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Policy and Legislation
POLICY OBJECTIVES
The 2015 digital single market (DSM) strategy and the communication “Towards connectivity for a European gigabit society” identify very high-capacity networks like 5G as a key asset for global competitiveness. The first phase of 5G standardisation has now been completed, with the publication by ETSI of its 3GPP Release-15 set of specifications. 5G standardisation will continue in further 3GPP releases. The Commission launched a 5G public-private-partnership (the 5G-PPP) to that end in 20135. In addition to fi bre-like performance for mobile networks, the benefi ts of adopting 5G go beyond the telecom sector to enable a fully mobile and connected society and to empower socioeconomic transformations in a variety of ways (many of which are not possible at present). These transformations include higher productivity, sustainability, well-being6 and innovation opportunities for smaller actors and start-ups. 5G makes a new wave of convergence possible through digital business models reaching nonICT-native industrial sectors. In that context, the EU sees 5G as a core infrastructure to support the DSM strategy’s wider objectives for the digitisation of the industry.
EC PERSPECTIVE AND PROGRESS REPORT
The Communication on ICT standardisation priorities identifies 5G standards as key to competitiveness and the interoperability of global networks, with stakeholders from different standardisation cultures called upon to collaborate. It also details the actions required.
The first phase of 5G standards from 3GPP focuses on enhanced mobile broadband while also supporting ultrareliability and low latency. The second phase should deliver the standards for other use-cases, such as those related to industrial applications. Here, availability of standards promoting open innovation and opportunities for start-ups is also key.
The European Commission has called on Member States and industry to commit to the following objectives:
- a standardisation approach that preserves future evolution capabilities and aims at availability of 5G global standards by end of 2019
- a holistic standardisation approach encompassing both radio access and core networks as coordinated activities within global standardisation bodies, encompassing disruptive use-cases and promoting open innovation
- establishment of cross-industry partnerships by 2017, at the latest, to support timely standard-setting, partly by leveraging international cooperation partnerships, in particular towards the digitisation of industry.
In December 2017, Commissioner Gabriel sent a letter to 3GPP, urging the standardisation bodies and the concerned industrial actors to step-up their eff orts for the rapid development of 5G standards addressing more immediate market needs while driving a clear strategy for a 5G global standard bringing benefi ts to a wide range of industrial use cases, in line with the EU strategy targeting 5G developments in support of “vertical” industries and of our wider objectives of digitising the European industry.
REFERENCES
The strategy for Digitising European Industry[3] and the Communication on ICT standardisation priorities for the digital single market[4] announced the European Commission’s intention to develop a 5G action plan for EU-wide deployment, which was adopted in September 2016[5]. The communication draws on multiple consultations, events[6] with stakeholders, a targeted survey[7], several studies[8], a 5G industry manifesto[9] and early results[10] of the 5G-PPP. It presents a set of targeted actions for a timely and coordinated deployment of 5G networks in Europe through a partnership between the Commission, Member States, and industry. It leverages the new opportunities offered by the revised telecommunication regulatory framework by putting it in the context of a concrete European project of high added value for businesses and citizen.
Furthermore, Member States, in the Ministerial Declaration of Tallinn of July 2017[12] have identified the objective of preserving 5G global interoperability as key in order to make 5G a success for Europe. Standards are of paramount importance to ensure the competitiveness and interoperability of global telecommunication networks. Therefore Member States endorse a “comprehensive and inclusive approach to 5G standardisation as a priority for the DSM”. Member States promote “cross-industry partnerships to support the timely definition of standards backed by industrial user experiments, including through the leveraging of international cooperation partnerships, in particular for the digitisation of industry. Encouraging innovation and development of products and services making use of 5G networks across the EU should be a priority”
REQUESTED ACTIONS
The Communication on ICT standardisation priorities for the digital single market proposes priority actions on 5G, some of which are reflected under the heading Additional information.
ACTION 1 Global industry standards. Foster the emergence of global industry standards under EU leadership for key 5G technologies (radio access network, core network) and network architectures notably through the exploitation of 5G public-private partnership results in key EU and international standardisation bodies (3GPP, ITU, ETSI NFV)
ACTION 2 High-level events. Ensure that 5G standards are compatible with innovative use-cases of vertical industries, notably through broader participation of industries with sector-specific needs and in close collaboration with other industry specific standards developing organisations, in 5G standardisation organisations.
In October 2018 the European Commission hosted a 3GPP workshop in the context of the submission of the 3GPP 5G specifi cations to the ITU. The aim is toinform the ITU sanctioned Evaluation Groups, policy makers and interested experts on the progress of the 3GPP work to meet and exceed the performance requirements for IMT2020 radio interface technologies. 3GPP’s 5G standards are being submitted to the ITU evaluation process ending in July 2019, which is the target date to submit to ITU the candidate technologies to obtain acceptance as an IMT-2020 technology (the 5G label). Before this fi nal submission, stakeholders consider that it is needed to widely expose the work of 3GPP and the main characteristics of the proposal submitted to the ITU.
The Commission is also taking steps, through the FPI Project on internationalisation of EU ICT standardisation, to support the organisation of more 3GPP meetings in Europe, in order to facilitate the active participation of a broad range of European delegates, from key industrial players, but also SMEs, academia and research institutions. This project intends to provide fi nancial support for the organisation of 3GPP meetings in the EU, and echoes recurring requests from administration and smaller industrial stakeholders to have SDO meetings organised in Europe.
ACTIVITIES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
RELATED STANDARDISATION ACTIVITIES
3GPP
At the end of 2017 3GPP, the key standardisation body for global mobile communication network standardisation delivered the fi rst 5G specifi cations. In June 2018, building on this foundation, 3GPP has delivered the complete set of initial 5G specifi cations contained in their Release 15. These have now been published by ETSI, a founding partner in 3GPP.
3GPP continues to develop the 5G specifi cations, working towards delivery of 3GPP Release 16 in mid-2019. In preparation, around 25 studies are already underway on topics as diverse as Multimedia Priority Service, Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) application layer services, 5G satellite access, Local Area Network support in 5G, wireless and wireline convergence for 5G, terminal positioning and location, communications in vertical domains and network automation and novel radio techniques. Further items being studied include security, codecs and streaming services, Local Area Network interworking, network slicing and the IoT.
As with previous generations of mobile technology, 3GPP will follow Release 16 with a continuous programme of 5G standardisation, delivering performance enhancements and new features required by the market in a series of periodic releases.
ETSI (DECT)
ETSI TC DECT has started the standardisation of the new DECT2020 system. DECT-2020 is a new radio interface supporting Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and Machine Type Communications (MTC) as specifi ed for IMT-2020 usage scenarios. The new DECT-2020 air interface will co-exist with the existing DECT system.
ETSI’s DECT specifi cation is the leading standard around the world for digital cordless telecommunications. Over 1 billion devices have been installed worldwide: the system has been adopted in over 110 countries and more than 100 million new devices are sold every year. DECT products now account for more than 90% of the world’s cordless market. The DECT standard has already been accepted as an IMT-2000 radio interface technology.
ETSI
Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) is a key technology enabler for 5G: http://etsi.org/nfv/. The NFV Industry Specifi cation Group (ISG) is developing a report aimed at documenting how 5G network slicing use cases can be mapped to current NFV concepts and supported by the ETSI NFV architectural framework. 5G networks are anticipated to take advantage of Cloud-native principles for the design of some of their network functions (e.g. to facilitate scaling and healing) and the ISG is developing a specifi cation of criteria to help characterize such functions.
ETSI has initiated a project to develop an Open Source NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) soſt ware stack aligned with ETSI NFV - http://osm.etsi.org/
ETSI’s ISG on Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) develops specifi cations to support placing computational functionality in networks closer to the end user. This will reduce latency in a range of 5G applications.
ETSI’s new group on Experiential Networked Intelligence (ENI) will help operators leverage Artifi cial Intelligence (AI) techniques to address some of the challenges of future network deployment and operation. 5G will also be underpinned by an evolution of network protocols, an area explored by ETSI’s ISG on Next Generation Protocols (NGP). The ETSI Summit on 5G Network Infrastructure in April 2017 explored how the development of core network infrastructure will complement radio access to meet overall 5G system requirements.
The advent of 5G will require fresh approaches to the effi cient use of fi nite spectrum resources to meet projected growth in media-rich traffi c. ETSI continues to explore improvements in spectral effi ciency and advances in spectrum-sharing techniques. Of particular interest to 5G operators are as yet unexploited radio frequencies in the millimetre wave band. This is an area being explored by the ETSI ISG on millimetre Wave Transmission (mWT).
ETSI is developing standards for monitoring and controlling power consumption in 5G networks, in TC EE (Environmental Engineering). This will be a signifi cant factor in the viability of 5G, both economically and environmentally.
GSMA
The GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications) represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 300 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, and soſt ware companies. Mobile operators will play a key role in 5G, as they will provide the infrastructure and services to a wide spectrum of 5G applications, from consumer mobile telephony to vertical industrial applications such as agricultural monitoring.
For more details see https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/ technology/understanding-5g/
IEEE
IEEE has many efforts underway to develop and mature standards in support of the next generation communications technologies for enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communications, and ultra-reliable and low latency communications. These include both licensed and unlicensed band initiatives. Next generation wireless standards for unlicensed spectrum include the following:
- IEEE P802.11ax is an extension of the current WLAN standards by improving aggregated throughput with high user density. P802.11ax targets Mid Band, sub 6GHz unlicensed spectrum
- IEEE P802.11ay targets bonding 2GHz channels to achieve extremely high point to point throughput in excess of 20Mbps. P802.11ay is implemented in the unlicensed millimeter wave band (60GHz)
- IEEE 802.11ax implementation of new energy saving options and the implementation of the frequency range 5925-6425 MHz
- In addition, IEEE developed 802.11p/1609 to enable V2X communication for the automotive sector.
- IEEE standards and ongoing activities in support of various wireless technologies include:
- Packet-based fronthaul transport networks in support of dense deployments of very small cells (IEEE P1914.1)
- Radio over Ethernet (IEEE P1914.3) in support of backhaul and fronthaul over ethernet
- Precision Timing Protocol (IEEE 1588) which enables phase synchronous wireless networks such as LTE TDD
- IEEE 802 access network (IEEE P802.1CF) and time sensitive networking for fronthaul (P802.CM)
- Tactile networking: P1918.1 covering application scenarios, architecture and functions, P1918.1.1 specifies Haptic Codecs
- Radio Regulatory Technical Advisory Group (802.18) and Wireless Coexistence (802.19)
For a list of these and other IEEE standardization activities related to 5G and next generation communications technologies, please see: ‣ http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_technical_committee%3Fcommid%3D45020://standards.ieee.org/develop/msp/5G.pdf
ITU
In ITU, 5G technologies are discussed under the IMT-2020 banner.
In November 2015 the ITU-T Focus Group on IMT-2020 delivered a Gap Analysis document “overview of technical developments at the network part of the 5G networks” including 85 technical areas for future 5G standardization and nine deliverables in the following areas:
- terms and definitions for IMT-2020;
- high-level network architecture for 5G; network softwarization;
- Information Centric Networking (ICN);
- Fixed and Mobile Convergence.
See a related flipbook at:
‣ http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_technical_committee%3Fcommid%3D45020://www.itu.int/en/publications/Documents/tsb/2017-IMT2020-deliverables/mob…;
Since then, ITU-T SG13, SG11, SG15 and SG5, complemented by ITU-R WP5D are driving the 5G standardization in ITU and have already approved 11 technical Recommendations, 3 Supplements and 8 Reports with about 37 open work items covering the following topics: Information Centric Networking (ICN); Network Sofwarization/MANO; Definitions; Slicing; Quality of Service (QoS); Network Architecture; Network Capability Exposure; Fixed- Mobile Convergence (FMC); Disaster Relief Applications; Spectrum Management; Transport Networks (e.g. Fronthaul, Middlehaul, Backhaul); Radio-Over-Fibre (RoF); Signalling, Control and Protocols as well as Environmental Aspects of IMT-2020/5G.
For more details see ‣ http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/studygroups/2017-2020/13/Documents/5G
EC
There are several projects funded by the European Commission, dealing with 5G standardisation. Also, the 5G PPP deals with some issues connected to 5G standardisation. https://5g-ppp.eu/
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Interactions between IETF and 5G developments fall into several categories:
- New dependencies on existing IETF technology. For instance, introducing a flexible authentication framework based on EAP (RFC 3748, RFC 5448).
- Dependencies on ongoing IETF work. The IETF DETNET working group defines mechanisms to guarantee deterministic delays for some flows across a network. As one of the 5G use cases is time-critical communication and low-latency applications, this is a component technology that is being looked at. Similarly, IETF routing-related work such as traffic engineering, service chaining and source routing are likely tools for managing traffic flows in 5G networks, as they are for other large service provider networks.
- During the IETF 99 meeting in Prague there was a lunch session on the topic of 3GPP & IETF collaboration on 5G. There was a also a BoF meeting on the topic of Network Slicing. There are many IETF tools already for dealing with virtualisation and separation of networks (see 3.1.2 Cloud computing, below), so first order of business is mapping what can be done with those tools for the 5G use case.
[2] Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance 5G White Paper,
https://www.ngmn.org/de/5g-white-paper.html
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/digitising-european-industry
[4] COM(2016) 176 final, page 8
[5] COM(2016) 588 final 5G for Europe: An Action Plan and accompanying Staff Working Document SWD(2016) 306 on 5G Global Developments.
[6] see: e.g. https://5g-ppp.eu/event-calendar/#
[8] see footnotes 4 & 5 above
[9] Industry Manifesto 7 July 2016: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=16579;
[10] White paper 5G Empowering Vertical Industries: https://5g-ppp.eu/roadmaps/
[11] COM(2016) 176 final
[12] Ministerial Declaration “Making 5G a success for Europe” signed during the informal meeting of competitiveness and telecommunications ministers on 18 July in Tallinn
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