The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications
associations, known as the Organizational Partners.
The initial scope of 3GPP was to make a globally applicable third-generation mobile phone system
specification based on evolved Global System for Mobile Communications specifications within
the scope of the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 project of the International Telecommunication
Union.
The scope was later enlarged to include the development and maintenance of:
the Global System for Mobile Communications including GSM evolved radio access technologies
and Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) an evolved third Generation and beyond Mobile
System based on the evolved 3GPP core networks, and the radio access technologies supported
by the Partners.
an evolved IP Multimedia Subsystem developed in an access independent manner
3GPP standardization encompasses Radio, Core Network and Service architecture.
The project was established in December 1998 and should not be confused with 3rd Generation
Partnership Project 2, which specifies standards for another 3G technology based on IS-95,
commonly known as CDMA2000.
The 3GPP support team is located at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute headquarters
in Sophia-Antipolis.
History The 3rd Generation Partnership Project initiative
eventually arose from a strategic initiative between Nortel Networks and AT&T Wireless.
In 1998 AT&T Wireless was operating an IS-136 wireless network in the United States.
In 1997 Nortel Networks' Wireless R&D center in Richardson, Texas, the wireless division
of Bell Northern Research had developed a vision for "an all Internet Protocol" wireless
network that went under the internal name "Cell Web".
As the concept progressed, Nortel launched the industry vision as "Wireless Internet".
AT&T Wireless, poised to evolve its network in the United States, took a strong interest
in Wireless Internet and its promise of Internet Protocol.
Within 12 months or so, AT&T launched a global initiative that they named "3GIP", a third
generation wireless standard that was "natively" Internet Protocol based.
Initially, principal participants included British Telecom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia,
and Nortel Networks, but were eventually joined by NTT DoCoMo, BellSouth, Telenor, and Lucent,
Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and others.
A 3GIP standards forum was instituted and standards began to be developed.
The forum progressed into the 2000 time frame, up until AT&T Wireless and British Telecom
formed a strategic "partnership project" to facilitate "global roaming" between U.S. and
European markets.
With this business arrangement, GSM, the prevailing European standard was adopted as the basis
of AT&T Wireless' network evolution for North America.
Very specifically, this included the deployment of GSM data capabilities, i.e.
GPRS, EDGE, and its evolution to UMTS.
With this, the original acronym "3GIP" morphed into "3GPP", a "3rd Generation Partnership
Project" for defining the next generation wireless network that was fundamentally capable
of supporting Internet Protocol based wireless communications.
3GPP became the industry standards forum that defined UMTS and more recently LTE.
Organizational Partners The six 3GPP Organizational Partners are from
Asia, Europe and North America.
Their aim is to determine the general policy and strategy of 3GPP and perform the following
tasks: The approval and maintenance of the 3GPP scope;
The maintenance of the Partnership Project Description;
Take the decision to create or cease a Technical Specification Groups, and approve their scope
and terms of reference; The approval of Organizational Partner funding
requirements; The allocation of human and financial resources
provided by the Organizational Partners to the Project Co-ordination Group;
Act as a body of appeal on procedural matters referred to them.
Together with the Market Representation Partners perform the following tasks:
The maintenance of the Partnership Project Agreement;
The approval of applications for 3GPP partnership; Take the decision against a possible dissolution
of 3GPP.
Market Representation Partners The 3GPP Organizational Partners can invite
a Market Representation Partner to take part in 3GPP, which:
Has the ability to offer market advice to 3GPP and to bring into 3GPP a consensus view
of market requirements falling within the 3GPP scope;
Does not have the capability and authority to define, publish and set standards within
the 3GPP scope, nationally or regionally; Has committed itself to all or part of the
3GPP scope; Has signed the Partnership Project Agreement.
As of November 2013 the Market Representation Partners are:
Standards 3GPP standards are structured as Releases.
Discussion of 3GPP thus frequently refers to the functionality in one release or another.
Each release incorporates hundreds of individual standards documents, each of which may have
been through many revisions.
Current 3GPP standards incorporate the latest revision of the GSM standards.
The documents are available freely on 3GPP's Web site.
While 3GPP standards can be bewildering to the newcomer, they are remarkably complete
and detailed, and provide insight into how the cellular industry works.
They cover not only the radio part and Core Network, but also billing information and
speech coding down to source code level.
Cryptographic aspects are also specified in detail.
3GPP2 offers similar information about its system.
Specification groups The 3GPP specification work is done in Technical
Specification Groups and Working Groups.
There are four Technical Specifications Groups: GERAN: GERAN specifies the GSM radio technology,
including GPRS and EDGE.
It is composed of three working groups.
RAN: RAN specifies the UTRAN and the E-UTRAN.
It is composed of five working groups.
SA: SA specifies the service requirements and the overall architecture of the 3GPP system.
It is also responsible for the coordination of the project.
SA is composed of five working groups.
CT: CT specifies the core network and terminal parts of 3GPP.
It includes the core network - terminal layer 3 protocols.
It is composed of four working groups.
The 3GPP structure also includes a Project Coordination Group, which is the highest decision-making
body.
Its missions include the management of overall timeframe and work progress.
Standardization process 3GPP standardization work is contribution-driven.
Companies participate through their membership to a 3GPP Organizational Partner.
As of April 2011, 3GPP is composed of more than 370 individual members.
Specification work is done at WG and at TSG level:
the 3GPP WGs hold several meetings a year.
They prepare and discuss change requests against 3GPP specifications.
A change request accepted at WG level is called "agreed".
the 3GPP TSGs hold plenary meetings quarterly.
The TSGs can "approve" the change requests that were agreed at WG level.
Some specifications are under the direct responsibility of TSGs and therefore, change requests can
also be handled at TSG level.
The approved change requests are subsequently incorporated in 3GPP specifications.
3GPP follows a three-stage methodology as defined in ITU-T Recommendation I.130:
stage 1 specifications define the service requirements from the user point of view.
stage 2 specifications define an architecture to support the service requirements.
stage 3 specifications define an implementation of the architecture by specifying protocols
in details.
Test specifications are sometimes defined as stage 4, as they follow stage 3.
Specifications are grouped into releases.
A release consists of a set of internally consistent set of features and specifications.
Timeframes are defined for each release by specifying freezing dates.
Once a release is frozen, only essential corrections are allowed.
Freezing dates are defined for each stage.
The 3GPP specifications are transposed into deliverables by the Organizational Partners.
Deployment 3GPP systems are deployed across much of the
established GSM market.
They are primarily Release 6 systems, but as of 2010, growing interest in HSPA+ and
LTE is driving adoption of Release 7 and its successors.
Since 2005, 3GPP systems were seeing deployment in the same markets as 3GPP2 systems.
With LTE the official successor to 3GPP2's CDMA systems, 3GPP-based systems will eventually
become the single global mobile standard.
See also Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
3GPP Long Term Evolution Evolution to 3G
IP Multimedia Subsystem 3GP
3GPP2 - The 3GPP's counterpart in the CDMA2000 sphere.
GSM services Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols
for Advanced Networks Open Mobile Alliance
Service layer European Telecommunications Standards Institute
References
External links 3GPP website
3GPP Standards List of Acronyms & Terminology 3GPP freely published, detailed technical
specifications 3GPP releases descriptions
ETSI GSM UMTS 3GPP Numbering Cross Reference TS/TR
specification numbering Tool for visualizing multiple inter-related
3gpp standards Tool for visualizing, decoding, encoding network
protocol messages defined by 3gpp