Events

Introduction

User demand is driving the mobile communication industry to develop faster, more efficient and more comprehensive mobile services. User expectations and use cases continue to grow and ETSI, a founding partner of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), aims to remain very much part of this evolution of mobile communication systems.

ETSI is proud to have a leading role in the development of mobile communication technologies. The Institute has been in the front line of this work:

Today, these mobile communications technologies serve billions of users throughout the world. That sort of success would be impossible without standards, and illustrates the huge potential of well-managed standardization programmes.

Mobile overview

The pages in this part of the ETSI website provide an overview of various aspects of mobile communications technologies. The 3GPP site contains much more details, including the specifications themselves, all available free of charge.

A full list of published ETSI standards on mobile communications in the public domain is accessible via the ETSI standards search.

Several collections of historical documents charting the development of mobile communications standards are available exclusively to ETSI members via our Webstore.

Introduction

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) aim to provide services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management, enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated and 'smarter' use of transport networks. They include advanced telematics and hybrid communications including IP based communications as well as Ad-Hoc direct communication between vehicles and between vehicles and infrastructure.

The following topics related to ITS are currently being addressed:

We depend heavily on transport in our everyday lives. Yet ever increasing road traffic generates serious problems in terms of congestion, safety and environmental impact. Fortunately, information and communication technologies offer new advanced solutions to today's transport problems.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) embrace a wide variety of communications-related applications intended to increase travel safety, minimize environmental impact, improve traffic management and maximize the benefits of transportation to both commercial users and the general public.

Stand-alone driver assistance helps drivers to maintain a safe speed and distance, drive within the lane, avoid overtaking in critical situations and safely pass intersections and thus have positive effects on safety and traffic management. However, benefits could be further magnified if individual vehicles were able to continuously communicate with each other or with the road infrastructure.

Over recent years, the emphasis in intelligent vehicle research has turned to Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) in which the vehicles communicate with each other and/or with the infrastructure. C-ITS can greatly increase the quality and reliability of information available about the vehicles, their location and the road environment. It improves existing services and will lead to new ones for the road users, which, in turn, will bring major social and economic benefits and lead to greater transport efficiency and increased safety.

Radar technology is developed for use in motor vehicles, mainly in the interests of road safety:

The anti-collision radar technology is marketed in two stages in Europe:

A 'temporary' frequency band has been opened at 24 GHz, allowing equipment to be marketed in the short term. However, this band is also used by other radio services that would suffer interference if too many radar devices were operated simultaneously in the same area. For this reason, this band is closed for the introduction of new devices before the usage becomes too dense.

In addition, the radar is required to be switched off within a certain distance of radio astronomy stations, to avoid interference. Currently this is achieved by manual intervention by the driver. An automatic de-activation mechanism will be required after a transition date.

European Commission Decision 2005/50/EC requires this band to be made available in all EU member states and sets the requirements for the transition to the permanent band and for the introduction of automatic de-activation around radio astronomy sites.

A 'permanent' band has been allocated at 79 GHz, allowing for long-term development of this radar service. European Commission Decision 2004/545/EC requires this band to be made available in all EU member states.

Our Role & Activities

Our ITS committee (TC ITS) is leading the drive to achieve global standards for Co-operative ITS, which offers enormous potential through vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside communication. Applications include road safety, traffic control, fleet and freight management and location-based services, providing driver assistance and hazard warnings and supporting emergency services.

TC ITS develops standards related to the overall communication architecture, management (including e.g. Decentralized Congestion Control), security as well as the related access layer agnostic protocols: the physical layer, Network Layer, Transport Layer (e.g. with the GeoNetworking protocol), Facility Layer, (e.g. with the definition of facility services such as Cooperative Awareness - CA, Decentralized Environmental Notification – DEN, Cooperative Perception – CP and Manoeuver Coordination – MC, used by the ITS applications). Other addressed topics include platooning, specifications to protect vulnerable road users such as cyclists and motorcycle riders, specifications for Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Collective Perception Services as well as multichannel operation.

For all those standardization activities, TC ITS develops also conformance test specifications which are crucial for the commercial deployment of the technology. TC ITS is also heavily involved in the related spectrum requirements.

Most of the ETSI TC ITS standardization work is actually related to Cooperative-ITS (C-ITS). The following is being addressed:

Congestion Control

Congestion Control provides stability in the ad-hoc network by providing resource management when there are a high number of C-ITS messages in order to avoid interference and degradation of C-ITS applications.

C-ITS Security

C-ITS and safety driving applications depend upon reliable and trustworthy data transmitted by other vehicles and the infrastructure. In this context, standardized solutions for security and privacy are paramount and this will be based on the design and implementation of a security management infrastructure for cooperative-ITS. ETSI TC ITS develops standards defining the security framework for cooperative ITS including a PKI. This security framework will support PKI trust model requirements from the EU C-ITS deployment platform and bring privacy protection mechanisms for users and drivers, e.g. using pseudonym certificates and regularly changing pseudonyms IDs in V2X communications.

GeoNetworking (GN) protocol 

Many ITS applications require the dissemination of information with a rapid and direct communication, which can be achieved by ad hoc networking. GeoNetworking (GN) is a network layer protocol for mobile ad hoc communication without the need for a coordinating infrastructure based on a wireless technology, such as ITS-G5. It utilizes geographical positions for dissemination of information and transport of data packets. It offers communication over multiple wireless hops, where nodes in the network forward data packets on behalf of each other to extend the communication range.

Multichannel Operation (MCO)

Since 2019, Day-1 applications and solutions are operational only in one safety related channel (CCH/SCH0) in the 5.9 GHz frequency band. In addition, Day-2 applications and solutions are being specified, developed and tested. While Day-1 applications require the full SCH channel in the worst case, for Day-2 applications other available channels need to be used. Multichannel operation is therefore needed in order to support the Day-2 applications and realize effective use of the available safety related spectrum. This requires the definition of a channel management mechanism together with the extension of the ITS architecture and related protocols (such as the GeoNetworking protocol).

C-ITS facility services to be used by ITS Applications

ETSI TC ITS develops and maintains important services to be used by ITS applications. These services include but are not limited to:

The work of TC ITS is supported by a large variety of companies that actively contribute to the standardization work. These include main car makers along with automotive supply industry representatives, silicon vendors, network operators as well as test houses.

Intensive links are maintained with the European Commission whose ITS related activities aim to stimulate the deployment of Cooperative ITS. The European Commission standardization request M/453 in the field of information and communication technologies to support the interoperability of Co-operative Systems for Intelligent Transport in the European Community as well as the standardization request M/546 on Intelligent Transport Systems in urban areas stresses this importance.

Due to the international nature of this work the ETSI automotive community cooperates closely with other international standardization organizations such as ISO, CEN, IEEE, SAE, ARIB, TTA, IETF and ITU in order to achieve internationally deployed and harmonised standards on ITS, essential to achieve worldwide interoperability.

In addition to TC ITS, automotive related standardization activities take place in ERM TGSRR and ERM TG37.

ETSI TC ERM TGSRR develops standards for both Automatic Cruise Control (ACC) radar and anti-collision radar.

ETSI has published the following documents for ACC:

ETSI has also published the following documents for anti-collision/automotive radar:

24 GHz

79 GHz

ETSI ERM TG37 is responsible for the development and maintenance of ITS Harmonised Standards in the 5 GHz (EN 302 571) as well as 60 GHz (EN 302 686) frequency bands as well as Harmonised Standards for Transport and Traffic Telematics (TTT) systems operating in the 5 GHz frequency band: RSU (EN 300 674-2-1) and OBU (EN 300 674-2-2)

NEWS

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If you are interested in the work done related to Intelligent Transport Systems, you are kindly invited to subscribe to ETSI's newsletter on ITS standardization activities. Information about ITS activities is posted regularly.

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STANDARDS

A full list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the ITS committee page.

Introduction

Networking technologies, services and applications are on the market, each with an aim to deliver a Quality of Service (QoS) that is equal to or better than the legacy equipment or improves on its efficiency to deliver that QoS.

Service providers and network operators have trusted brands, the maintenance of which is critical to their business. The challenge is to make new technology work in a way that meets customer expectations for quality, availability and reliability, while still offering network operators the flexibility needed to adapt quickly to new technology.

Quality of Service (QoS) parameters are a key factor in the roll-out of new technology. ETSI works on a wide range of QoS specifications and has been particularly active in workshops and interoperability events on speech and multimedia transmission and service quality. Standardized QoS parameters are increasing in importance as networks become interconnected and a large number of operators and providers interact to deliver communications.

Our Role & Activities

ETSI TC STQ (Speech and multimedia Transmission Quality) is responsible for standardization relating to terminals and networks for speech and media quality, end-to-end single media and multimedia transmission performance, Quality of Service (QoS) parameters for networks and services and Quality of Experience (QoE) descriptors and methods. TC STQ and its Working Group STQ Mobile work closely with the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP^TM) and collaborate with other Standards Developing Organizations.

TC STQ and WG STQ Mobile regularly revise their suite of standards. Current and future network and over-the-top (OTT) services and applications in conjunction with the use of smartphones require new QoS measurement methods, reference data and load profiles in order to guarantee the quality of new services.

Recent STQ Mobile published work addresses a range of related areas:

(i)    best practices of testing the user experience and network performance of modern web content delivery,

(ii)   models for assessment of mobile gaming and OTT telephony services,

(iii)  dedicated QoS parameters and test scenarios for 5G networks, and

(iv) best practices for network benchmarking and scoring.

The Committee regularly organizes ETSI STQ Workshops, successfully bringing together key stakeholders, promoting ETSI work and attracting participation in TC STQ.

STQ recently published and revised a new specification on methods for the objective prediction of listening effort. This important work will help progress in developing the guidance and methodology regarding intelligibility for impaired hearing users. The developed methods can be used for various applications, such as evaluation of terminals and networks, up to hearing aid optimization. This can have a substantial market impact for the expert users but, moreover, for the population with impaired hearing capabilities. STQ has also recently published a new specification for a perceptually-based predictor of echo impairments that may be introduced by speech communications terminals. The predictor fills a gap in existing standards for evaluating an important aspect of the user experience. STQ also published and revised a new and important specification providing characterization methodology and requirements for the ETSI LC3plus speech codec. In addition, the latest revision includes detailed characterization methods and results from characterization testing.

3GPP^TM Technical Specification Group SA2 covers Quality of Service requirements for access to both packet and circuit switched GSM and 3G networks.
3GPP^TM Technical Specification Group SA4 deals with the specifications for speech, audio, video, and multimedia codecs, in both circuit-switched and packet-switched environments. Other topics within the mandate of SA WG4 are: quality evaluation, end-to-end performance, and interoperability aspects with existing mobile and fixed networks (from codec point of view).

Standards

A full list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the ETSI standards search.

Introduction

Recently there has been remarkable progress in the deployment of quantum technologies in communication infrastructures, with several quantum key distribution (QKD) networks under construction worldwide. In the UK, metropolitan quantum networks have been built by the Quantum Communications Hub in Cambridge and Bristol, connected by a long-distance link via London. Quantum digital signatures were demonstrated in the NICT metro network in Tokyo. Meanwhile a 2 000 km backbone connects Beijing and Shanghai in China, while the Micius satellite will extend QKD to global distances. The current high level of activity in quantum communications means that there is a pressing need to develop industry standards for the technology.

Unique Advantages of Quantum Cryptography Interest in quantum cryptography stems from its unique security properties derived directly from the Laws on Nature, rather than assumptions about the difficulty of certain mathematical operations. It will allow networks that are more resilient to technological advances in the future. There is a concern that network communications that are encrypted using conventional public-key cryptography may be stored today and decrypted in the future when more powerful processors or new cryptanalysis methods are available. In contrast, quantum cryptographic protocols should be resilient to all advances in computing and mathematics.

The first applications of quantum cryptography are likely to be those requiring long-term secrecy, such as encryption of sensitive government or corporate data or individuals' health records. Recently demonstrated examples include secure communication of human genome sequences and inter-site data replication in the financial sector.

Quantum cryptography will also be secure from a quantum computer. Quantum computers can process the inputs of a calculation in parallel and can therefore solve certain numerical problems much more efficiently than a "classical" processor. We know that a quantum computer can factorise large integers very efficiently. As the factorization problem is the basis of conventional public-key cryptography, this would significantly weaken many of the techniques that we rely on today. As such there is a pressing need to develop cryptography that will remain secure when large scale quantum computers become available. The solution to these new threats is likely to involve  quantum cryptography and new quantum-resistant algorithms, with improved resilience to number-crunching by a quantum computer. 

Our Role & Activities

Standards are essential for ensuring the interoperability of equipment and protocols in complex systems and stimulating a supply chain for components, assemblies, and applications through the definition of common interfaces. Without standards, there would be no global networks for fibre optic and mobile communications or low-cost consumer electronics based on reliable and widely available components from multiple suppliers. New standards are required to integrate quantum communications into networks and stimulate their commercialization.

Several Group Specification documents have been published on QKD Use Cases:

ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) QKD is now working on various specifications:

QKD has published ETSI White Papers:

The work of the ETSI ISG in QKD is important to enable the future interoperability of the quantum communication networks being deployed around the world. It will ensure that quantum cryptography is implemented safely that mitigates the risk of side channels and active attacks. Defining common interfaces will stimulate markets for components, systems, and applications.

The membership of the ISG comprises large companies, telecom operators, SMEs, NMIs, government labs and Universities and has representatives from North America, Asia and Europe.

The ISG QKD activity report provides information on the latest work of the ISG.

Specifications

A full list of related specifications in the public domain is accessible via the QKD committee page.

Introduction

Radio technology is used worldwide, with a big variety of applications. Radio equipment and the use of radio spectrum are subject to regulations, which are coordinated between National governments.

Most European countries adopt ETSI European Standards (ENs) for radio equipment. The CEPT countries coordinate their National frequency regulations via the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT). CEPT also co-ordinate European interests in World Radio Conferences (WRC) to harmonize the use of radio spectrum worldwide. ETSI provides input to the European spectrum harmonisation via System Reference Documents published in the form of ETSI Technical Reports.

ETSI has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) of the CEPT, and is represented in key committees within the European Commission (including the Electromagnetic Compatibility Working Party (EMCWP), the Expert Group on Radio Equipment, the Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC) and the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG)) to ensure that the necessary spectrum is available for ETSI radio standards. Before attending these groups, ETSI officials hold briefing conference calls with interested members. These calls are announced via the ETSI RADIO_BRIEFING list, which is open to ETSI members.

ETSI also has close liaison with Notified Bodies via the EU Association of Notified Bodies (EUANB) and the RED Compliance Association and advises EU Market-Surveillance Authorities on technical matters via the appropriate Administrations Co-ordination (ADCO) groups.

Radio Spectrum

At the global level, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) seeks to co-ordinate spectrum use. The ITU's World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC) take place approximately every four years to review and, when necessary, revise the Radio Regulations which form the international treaty governing the use of the radio frequency spectrum. These regulations also govern the geostationary and non-geostationary satellite orbits.

The CEPT performs a somewhat similar role of co-ordinating spectrum use, although the ultimate allocation rests with individual national governments.

The European Commission may mandate the CEPT to identify frequency bands and spectrum use conditions in support of an EU policy. ETSI provides technical input to spectrum-sharing studies via System Reference Documents. In addition, individual ETSI Members may participate in CEPT spectrum-sharing studies to provide technical support.

CEPT measures are offered to the Member Administrations for adoption on a voluntary basis. The European Commission incorporates these measures into Commission Implementing Decisions, which are binding on the EU Member States.

An introduction to the European regulatory environment for radio equipment and spectrum and some key information for newcomers is available in the eBrochure published by ETSI and CEPT/ECC.

Equipment Regulation

European Union Directives like the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive (2014/30/EU) and the Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU) are part of the EU legislative package (the New Legislative Framework (NLF)) for the Single Market for Goods. Detailed information is available in the European Commission’s “Blue Guide”.

Each of the New Legislative Framework Directives identifies “essential requirements” that equipment needs to meet to be placed on the EU single market. European Standards Organisations like ETSI are requested to develop Harmonised Standards to enable manufacturers to demonstrate that their equipment conforms. All electrical equipment has to meet safety requirements defined in the Low Voltage Directive (2014/35/EU) and the EMC Directive. In addition, all radio equipment has to demonstrate that it uses the radio spectrum efficiently and effectively. Some classes of equipment may have additional requirements. For example, marine distress and safety equipment has to include features to ensure that the user can contact emergency services in case of need.

ETSI Harmonised Standards that are listed in the OJ provide presumption of conformity, but they are never compulsory. Even before being cited in the OJEU, an ETSI European Standard represents the generally accepted state of the art and can be used as the basis of a submission to a Notified Body.

More details of how to place equipment on the market can be found in the European Commission’s Guide to the EMC Directive, and Guide to the Radio Equipment Directive.

Introduction

ETSI activity in the field of telecommunications safety is based on the following legislation:

The Low Voltage Directive is one of a set of Directives that apply to electrical equipment. For more information, see the European Commission - Enterprise and Industry web pages on Electrical Equipment.

This is part of a package of measures related to Health and Safety at work, and puts requirements on employers to provide their workers with a safe working environment, in particular with respect to ElectroMagnetic Fields (EMF).

Our Role & Activities

ETSI’s Safety committee (TC SAFETY) monitors developments in electromagnetic fields (EMF), electrical and laser safety, plus safety in cable television systems, as these impact the interests of ETSI members. The committee also works closely with other European and international standards organizations in order to establish, wherever possible, globally-applicable standards for telecommunications equipment safety and to avoid the duplication of effort.

In particular, ETSI TC Safety provides a voice for ETSI Members in external organizations by being responsible for co-ordinating safety requirements between ETSI, ITU-CEPT and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC), for monitoring the safety aspects of all ETSI standards and specifications, and for co-ordinating ETSI’s position on telecommunications equipment safety.

Standards

A full list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the Safety committee page.

Overview

The world's population relies increasingly on satellite services for many different purposes, including voice and data communication, radio and television broadcast, distribution and contribution links, location services, maritime and aeronautical communications.

ETSI's activities concerning satellite communications include satellite communication services and applications (including mobile and broadcasting), earth stations and earth station equipment, especially the radio frequency interfaces and network and/or user interfaces and protocols implemented in earth stations and satellite systems.

Standards

A full list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the SES committee page.

Introduction

Secure Elements (e.g. Smart Cards) are micro-processor equipped tokens, able to process and store a diverse range of applications and data. They are used as credit cards, banking cards in general, ID cards and especially as SIMs in mobile telecommunications. Several billion SIMs have gone into the market every year now for quite a number of years. While the early Subscriber Identity Modules, as SIMs are really called, were developed by an ETSI committee being a predecessor of TC SET, today’s SIMs consist of the underlying platform, called the UICC, developed by TC SET and, on top of this platform, the application developed by 3GPP.

Not all SIMs going into the market these days have the form of a “card”. The size of the very first SIMs has shrunk and shrunk over the years. Some SIMs these days come in the form of Surface Mounted Devices (SMDs) or even just chips, e.g. eSIMs (being embedded into mobile phones, smartwatches, IoT devices, etc.); security and functionality are the important factors. So TC SET is now standardizing Secure Elements of which smart cards are just a special case. Secure Elements can, for instance, also be incorporated into a System on Chip (SoC) solution as the current work of TC SET shows.

Our Role & Activities

TC SCP (Smart Card Platform) was set up in April 2000 (renamed to TC SET in January 2022), to create a central focus point for the standardization of a common IC card platform for mobile telecommunication systems, allowing the participation from companies not necessarily involved in GSM & 3GPP^TM standards.

The main topic in the early days of TC SET was thus to separate the underlying security platform, what became known as the UICC, from the application itself, e.g., the SIM. The aim was to create a series of specifications for a Smart Card Platform on which other industry sectors can base their system-specific applications to achieve compatibility between all applications resident on the Smart Card. The nearly 50 specifications we developed to achieve this purpose are generic and application-agnostic. As such they can be used for any application designed to reside on the UICC. They have thus found their way into other applications such as ID management and the contactless interface specified by TC SET is used in financial services. For instance, our core platform specification defining the interface between a UICC and a terminal (TS 102 221) is also one of the mandated specifications for the smart meter work item of EC and EFTA (M/441). As one of the very few standardization bodies TC SET also developed test specifications for its core documents to help to achieve developing interoperable implementations.

TC SET keeps maintaining and upgrading the UICC specifications for the Smart Card Platform. The latest work in this ongoing process is the use of the I3C® interface and the definition of new smaller form factors.

Clearly, the origin of the UICC dates back a few decades and technology is changing all the time. Though the UICC still satisfies the (security) requirements of today’s world, TC SET started a couple of years ago to think about a new security platform, the next generation Smart Secure Platform or, for short, SSP. Everything was to be re-considered, from architecture and form factor to transport protocol and file system, never forgetting the overall performance and the ecosystem it operates in.

TC SET has published a large set of specifications for the SSP. They cover the requirements, the general technical characteristics, the integration of the Secure Element into a System on Chip (SoC) solution and, as the first protocol between the Smart Secure Platform and the outside world, the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) and I3C® interface. As for the UICC, TC SET has developed test specifications for all of these.

Trust and privacy in IoT are crucial market drivers for IoT and applications relying on those. As such, our new-generation Smart Secure Platform will contribute significantly to achieving these goals.

The 3GPP Core Network and Terminals experts in Working Group CT6 - is responsible for work on the SIM (used by 2G), the USIM (Universal SIM) for 3GPP systems (3G, 4G (LTE), 5G) and the ISIM (IM Services Identity Module) for the IMS domain and the HPSIM (Hosting Party Subscription Identity Module) for H(e)NB.

Standards

A full list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the SET committee page and for 3GPP WG CT6 via the standards search.