At this article, I’ll give you an overview of 5G Release 15 features and the process to get further information for each feature from 3GPP website.
5G is similar to 4G technology in the sense that it is an evolving standard, which is planned for and created by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The ITU’s IMT-2020 preparations and 3GPP Release 15 specifications lay the foundations for early 5G technology and rollouts.
Release 15 is the set of standards detailing the use of the 5G New Radio standard as it applies to networks, software, silicon, handsets, and the broader telecom ecosystem. It will facilitate the ability for the public to upload and download large-scale amounts of data faster and cleaner; the same holds true for enterprises increasingly dependent on hybrid cloud services.
3GPP is launching Release 15 to the industry in 3 main steps:
- ‘Early’ drop: includes Non-standalone 5G specifications (so-called Option-3 family), ASN.1 frozen in March 2018;
- ‘Main’ drop: includes Standalone 5G (so-called Option-2), ASN.1 frozen in September 2018;
- ‘Late’ drop: includes additional migration architectures (so-called Option-4, Option-7, and 5G-5G dual connectivity), ASN.1 to be frozen in June 2019.
Release 15 features
| UID | Name | Acronym |
| 740005 | 5G System | 5GS_Ph1 |
| 750019 | Charging Aspects of 5G System Architecture | FS_5GS_Ph1_CH |
| 720005 | (Stage 1 of 5G) New Services and Markets Technology Enablers | SMARTER |
| 740061 | Stage 2 of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1 |
| 750016 | Security aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-SEC |
| 750025 | CT aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 750026 | Studies on CT1 aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770042 | Study on 5G Network selection | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770043 | Study on 5G Mobility management | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770044 | Study on 5G Session management | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770045 | Study on 5G Non-3GPP access networks | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770046 | Study on 5G Interworking with EPC | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770047 | 5G System CN impact on services, network functions, and capabilities | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 770048 | Study on 5G Network slicing | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780008 | CT1 aspects of 5G System (normative work) | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780009 | 5G Network selection | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780010 | 5G Mobility management | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780011 | 5G Session management | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780012 | 5G Non-3GPP access networks | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780013 | 5G Interworking with EPC | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780014 | 5G System CN impact on services, network functions, and capabilities | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 780015 | 5G Network slicing | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 750027 | CT3 aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 750028 | CT4 aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 750029 | Study on CT6 aspects of 5G System | 5GS_Ph1-CT |
| 760029 | IMS impact due to 5GS IP-CAN | 5GS_Ph1-IMSo5G |
| 770017 | CT1 aspects of IMSo5G | 5GS_Ph1-IMSo5G |
| 770018 | CT3 aspects of IMSo5G | 5GS_Ph1-IMSo5G |
| 770019 | CT4 aspects of IMSo5G | 5GS_Ph1-IMSo5G |
| 780034 | Service Based Interface for 5G Charging | 5GS_Ph1-SBI_CH |
| 780035 | Data Charging in 5G System Architecture | 5GS_Ph1-DCH |
| 750035 | EPC enhancements to support 5G NR via DC | EDCE5 |
| 750012 | SA2 aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5 |
| 750036 | SA3 aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5 |
| 760001 | CT aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5-CT |
| 760068 | CT1 aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5-CT |
| 760069 | CT3 aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5-CT |
| 760070 | CT4 aspects of EDCE5 | EDCE5-CT |
| 760062 | Charging aspects of EDCE5: PS Charging enhancements to support 5G NR via Dual Connectivity | EDCE5-CH |
| 750067 | New Radio Access Technology | NR_newRAT |
| 750167 | Core part: New Radio Access Technology | NR_newRAT-Core |
| 750267 | Perf. part: New Radio Access Technology | NR_newRAT-Perf |
| 750072 | LTE connectivity to 5G-CN | LTE_5GCN_connect |
| 750172 | Core part: LTE connectivity to 5G-CN | LTE_5GCN_connect-Core |
| 760087 | UE Conformance Test Aspects – 5G system with NR and LTE | 5GS_NR_LTE-UEConTest |
The Process to get feature further information
1- Enter the 3GPP Ultimate web site: https://portal.3gpp.org
2- It is essential that the “Customized Selection” is set to “All TSGs” (otherwise, a filter would be applied).
3- Then select the “Work Plan” tab and search by Acronym name the feature name as below. In the results, the icon depicting some binoculars has to be hit (lower right red arrow on the figure below).
4-This will lead to the page shown in the figure below:
The two links pointed by the red arrows in the figure above lead to the pages containing respectively all the Specifications and all the Change Requests (CRs) linked to this Feature.
Source: 3GPP TR 21.915