What I want to introduce to you today is 3GPP.
What is 3GPP? 3GPP is the name of a global communication technology organization.
This is a very interesting organization. Almost everyone in our communication industry knows it, but few people outside the industry know it.
The full name of 3GPP is 3rd generation partnership project (3rd generation partnership project).
Do you find it strange? Other organizations are called "XX Association" and "XX Alliance". Where can there be an organization called Project XX? Hehe, don't worry, Xiao Zaojun will tell you the reason later.
Logo of 3GPP
The pronunciation is easy to remember, that is, "pheasant ass"
The birth of 3GPP
Let's go back to the end of last century. At that time, 2G technology had blossomed all over the world, and more and more people began to enjoy convenient mobile communication.
However, with the deepening of time, people's demand for mobile communication is getting higher and higher, and 2G can no longer meet the requirements in terms of function, capacity and efficiency.
As a result, the communication industry began to think that it is necessary to study and build successors in advance and take over the work of 2G in the future.
3GPP was established under this background.
The purpose of its establishment is to unite global communication "partners" to jointly study and formulate 3G (Third Generation Mobile Communication Technology) standards to replace 2G. This is a purposeful and project-driven organization, so it is called "3rd generation partnership project".
In essence, 3GPP is an industry association.
Looking at the development of modern science and technology, we will find that there is a connection behind every technology. This association is a supporter of this technology. For example, IEEE behind WiFi (Huawei was blocked and brushed a lot of screens a few days ago, which should be familiar to everyone, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), ETSI behind GSM (European Telecommunications Standards Organization) and SIG behind Bluetooth (Bluetooth Technology Alliance).
Why are there so many associations?
Quite simply, it is for the benefit. Externally, compete for benefits. Internally, distribute benefits.
Trade associations are not public welfare organizations. The main purpose of their existence is to promote their own technology, have a higher market share, and then make big money. At the same time, they coordinate contradictions among internal members and make rules and contracts.
The bigger the unit, the more powerful it is, the more it has the right to speak and vote in the association, and even tries its best to let one of them hold an important position.
What is the technology finally developed by 3GPP?
WCDMA (universal mobile telecommunications system).
It should be noted here that 3GPP is an organization dominated by European forces. ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Organization) developed GSM that year. Although it is challenged by CDMA (represented by Qualcomm) in North America, it still occupies a leading position. In the early 1990s, ETSI began the pre-research of 3G, and called 3G technology UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system).
When studying 3G, Europeans adopted and absorbed the advantages of CDMA, that is, wideband CDMA. Broadband means that WCDMA has a frequency bandwidth of 5MHz, which is different from narrowband CDMA in North America (the frequency bandwidth is 1.25MHz).
With the efforts of 3GPP organization, this WCDMA later developed into the most successful 3G standard in the world. There are several 3G standards, such as WCDMA, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA. In fact, CDMA2000 is more pure, and it was made in Qualcomm based on CDMA, which will be mentioned later. TD-SCDMA originated from Siemens, and also has European ancestry, and belongs to UMTS like WCDMA. )
The initial work scope of 3GPP is to formulate globally applicable technical specifications and technical reports for the third generation mobile communication system, that is, to study how to make WCDMA based on GSM. Later, the work scope of 3GPP was improved, and the research and standard formulation of UTRA long-term evolution system were added.
What is a long-term evolutionary system? This is LTE (Long Term Evolution). . .
In a word, 3GPP was born for 3G at first, but later it became more and more brave and began to engage in 4G. 4G is also very successful, so as you can see, it has started to engage in 5G again, becoming the sole maker of the 5G standard.
3GPP member
Since it is a partner program, which partners are included?
3GPP members mainly include three categories:
The first category is the organization partner (OP), including:
ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) in Europe.
Arib (Radio Industry and Commerce Association) and TTC (Telecommunication Technical Committee) in Japan.
CCSA (china communications standards association, china communications standards association) is in China.
TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association) in North Korea.
ATIS (North American Telecommunications Industry Solutions Alliance).
TSD SI (Indian Telecommunications Standards Development Association) in India.
I don't know why, in encyclopedia and most domestic websites, TSDSI in India has been bypassed. . .
These seven organizations among organization partners are also commonly called SDO (standard development organization).
SDO is the most important member of 3GPP, and * * * determines the overall policies and strategies of 3GPP.
3GPP is entrusted by SDOs to formulate general technical specifications, and SDOs may formulate national and regional standards, so it is necessary to refer to the relevant standards and specifications of 3GPP in the process.
Each SDO has the same legal status with respect to 3GPP. However, ETSI (double _ appeared again) is more closely related to 3GPP, so it is responsible for the daily maintenance of 3GPP.
The second member of the 3GPP organization is MRP (Market Representative Partner).
Invite them to participate in 3GPP to provide suggestions and put forward market requirements (such as business and functional requirements). ) For some new projects in 3GPP.
MRP members include: 3G America /Femto Forum /FMCA/ Global UMTS TDD Alliance /GSA/GSM Association /IMS Forum /Info Communication Alliance /IPv6 Forum /MobileIGNITE/TDIA/TD-SCDMA Forum /UMTS Forum, etc. 13.
The third member of the 3GPP organization is an individual member (also known as an independent member, IM).
They are independent members registered to join the 3GPP, and have the same participation rights as the organization partner members.
All entities (including equipment vendors and operators) wishing to participate in the formulation of 3GPP standards must first register as members of any SDO, thus becoming the personal number of 3GPP, and then have the corresponding decision-making power and voting rights of 3GPP.
World-renowned equipment manufacturers and operators have IM seats in 3GPP to participate in the discussion and formulation of standards and specifications. For example:
Operators: VDF, Orange, NTT, ATT, Verizon, China mobile, etc.
Equipment suppliers: Ericsson, NSNNokia, Huawei and ZTE.
In addition to organization partners, market representative partners and individual members, 3GPP actually includes some "members" who play soy sauce:
-ITU representative
-Observers. Observers
-Guest spectator (Xiao Zaojun's translation level is really. . . Tut tut tut. . . )
Organizational structure of 3GPP
Next, Xiao Zaojun introduces the organizational structure of 3GPP (click on the picture to view a larger image):
As can be seen from the figure, 3GPP organizations include
PCG (Project Cooperation Team)
Technical standards group
PCG is mainly responsible for the overall management, time planning, work allocation and transaction coordination of 3GPP. TSG is mainly responsible for technical work. Each TSG is divided into several working groups (WGs). TSG can create new working groups according to work needs. The working group is really responsible for the work and undertakes specific tasks.
For example, PCG is the management department of the engineering company, TSG is the engineering team under the company, and WG is the concrete worker. . .
Because (lan) and (ai) have (fa) and (ZOO), Xiao Zaojun will not introduce the specific work contents of each TSG and WG.
Formulation process of 3GPP technical specifications
I found a picture on the internet, which is very detailed. I borrowed flowers to offer Buddha:
Look at the style of this painting, it's a bit like Qualcomm's.
File coding rules of 3GPP
3GPP working group does not formulate standards, but provides technical specifications (TS) and technical reports (TR), which are approved by TSG. Once approved by TSG, they will be submitted to the members of the organization for their own standardization process.
Learning 3GPP is actually learning the standard content of 3GPP (mainly learning TS, generally not TR). So you need to master the document coding rules of 3GPP.
Coding rules of 3GPP documents
For example, 3GPP TS23.228 V5.8.0 stands for R5 version of TS23.228.
The standards and specifications formulated by 3GPP are managed by version (commonly known as R99, R4 and R5, where this R is the R of Release), and a version will be completed in one to two years on average. From R99 to R4 at the beginning of its establishment, it has now developed to R 16. R 16 is the second stage of the 5G standard. R 15 is the first phase of the 5G standard, which was completed last year.
3GPP manages and develops work in the form of projects, and the most common forms are learning items and work items. 3GPP management series standard text. For example, some common WCDMA and TD-SCDMA access network standards are in series 25, some core network standards are in series 22, 23 and 24, and LTE standards are in series 36.
On the correspondence between series and content;
00- 13 series: GSM only (before rel-4)
2 1-36 series: 3G/GSM R99 and beyond.
4 1-55 series: GSM only (rel-4 and later)
Now some popular concepts, such as IMS/HSDPA/HSUPA/LTE/SAE/MBMS, refer to 2 1-36 series standards.
For more details, you can go to 3gpp official website to check (you can visit it directly):
Here I want to nag more: in fact, many children's shoes are afraid to go directly to foreign websites and feel that they have no confidence in their English. But Xiao Zaojun thinks this is more of a patient problem. As long as you can calm down and abandon impetuousness, many English documents can be understood. The documents written by foreigners are easy to understand (simpler than ours), and more importantly, we have translation software. Learning communication still depends on the original protocols and documents.
The standard of 3GPP consists of many "versions", so we frequently talk about R99, R4 and R5. Each R represents a stage, a new technology and a new concept at this stage.
The following figure (from Wikipedia) briefly illustrates the salient features of each R:
Now you understand why the number R99 suddenly becomes R4! Yes, there is a subtle connection between this number and the chronological number.
Tips: What is "freezing"?
Usually, we have a saying that R4 specification was "frozen" in March of 200 1 year. "Freeze" means that from now on, only the necessary changes are allowed to the release version to launch the revised version, and no new features are added. A version of "freezing" often means blowing the horn of putting into business.
A competitor of 3GPP
I believe that if you have heard of 3GPP, you must have heard of 3GPP2.
Let's briefly popularize the knowledge of 3GPP2 here.
3GPP2 is 3rd generation partnership project 2, also known as 3rd generation partnership project 2.
Isn't it interesting? Yes, 3GPP2 also studies 3G.
3GPP2 was born in 1999 1 month, only later than 3GPP2 1 month. Its main members include TIA (North America), China Communication Standards Association (China), ARIB/TTC (Japan) and TTA (South Korea).
Well, it looks familiar. . .
3GPP 2 and 3GPP2 have similar names, but they are two completely different organizations. There is no affiliation or inheritance between them.
3GPP2 is the standardization organization of CDMA2000 standard system developed from 2G CDMA One or IS-95, backed by Qualcomm, which has many patents on key CDMA technologies. Strictly speaking, CDMA2000 is the legal successor of CDMA.
To put it bluntly, 3GPP competes for UMTS and 3GPP2 competes for CDMA. The two companies are in competition.
Everyone knows the result of their PK. 3GPP won, 3GPP2 failed. CDMA2000 was finally put in the cold.
In other words, CDMA2000 is actually a very good standard. Unfortunately, Qualcomm was too greedy and the patent fee was too expensive, which aroused public anger. In the end, he betrayed his relatives and could not escape the tragic fate. This is really "the success of Qualcomm and the failure of Qualcomm" ......
Of course, it is not only 3GPP 2 that challenges the status of 3GPP. IEEE, with WiMAX as its killer, has challenged 3GPP and attracted very good popularity. 3GPP was scared enough, and then LTE was introduced soon. Then. . . I don't think so. . .
After fierce competition, only 3GPP is left. The 5G standard is only formulated by 3GPP.