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Advanced Mobile Communications sought, so the electronics must be as efficient as possible.
Technologies – 3GPP™ Transmission speed is not critical. But for other applications,
such as vehicle-to-vehicle automatic collision avoidance
systems, very much higher throughput and vastly faster
ETSI and 3GPP responsiveness is required – perhaps beyond the capabilities
ETSI is one of the founding of the latest LTE-Advanced Pro technology.
partners of the Third Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP), in which To meet these different requirements, a great deal of
we come together with six other research has been conducted into possible new radio (‘NR’,
regional standardisation organisations worldwide, or ‘NextGen’) technologies. A study into channel models
plus market associations and several hundred for frequency spectrum above 6 GHz was completed in
individual companies, to develop specifications for June, followed in September by a study into scenarios and
advanced mobile communications technologies. requirements for next generation access technologies. Work
Based on the evolution of GSM, which was defined continued on a study of NR access technology.
by ETSI, 3GPP has developed the Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UMTS™), LTE and LTE- By the end of 2016, a number of 3GPP-internal studies were
Advanced/LTE-Advanced Pro technologies. also well advanced, examining layer 1 and higher issues,
novel access network architecture, and the co-existence of
3GPP is supported by ETSI’s Mobile Competence NR with previous radio technologies, both in 3GPP-licensed
Centre (MCC). bands and in unlicensed bands around 60 GHz.

Further information at: www.3gpp.org At the same time, the first set of LTE mission-critical
specifications were completed covering voice communication
(Push-to-Talk – PTT). The controversial debate over which
Release 13 of the 3GPP Specifications was finalised in March codec or codecs to mandate was finally solved. New work
2016 and the focus then shifted to Release 14. All in all, was started addressing mission-critical video and data
Release 14 is composed of almost 150 top-level studies and communications, which are regarded as vital for modern
features. Release 14 will benefit from the results of the first policing, security and rescue services.
concentrated 5G studies. Unlike previous 3GPP technologies,
where the radio access specifications have, to some extent,
dominated, 5G is likely to be much broader in its scope and Mobile Standards Group
will not necessarily be restricted to further developments of
‘conventional’ cellular telecommunications. Our Mobile Standards Group (TC MSG) provides the
regulatory standards needed to support the deployment of
GSM, UMTS and LTE networks in Europe. As well as dealing
There has been much greater emphasis in recent years on
communications between machines than between human with the transposition of Harmonised Standards from the
beings, which has resulted in the development of different R&TTE Directive to the new RED, we introduced new work to
radio technologies for wireless IoT to suit different needs. align our EN on IMT cellular networks with 3GPP Release 13,
Some IoT applications require stand-alone, autonomous by adding new parts to cover features such as Narrowband
operation, with very little data transfer and with many IoT, machine-type communications and new bands for carrier
minutes, hours or even days between transactions; for aggregation. This will enable operators to introduce new
these applications, battery life of the order of ten years is features in mobile networks, paving the way for the future
development of 5G technologies.

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