlier IEEE Techblog post. It brings the specification organization’s ITU-R WP 5D submission “IMT-2020 Radio Interface Technology/Set of Radio Interface Technologies (RIT/SRIT)” to a more complete 5G system; what 3GPP calls “5G Phase 2.”

3GPP R16 is supposed to enhance Ultra-Reliable (UR) Low Latency Communications (URLLC), support V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) and V2I (vehicle-to-roadside unit) direct connection communications, and support 5GS Enhanced Vertical and LAN Services as reported in the earlier IEEE Techblog article.  Please refer to References below for further information.

URLLC is 1 of 3 use cases for 5G/IMT 2020. It is intended for mission critical, precise, accurate, always ON/never down, real time communications that require low latency in the 5G access and core networks.

SOURCE:  3GPP

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Editor’s Note: ONLY the 3GPP “5G Radio Aspects” are included in the forthcoming ITU-R IMT 2020.SPEC (RIT/SRIT) recommendation, which is expected to be approved in late November 2020 by ITU-R SG D. All the non-radio aspects, such as 5G Core Network, network slicing, network management, privacy and security, etc. will NOT be part of IMT 2020. However, those declared R16 completed work items are likely to be transposed by ETSI into international standards.

From 3GPP: “5G non-radio specs in R16 are handled by 3GPP Working Groups. None of the work is done in the SDOs – 3GPP does all of the work. See the 3GPP Work Plan at  to see how the work is split between groups.”

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Perspective on 5G Standard Essential Patents (SEPs):

The announcement of the 3GPP R16 freeze also means the “War of SEPs (Standard Essential Patents [1.]),” i.e. those patents that are related to 5G NR standards/specifications might come to the end of a critical stage. However, it’s likely that a new SEP war will start soon. But that is a subject for another day.

Note 1.  A standard essential patent (SEP) is a patent that claims an invention that must be used to comply with a technical standard or specification to be standardized by an accredited standards development organization (SDO).

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During 5G NR specification development, industries and companies have competed in a 5G patent race and generated thousands of SEPs. A recent study, published in the IEEE Techblog, found that Huawei was the undisputed leader in 5G SEPs. Some companies tried to convince the world they are leading the SEP war. However, the news and hype about published SEPs has often misled the public.

From this author’s standards and patent experiences, there are some facts of 5G SEPs which have been neglected in the SEP war:

  • There is no one-to-one mapping between declared SEP and 5G standards feature. In fact, one standards contribution (e.g., WID, CR, WF or others in 3GPP) may be declared with one or multiple SEPs, or one SEP is declared in multiple contributions. SEP number declared does not match standards features.
  •  Many of SEP relevant standards contributions are not taken or baselined by standards bodies in standards specifications. Someone can do statistics what percentages (overall and/or per contributing company) of SEP relevant standards are agreed or approved in standards bodies.
  •  Some declared SEPs, including filed and published patents, may not be granted, or may even be rejected, after standards contributions are baselined.
  • One standards contribution may be co-authored/co-signed with multiple companies, it is very likely multiple companies filed multiple patents for the same standards contribution.

There is no doubt SEPs can accelerate 5G standards development and enhance standards feature quality. But, the war of SEPs also brings some confusions in 5G technology development, implementation, deployment and applications.

First of all, the patent war lead to industries creating numerous patents which actually may not be “essential.”  We all understand that a considerable percentage of those patents have no real value, i.e. they are not implementable or deployable and so not at all profitable.

Companies try to earn IPR revenues from SEPs and spend enormous efforts and finances focusing on creation of SEPs (for example, giving over the half of total IPR budget to SEP generation) because they probably believe licensing of granted SEPs can bring IPR revenue much quick. However, simple number of declared SEPs is much less important than innovation of critical 5G features and functions.

The 5G SEP war we have recently experienced concentrates on patent number; not patent quality. In fact, a feature critical invention can be much better and heavier than dozens of banal and non-essential SEPs which have been seen almost every aspect.

Conclusions:

Industry success relies on innovations, such as technique innovation, cultural innovation, and business innovation. There is no single high-tech company that has succeeded by starting numerous DEPs. Relying on licensing of granted patents cannot produce a great company. It does not mean patent productivities not important. Inventions in 5G should create more useful and reliable features, products, applications and capability to meet commerce and consumer needs (unfortunately, we have not seen many consumer-related 5G features so far).

5G and “5G Beyond” or “6G” (?) SEPs can strive for implementable and economic inventions, including investment and cost saving, energy saving and green communications. Innovations should drive ecosystem end-to-end solutions and use cases. Currently there are hundreds of 5G use cases that have been identified. Unfortunately, many of them (like the IoT use cases) can also be realized by existing 4G/LTE or enhanced WiFi.

Closing Note on URLLC (Ultra Reliable, ultra Low latency Communications):

URLLC is one of three use cases defined by ITU for the IMT 2020 standard and “5G” networks worldwide.  It is included for both the 5G RAN and 5G Core Network in 3GPP Release 16.  From a 3GPP report on URLLC:

“New 3GPP R16 URLCC use cases with higher requirements include: Factory automation Transport Industry, including the remote driving use case, and Electrical Power Distribution.  A 3GPP “Study on Physical layer enhancements for NR ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC)” concludes that it is beneficial to support a set of enhancements to URLLC, and further establishes detailed recommendations as given in Section 9.2 in TR 38.824.”

However, URLLC 5G NR enhancements for the RAN is currently only 53% complete (as per the 3GPP Work Plan for Release 16). That’s because no performance testing has been done yet to validate if the URLLC enhancement to 5G NR will meet 3GPP’s targeted performance requirements. We have been told by 3GPP marketing manager Kevin Flynn that such URLLC performance testing will be completed in three to six months, however there is no official 3GPP target completion date set at the time this article was published (July 10, 2020).

For URLLC to be successful, we first need standardized URLLC requirements (such as 1 millisecond synchronization accuracy, 0.5-to-1 millisecond air interface (in the RAN) latency, <5 milliseconds end-to-end latency (including the 5G Core Network), and six 9’s reliability) to be achieved on paper as clearly specified 5G NR enhancements.  Then the performance parameters must be verified/validated in duplicable performance tests (by independent testing agencies) and reliably implemented  in both 5G endpoint and network products.  Only then can new 5G system and use cases (e.g. mission critical and/or low latency applications. autonomous vehicles, etc) achieve economic benefits and gains.

Along with the IEEE Techblog Editorial Team, I’ve been carefully researching and studying all aspects of URLLC in 3GPP Release 16 and hope to provide you with a co-authored article which will provide more clarity on that topic.  Stay tuned!

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About Yigang Cai:

Yigang Cai, PhD is an IEEE Fellow (2018) and former Senior Research Scientist at Bell Labs. As a long time IEEE volunteer, Yigang served as IEEE ComSoc director of North American Region (NAR) (2012-2013), ComSoc global coordinator of Distinguished Lecturer Tour (DLT) (2010-2011), and ComSoc Chicago chapter chairman (2003-2006).

Dr. Cai is one of most prolific telecommunications industry inventors.  He received the Bell Labs Inventor Award three times (2008, 2010 and 2011), and was honored with a first-ever lifetime Alcatel-Lucent “Distinguished Inventor Award” (2013) with his inventive accomplishments and patent contributions throughout his career with the company. Yigang has filed a total of 1000+ patents globally, of which 665 are granted patents (including 193 U.S. granted patents).

Many of his inventions in wireless networks have been built into products and systems of 2G/3G/4G and 5G, and deployed worldwide. He is one of the pioneers and leaders in developing the principles and components of Machine Type Communications (MTC).  Dr. Cai generated many 5G inventions, including 5G New Radio (NR), 5G end-to-end architectures and use cases (both Access Networks and Core Networks), Network Slicing, MEC, 5G Machine Type Communications (MTC), and Device-to-Device Communications.

Yigang worked with Verizon Wireless to incorporate his work on Core Network MTC architecture, into 3GPP specifications. He was the first inventor in the area of radio interface physical resource sharing [between LTE and eMTC (Category M, or CatM)]. Dr. Cai filed dozens of patents related to that subject matter.  Feature software with those pending patents were developed and delivered to Verizon (2016) and AT&T networks in 2017 (over 40,000 base stations), and twenty some other operators worldwide.

Together with ComSocSCV Chair Emeritus Alan J Weissberger, Yigang published an IEEE Global Communications Newsletter (GCN) article on Substantial Progress in ComSoc North American Region which appeared in the December 2013 issue of IEEE Communications magazine.

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Editor’s Addendum :  3GPP R16 5G work items related to IMT 2020.specs and 5G Non-Radio Aspects:

The two ATIS contributions from 3GPP on the latter’s IMT 2020 RIT/SRIT (based on 3GPP documents PCG45_07 and PCG45_08), were submitted to ITU-R WP5D on 21 May 2020. They were discussed and accepted at the 5D meeting which ended 9 July 2020.  There were no other 3GPP/ATIS contributions related to IMT 2020 at that 5D meeting, which was the deadline for submission of material for inclusion in ITU-R Rec. M.[IMT 2020.SPECS].

Therefore, we do not know what the disposition will be of any other 5G radio related work items in 3GPP R16 that were completed after 21 May 2020.  In particular, the state of 3GPP’s 5GNR enhancements for URLLC.

We understand that the 5G NON-RADIO aspects of R16, e.g. 5G architecture, 5G core, network slicing, network management, security, etc. will NOT be sent to ITU-T.  Rather, they will likely be transposed and standardized by ETSI.

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References:

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2020/03/25/3gpp-delays-release-16-and-17-by-3-months/
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2019/10/06/3gpp-release-16-update-5g-phase-2-including-urllc-to-be-completed-in-june-2020/
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2020/03/24/5g-patent-war-are-nokias-3000-5g-patent-declarations-legit/
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2020/06/24/greyb-study-huawei-undisputed-leader-in-5g-standard-essential-patents-seps/
https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2020/03/24/nokia-announces-over-3000-5g-patent-declarations/
https://telecoms.com/503274/5g-patent-chest-beating-is-an-unhelpful-distraction/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/qualcomm-5g-security-and-patent-wars-11576096074
https://www.statista.com/chart/20095/companies-with-most-5g-patent-families-and-patent-families-applications/
https://www.iplytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/5G-patent-study_TU-Berlin_IPlytics-2020.pdf
https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2019/10/5g-patent-leadership
https://www.kidonip.com/news/iplytics-patent-counting-fallacy/
https://www.epo.org/news-events/news/2020/20200312.html

https://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/GanttChart-Level-2.htm

https://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/WiSpec–830074.htm

Executive Summary: IMT-2020.SPECS defined, submission status, and 3GPP’s RIT submissions

Busting a Myth: 3GPP Roadmap to true 5G (IMT 2020) vs AT&T “standards-based 5G” in Austin, TX

8 thoughts on “5G Specifications (3GPP), 5G Radio Standard (IMT 2020) and Standard Essential Patents”

  1. Terrific article, Yigang! Here’s an update from the ITU-R WP5D e-meeting, concluded on July 89, 2020. 5D Technology Aspects WG concluded that 3GPP’s 5G NR submissions for IMT 2020 RIT/SRIT (IMT 2020/2014 and IMT 2020/2013, respectively) have been successfully evaluated and are moving forward to step 7 of the IMT 2020.specs standardization process.

    3GPP RIT: There were ten relevant evaluation reports received for the 3GPP candidate RIT submission (IMT-2020/14). The relevant received evaluation reports confirmed that the candidate 3GPP RIT proposal in IMT-2020/14 fulfils the minimum requirements for the five test environments comprising the three usage scenarios.

    3GPP SRIT: The evaluated candidate SRIT proposal (IMT-2020/13) from 3GPP Proponent is assessed by ITU-R as satisfactorily fulfilling the minimum requirements for the five test environments comprising the three usage scenarios with each component RIT of the SRIT also fulfilling the minimum requirements of at least two test environments. Thus, this 3GPP Proponent SRIT proposal is ‘a qualifying SRIT’ and therefore will go forward for further consideration in Step 7.

    In particular, I question this conclusion: “ITU-R confirms that the SRIT of the candidate technology submission in IMT-2020/13 meets the minimum requirements of the Urban Macro-URLLC test environment.” However, I don’t know what those minimum requirements/performance parameters were and how they might relate to ITU-R M.2410?

  2. Q & A from 3GPP on R16 “Freeze”:
    Brian Dolby: Let’s start by asking you to point out some of the key achievements of this release?

    Balazs Bertenyi: Essentially, with Release 15 we brought 5G to life, focusing on enhanced mobile broadband, on addressing the capacity shortage some of the regions, countries and operators have been experiencing with 4G.

    Now, with Release 16 – which is the second phase of bringing 5G to life – we have expanded on that greatly, mainly on two fronts. If I were to structure what we did into two main themes, the first would be 5G efficiency; where we brought a lot of improvements; functionalities that help 5G operation across the board. For both networks and terminals across all of the use cases. For things like self-organising-networks, optimising power usage in devices, MIMO is also an example from this category of features.

    Then the other category is where we focused on expanding the cellular footprint and the potential reach of 5G into new opportunities – new verticals. A couple of examples from this ‘bucket’ are the automotive use case – the V2X functionality, brought in Release 16, which allows devices to directly communicate with each over sidelink operation. Sidelink is also a very important functionality for Public Safety – another new ‘vertical’. For Industrial IoT – The factory use case is something that has been there on the horizon of 5G, almost from the get-go. We are bringing in some important functionality to help with factory operation, using 5G.

    See the video Interview on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/437489704
    Unlicensed operation is another example. Typically with operators, 5G would be deployed over licensed spectrum. Now, with Release 16 it is possible to deploy over unlicensed spectrum bands.

    The important factor here is to find a balance between these two main themes (efficiency versus expansion) and I think that we have struck a perfect balance with Release 16, with these features – we have a much more efficient system now, that is able to reach much further than Release 15 did.

    How does this effect the 5G radio work and the RAN submission for IMT-2020?

    balazs r16 vidThe IMT-2020 submission is an important element of what we do in standards. The ITU has set out their requirements a long time ago and called for technical proposals that fulfil those requirements. The 5G NR radio technology that 3GPP has developed is of course a key submission to fulfil those requirements. I would even venture to say that it is ‘the’ 5G submission. There are of course some other submissions, but essentially the 3GPP submission is the most global and most holistic submission there is.

    Also, on this front, we have been able to fulfil the plans. Just last week the ITU has approved 5G NR as an IMT-2020 submission. That element has been progressing very much according to plan, which means that those countries who use these IMT submissions in their radio regulations can go ahead and now have 5G NR at their disposal for deployments in their regions and countries.

    Is there still work to do in Release 16 and what can we expect from Release 17?

    With Release 16, as with every release, there is always a corrections phase. We do freeze the specifications, as we did last week, but there is always a phase whereby the little details, the technical elements get finalised in about the 2 to 3 month period after the initial freeze.

    All working groups are still going to be very busy, basically tying up all the loose ends on the technical detail. So, come September – all of those loose ends will hopefully be all tide up and Release 16 will be ready for full implementation.

    https://www.3gpp.org/news-events/2129-sweet_rel_16

  3. From 10 Aug 2020 ITU-R WP5D Chairman’s Report:

    Candidate technology submissions accepted for Step 8 for first release of Recommendation ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.SPEITU-R has determined that the IMT-2020 candidate technology submission proposals listed below have successfully completed Step 7 and all preceding Steps, and thus are accepted for inclusion as IMT-2020 technologies in the standardization phase for IMT-2020 as described in Step 8.CS]:

    – Candidate SRIT submission from 3GPP proponent (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/13).
    – Candidate RIT submission from 3GPP proponent (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/14).
    – Candidate RIT submission from China (People’s Republic of) (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/15).
    – Candidate RIT submission from Korea (Republic of) (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/16).
    – Candidate RIT submission from TSDSI (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/19(Rev.1)).
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    ITU-R has determined that the IMT-2020 candidate technology submission proposals listed below will require additional evaluation to conclude their respective final assessment through Steps 6 and 7 of the current process. They will, therefore, on an exceptional basis continue in the process, rewinding to Step 4 in order to consider additional material.

    Candidate technology submissions granted an extension in the IMT-2020 process:
    – Candidate SRIT submission from ETSI (TC DECT) and DECT Forum (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT‑2020/17(Rev.1)).
    Candidate RIT submission from Nufront (Acknowledgement of submission under Step 3 of the IMT-2020 process in IMT-2020/18(Rev.1)).
    This process extension for these specific candidate technology submissions will not impact the schedule for the first release of Recommendation ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.SPECS] and the inclusion of the identified Proponent submissions identified in Section 2 above that will proceed into Step 8.
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    Future plans for the IMT process:
    IMT is an on-going process of development and updates. In 2021, ITU-R will define the schedule for future general revisions of the Recommendation ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.SPECS], to accommodate any future new, improved, or updated IMT-2020 candidate technology proposals beyond the first release, utilizing the same baseline IMT ‘revision and update process’ currently in place, as applied to IMT 2020.

  4. From the 5D chairman’s report, the China and Korea IMT 2020 RIT/SRIT submissions will be included in the first IMT-2020.specs recommendation, along with 3gpp and tsdsi submissions. This despite the fact wp5d had earlier concluded China and Korea specs were technically identical to 3gpp’s submissions. That will surely create confusion as well has a version control nightmare as future revisions of the 3 technically identical IMT 2020 RIT/SRIT specs may come at different times with different functionality included in each revision. Evidently 5D leaders don’t care about that or that 3gpp release 15 or 16 does not meet Itu-r M.2410 performance requirements for URLLC. In fact, 3gpp release 16 URLLC for the RAN is not complete (stated to at 53%) and has not been submitted to 5D!

    If DECT/ETSI and/or Nufront provide additional info that 5D approves, their RIT/SRIT specs will be included in a 2021 version of IMT 2020.SPECS, but will not be in the version expected to be sent to ITU-R SG5 after 5D’s November 2020 meeting.

  5. It’s somewhat of a contradiction that ITU-R WP5D approved IMT 2020.specs (3GPP NR + TSDSI 5Gi for India) at its Nov 2020 meeting, but the Frequency WG was not in session so no action could be taken to revise M.1036. Hence, there are NO assigned frequencies/ arrangements for terrestrial 5G!

  6. 3GPP Release 16 was frozen June 2020, but URLLC in the RAN spec has still not been completed nor has there been a firm schedule for independent performance testing. As a result, ITU-R M.2150 (previously known as IMT 2020.specs and based mostly on 3GPP Release 15) does not meet the URLLC (in the RAN) performance requirements of ITU-R M.2410 Minimum requirements related to technical performance of IMT 2020.

  7. As per the Oct 15, 2021 conclusion of ITU-R WP 5D’s 39th (virtual) meeting, the ETSI (TC DECT) and DECT Forum IMT 2020/M.2150 SRIT proposal is ‘a qualifying SRIT’ and therefore will go forward for further consideration in Step 7. With the confirmed name “DECT 5G – SRIT.”
    Reference: https://www.etsi.org/newsroom/press-releases/1988-2021-10-world-s-first-non-cellular-5g-technology-etsi-dect-2020-gets-itu-r-approval-setting-example-of-new-era-connectivity

    SWG IMT Specifications processed the received contributions from ETSI TC DECT and Nufront to the Preliminary Draft Focused Revision to M.2150 which was provisionally consented at WP 5D #38 meeting. However, Nufront agreed to withdraw its submission and consider opportunity of making a new candidate technology submission with no prejudice in future revision of Recommendation ITU-R M.2150 “Detailed specifications of the terrestrial radio interfaces of International Mobile Telecommunications-2020 (IMT-2020).”

    Sadly, WP 5D could not agree on the revision of M.1036 Frequency Arrangements for Terrestrial IMT, so there are no standardized frequencies to be used for 5G IMT 2020/M.2150 including the 3 sets of mmWave frequencies WRC 19 assigned for 5G terrestrial use. It became clear during the discussions during SWG Frequency Arrangements meeting that there was a fundamental difference of opinions regarding some proposed edits and the question of whether and how certain decisions of WRC-19 would need to be reflected in Recommendation ITU-R M.1036. In this situation, the SWG agreed to postpone further discussions on the revision of Recommendation ITU-R M.1036 to the October 2022 meeting of WP 5D and the workplan was updated accordingly.

    Hence, the revision of ITU-R M.1036 can’t be approved till Nov 2022 at the annual meeting of ITU-R SG 5. However, that deadline could be missed if SWG Frequency Arrangements can’t reach an agreement at their Oct 2022 WP 5D meeting.

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