CCT: During the 3GPP plenary meetings in
September, a new study item for SA6 (missioncritical
applications) on “location enhancements
for Mission Critical Services” was approved. What
is this expected to deliver and how will it bene t
mission-critical organisations?
EG: Mission-critical service requirements in technical
speci cations 22.179, 22.280, 22.281 and 22.282 were de ned
in Releases 13 and 14. In 3GPP, requirements correspond
to work that is done on the architecture (the interactions
between functional entities over time, including their state,
con guration, policies, etc). ese architectural speci cations
are then de ned as protocols, behaviour de nitions (eg, timers
and states), all based upon standardised encodings (eg, citing
Internet Engineering Task Force Remote Function Calls).
e requirements de ned in Releases 13 and 14 have mostly
been satis ed by architecture and protocol speci cations in
Releases 13, 14 and 15. ese requirements are also iteratively
enhanced. ese ‘still to be ful lled requirements’ motivate
and guide the continuing process of enhancement of Mission
Critical Services in 3GPP.
Some of the requirements related to mission-critical location
information were not supported in past releases.
is study concerns location enhancements for Mission
Critical Services supported over the EPS. A separate study
considers what is needed to support this over the 5G System
(5GS). e study has begun to investigate enriching the
information present in location information reports, including
location history reporting and how it is triggered. Several usecases
and key issues have been identi ed for these areas, and the
study is expected to conclude in June 2019.
CCT: What were the major developments that
took place at the recent SA6 meeting in Kochi?
EG: Steady progress was made, advancing the Release 16
activities. Substantial progress was made on the FRMCS2 study
(Railways), which is expected to conclude at the Montreal
meeting (25 February-1 March). We also expect to conclude
work on the MC Services access aspects (MCSAA) study and
the normative speci cation for MBMS MC APIs. Besides
mission-critical features, SA6 has progressed work on V2X and
SEAL (common architecture for 3GPP vertical applications).
Erik Guttman CV
Samsung Electronics’ Erik Guttman has been actively
involved in networking and telecommunications
standardisation for more than 20 years. He is the chairman of
the 3GPP Service and System Aspects Technical Speci cation
Group. Before this, he held the position of chairman of the
3GPP System Architecture working group for two terms. He
has also chaired and contributed to numerous IETF working
groups, including SRVLOC (Service Location Protocol) and
ZEROCONF (Zero Con guration Networking). Guttman has
led advanced development teams, implementing emerging
standards to launch new products. His current interest is
emerging standards efforts in 3GPP to develop the potential
of the ‘vertical’ business sectors that are becoming active in
telecommunications standardisation.
CCT: What will SA6 be looking to focus on at its
next few meetings?
EG: In the next few meetings, SA6 will focus on nalising
Release 16 functionality for all of the mission-critical
enhancements, ie, MCPTT, MCData, MCVideo and
Interworking, and well as making progress on the key
studies such as MC over 5GS, location enhancements
and support for discreet listening and logging, and the
completion of architecture speci cation for future railway
communication that is based on the common mission-critical
functionalarchitecture.
CCT: Turning to the work that has been going on
in 3GPP outside of SA6, is there anything that
you feel has interesting implications for the
mission-critical community?
EG: With the completion of the 5G Phase 1 standard,
there is a strong emphasis within 3GPP to support
new vertical industries and related technologies. Some
examples of this work are V2X and Unmanned Aerial
Systems (UAS).
ese new technologies can bene cially complement
the mission-critical community’s operations, eg, the use of
drones for surveillance, and support for advanced vehicle
communications using 3GPP technologies.
CCT: You have previously highlighted the need
for greater engagement/participation from
vendors and end-users within 3GPP. Is that still an
issue? If it no longer is, has anything replaced it
as a concern?
TP: Work progress in 3GPP depends upon the e orts
of committed organisations – including end-user agencies,
vendors and other interested parties. ese parties have
come together successfully to complete each past release. I
do not believe this is a matter for concern, rather one must
be realistic and acknowledge that progress made arises from
the resources committed to do the work.
In TSG SA, we are happy to note that new members have
joined our e orts, such as BDBOS (Germany) and Suomen
Virveverkko Oy (Finland), and this increased participation
is certainly very useful.
March 2019 @CritCommsToday 23