MSG Activity Report 2018-2019

Chairman: Dominique Everaere, Ericsson Limited

Responsible for the identification of European regulatory requirements for cellular systems developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP™), and for developing Harmonised Standards and related ETSI standards for GSMTM, International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) systems for cellular and technologies evolving from them (including IMT Advanced but excluding Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECTTM)). 

Our Mobile Standards Group (TC MSG) provides the regulatory standards needed to support the deployment of GSM, UMTS, LTE, NB-IoT and NR networks in Europe.

In 2018 we aligned our ENs on International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) cellular networks with 3GPP Release 13, adding major new features such as Narrowband IoT, Licensed Assisted Access, Machine-Type Communications and new bands for carrier aggregation. This will enable operators to introduce these new features in mobile networks, paving the way for the future development of 5G technologies. We progressed our work on the three parts on base stations in this multi-part Harmonised Standard and made significant progress on the two other parts related to User Equipment, while initiating new work to add support for the Active Antenna System Base Station type.

We have also created work items on new parts to cover 3GPP NR Base Stations (BS) and User Equipment (UE), up to and including 3GPP Release 15.

Work continued on a new technical report exploring the possibility of sharing the 6 425 - 7 125 MHz band between incumbent services and Mobile/Fixed Communication Network (MFCN) services.

In addition the committee produced two testing standards for eCall. One is dedicated to prose test specification of end-to-end and in-band modem conformance testing updating conformance requirements for different codec and radio conditions. The other provides guidelines for assessing conformity of eCall IVS devices with regards to essential performance requirements. The resulting test references are provided as a guidance for device suppliers and integrators to carry out conformity and essential performance requirement.

LOOK OUT FOR IN 2019 – WORK IN PROGRESS:

• Revision to EN on IMT cellular networks; Harmonised Standard for access to radio spectrum
• TS on Active Antenna System (AAS) Base Station conformance testing
• TR on the possibility of sharing the band 6 425 - 7 125 MHz between incumbent services and Mobile/Fixed Communication Network services
• Revision to TS on prose specification for Pan-European eCall testing
• TS on ECall High Level Application Protocol (HLAP) Interoperability