ericsson.com/en/
standardization/
leadershipStandardization
Leadership
3GPP Release 17May 2022

2Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

Introduction

3GPP is continuously evolving mobile systems to enable
new and enhance existing use cases. The Release 17
specifications were functionally frozen in March 2022 andare expected to be finalized in June.
3GPP Release 17 extends 5G to cover new use cases,
such as broadband IoT and public safety, and provides
new features and functional enhancements for alreadysupported use cases.
The open, consensus-based standards development
process in 3GPP enables the best technology to emerge.
It generates the best products technologically, provides
greater security, and ensures global interoperability. Theleadership in the open standardization process also serves
as one of the strongest objective indications of technology
leadership for the evolution of 5G and beyond.
In this report, we analyze the standardization leadershipof 3GPP Release 17.

Ericsson | Standardization Leadership3

4

Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

3GPP structure

There are three technical specification groups (TSGs) in 3GPP:
Radio Access Network (RAN), Core Network and Terminals(CT), and Service and System Aspects (SA). The actual technicalspecification process is performed in working groups (WGs)
under TSGs. Currently, there are a total of 15 working groups, asshown in figure 1.

Project coordination Group(PCG)

TSG RANRadio Access Network

TSG CT
Core Network and Terminals

TSG SA
Service and System Aspects

RAN WG1
Radio Layer 1 (Physical layer)

CT WG1
MM//CC/SM (lu)(end-to-end aspects)

SA WG1Services

RAN WG2Radio layer 2 andRadio layer 3 (Radio Resource Control)
RAN WG3
RAN Architecture andrelated network interfaces
RAN WG4Radio performance andProtocal aspects
RAN WG5
Mobile terminalconformance testing

CT WG3
Interworking withexternal networks
CT WG4
MAP/GTP/BCH/SS(Protocols within the CN)

CT WG6
Smart card application aspects

Figure 1: 3GPP
Technicalspecificationgroup structure Group Structure
Figure1: 3GPPTechnicalSpecification

For 3GPP RAN, WG1 and WG2 specify themost important technologies for 5G airinterface, providing the foundation for newtechnologies required by handsets, devices,and radio network infrastructure. For thecore network, the main 3GPP working
groups are SA WG2 and CT WG1, WG3,and WG4. In addition, the work done insecurity (SA3) and media (SA4) are valid
for both radio and core networks.

SA WG2
Architecture
SA WG3
Security
SA WG4
Speech, audio, video,and multimedia codecs
SA WGS
Telecom management
SA WG6
Mission-critical applications

Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

5

Release 17 content –Enhancements and new features

3GPP Release 17 extends 5G to cover new use cases and provides
new features and functional enhancements for already supported
use cases. Figure 2 illustrates how 3GPP extends the capabilities
of 5G over time to match the 5G vision. Each release adds supportfor new use cases and provides new features and functional
enhancements for already supported use cases.
Rel-17 adds support for Broadband IoT and Public safety usecases.
Broadband IoT caters to IoT applications with relaxed services
requirements in a cost-efficient way. Release 17 introduces a
new reduced capability (RedCap) device. RedCap devices are
significantly less complex than regular 5G devices thanks to thesupport of the reduced number of receiver branches, reduced
bandwidth, and half-duplex operation. RedCap devices also
support extended DRX allowing them to power down and savepower for long periods.

Rel-17 enhances eMBB and Critical IoT use cases
Enhancements to mobile broadband include improvements
to reciprocity-based beamforming, multiple transmission
and reception point (mTRP) deployments and a significant
streamlining of the beam management framework to optimize
performance in mmW deployment.
Enhancements to Critical IoT use case include support for nonpublic networks and enhancement to time sensitive networking,including support of time sensitive networking over IP.

Rel-16 (June 2020)

Rel-17 (March 2022)...
Extended reality

Mobile edge computing

Broadband IoT

Reduced capability devices

Public safety

Broadcast & Multicast

ITSSidelink

NW-UE relaying
Reliable positioning

Positioning

GNSS positioning

NR based positioning

Critical IoT

URLLC

Industrial IoT

eMBB

Flex Num., MIMO , FR1+FR2 ,Multi Carrier

IAB, NR-U

SON/MDT

Use case dimension

Rel-15 (March 2019)

The main Rel-17 features for public safety (also known as criticalcommunication) use case are 5G multicast-broadcast services andthe second phase of multimedia priority service.

Industrial IoT Enhancements
52.6 < 71GHz , multi TRP enhancements

Feature Dimension

Figure 2: Evolution of 5G to cover new use cases and enhanced support for existing use cases over different 3GPP releases.
| LMFPEJA Janne Peisa | 2022-04-22 | Ericsson Internal | Page 1 of 2

6Ericsson | Standardization LeadershipStandardization leadership in3GPP Release 17

Companies in 3GPP focus on different working groups dependingon the impact of the working groups on their business, leading todifferent companies being active in RAN and CN groups. Therefore,
it is preferable to evaluate the 3GPP standardization leadershipseparately for 3GPP RAN and Core network groups insteadof having one evaluation for the whole 3GPP. However, there
are cases when looking at the data aggregated over the whole
3GPP is justified - especially the number of leadership positions,shown in Figure 3 - can be used to evaluate the overall trust in thecompany’s fairness and commitment to 3GPP .

60

50

40

30

2010LG
Etalgi
Di

ovo

In
ter

LenomaTelec

ia
Tek

M

ECATT

edChinTNTZTOCOMDOIntelaki
Noawei
HumalcomCCQuCMsumSa

Ericssonng0

Figure 3: 3GPP leadership positions, measured in chair-quarters

Figure 3: 3GPP leadership positions, measured in chair-quarters (including the count of the chairand vice-chair positions for each quarter summed over the total measurement period).
In this report, we’ll analyze the standardization leadership using a combination of four metrics. These metrics are:

1. The number of approved contributions. This metric identifies on a high level how many proposals are accepted from a company.
There is a strong correlation between this metric and influence in working groups that primarily work with formal documents(especially CT and SA groups in core network areas), and even though this correlation is weaker in groups working primarily
with discussion documents (especially in RAN WG1), the metric can still be used in those groups as well. It does not differentiate
between major contributions, such as introducing new features, and minor corrections.
2. Specification impact. Weighting the contributions based on the impact they have on specifications allows for differentiation
between major contributions and minor corrections. In this report, we have chosen to measure the impact by the amount of text
added to specifications for simplicity. Even though minor corrections can be important and long corrections less important, ingeneral, the impact of a correction can be expected to correlate with its length.
3. Quality. The quality of the contributions can be measured by examining the ratio of approved contributions to total contributions.
We always use all available working groups when evaluating this metric, as this measure is less accurate in groups working
primarily with discussion documents (especially in RAN WG1).
4. Chair positions. This is an indication of trust in a company’s fairness and commitment to 3GPP, especially for positions that areelected by members. In this report, we measure this by counting the number of chair-quarters for chair and vice-chair positions(in other words, the count of the chair and vice-chair positions for each quarter summed over the total measurement period). Dueto the small number of chair and vice-chair positions, it is necessary to use the longest time periods and as many working groups
as possible. We do not think it is possible to evaluate this metric using only one or even two working groups, and always use allavailable working groups when evaluating this metric.

Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

7Leadership in 5G radio access technologies
In 3GPP, RAN WG1 and WG2 define the most central technologies
for the air interface, providing the foundation for new technologies
required by handsets, devices, and radio infrastructure. Hence,
looking at the standardization leadership in Release 17 using
the four metrics described in section “standardization leadershipin 3GPP Release 17” above is likely to give a good indication of acompany’s strength in defining Release 17 enhancements to the5G air interface.

In Figure 4, we provide the evaluation of the standardization
leadership in 3GPP RAN for Release 17 NR contributions fromthe beginning of Release 17 (January 2020) up to the functional
freeze of Release 17 (March 2022). The values for the metrics
have been normalized to the leader to create comparable values
between zero and one.

Approved contributions RAN1-2

Ericsson
Huawei
Nokia
Samsung
ZTE

Leadership positions(chairman-quarters)

Speciﬁcation Impact RAN1-2

Quality of contributions RAN1-5

Figure 4: Evaluation of standardization leadership in 3GPP RAN

Figure 4: Evaluation of standardization leadership in 3GPP RAN

Approved contributions

1

Ericsson
Huawei

0.8

Nokia
Samsung

0.6

0.4

ZTE

Leadership positions(chairman-quarters)
Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

Speciﬁcation Impact RAN1-2
8Leadership in core network
protocol standardization

Quality of contributions RAN1-5

requests (CRs), and it can be expected that valid, well-written CRs
The main 3GPP working groups impacting the core network arewill be approved without revisions or with only a few revisions.
SA2, 3, 4, and CT1, 3, 4. Figure 5 shows the evaluation of 3GPP
Figure4: standardization
Evaluation ofstandardization
leadership in 3GPP RAN
core
network
leadershipusing the four-leadership
However, poorly formulated CRs will either be rejected ormetrics described in section “standardization leadership in 3GPP
approved only after several revisions, leading to a large number ofRelease 17” for 5G contributions up to March 2022.
contributions. Note that a similar argument does not hold for RAN
working groups, especially RAN1 and RAN2, where the majority of
For core network groups, we feel that the total number ofthe contributions are discussion documents.
contributions does not necessarily reflect actual leadership.
In these groups, most of the contributions are formal change

Approved contributions

1

Ericsson
Huawei

0.8

Nokia
Samsung
ZTE

0.6

0.4

0.2

Speciﬁcation Impact

0

Leadership positions

Quality of contributions

Figure 5: 3GPP core network standardization leadership using the four-leadership metrics
described in section 3 for 5G contributions up to March 2022.

Figure 5: Evaluation of standardization leadership in 3GPP Core Network

Ericsson | Standardization Leadership

Summary

Like in earlier 3GPP releases, Ericsson stands out as the technology
leader among many companies contributing to 5G standardization in3GPP Release 17.
In this report, we have evaluated the standardization leadership for 3GPP Release 17 up tofunctional freeze (March 2022). 3GPP Release 17 extends 5G by providing new features andfunctional enhancements for already supported use cases and extending 5G to cover new use cases,
such as Broadband IoT and Public safety.
We have evaluated the leadership using a total of four metrics, each highlighting different
aspects of leadership:
1. The number of approved contributions
2. The weighted sum of approved contributions (“Specification impact”)
3. The ratio of approved contributions to total contributions (“Quality”)
4. Leadership positions
We have evaluated the leadership in RAN and core network areas separately, as companies in
3GPP focus on different working groups depending on their business impact. For both RAN and core
networks, it is clear that Ericsson stands out as the leader from a long tail of companies contributing to3GPP Release 17 standardization. By looking at the total leadership using all four metrics, Ericsson isshown to also be a clear overall leader in 3GPP.

9

Ericsson enables communications service providers tocapture the full value of connectivity. The company’s
portfolio spans Networks, Digital Services, Managed
Services, and Emerging Business and is designed tohelp our customers go digital, increase efficiency andfind new revenue streams. Ericsson’s investments ininnovation have delivered the benefits of telephonyand mobile broadband to billions of people aroundthe world. The Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq
Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York.
www.ericsson.com

Ericsson.com

The content of this document is subject
to revision without notice due tocontinued progress in methodology,
design and manufacturing. Ericssonshall have no liability for any error ordamage of any kind resulting from theuse of this document

GFTL-22:000689 Uen© Ericsson AB 2022