February 27, 2017

By Toon Norp, Chairman 3GPP SA WG1

In Jeju South Korea, SA WG1 has completed its first normative specification on “Service requirements for the 5G system” (TS22.261), which will now be submitted for approval at the Plenary meeting of the Service and System Aspects Technical Specification Group (TSG SA#75), 8-10 March 2017.

The specification contains requirements on performance targets and basic capabilities - characterized by:

• Support for fixed, mobile, wireless and satellite access technologies
• A scalable and customizable network that can be tailored to requirements from multiple services and vertical markets (e.g., network slicing, Network Function Virtualization)
• Resource efficiency for services ranging from low data IoT services to high bitrate multimedia services
• Energy efficiency and battery power optimization
• Network capability exposure to allow 3rd party Internet Service Providers and Internet Content Providers to e.g. manage network slices, and deploy applications in the operator’s Service Hosting Environment
• Indirect connectivity from a Remote UE via a Relay UE to the network, and service continuity between indirect connections and direct connections.

3GPP TS22.261 defines performance targets for different scenarios (e.g. urban macro, rural macro, indoor hotspot) and applications (e.g. remote control, monitoring, intelligent transport systems, and tactile interaction), for example:

• User experienced data rates vary, from 1 Gbps downlink and 500 Mpbs uplink for indoor hotspot environments to 50 Mbps downlink and 25 Mbps uplink for rural macro environments.
• Latency targets, an important performance indicator for 5G, are as low as 0,5 ms for tactile interaction.
• Capacity targets can be as high as 15 Tbps/km2 with 250 000 users/km2 for indoor hotspots such as office environments.

The service requirements in the specification will now be used as inputs for the 5G normative work in other 3GPP working groups.

Release 15 specifications for the first phase of 5G will be ready in June 2018.

See also:

• Our article about the new 5G logo; A new logo for 5G Specifications