DOCOMO’s Activities in 3GPP
Overview of 3GPP
3GPP is the global partnership responsible for developing technical standards for mobile communication systems.
It defines the specifications that enable interoperable mobile networks worldwide.
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaborative standards initiative established to develop international specifications for mobile communication systems.
Many mobile network operators and telecommunications equipment vendors from around the world participate in 3GPP. The organization is enhancing to 5G as well as developing technical specifications for next-generation 6G communications.
Click to zoom
Standardization in 3GPP follows a three-stage process.
Service requirements are defined (Stage 1).
Based on those requirements, the overall system architecture is specified (Stage 2).
The protocol specifications required to support the defined architecture are defined in the end (Stage 3).
At each stage, meetings bring together engineers from across the world. During these meetings, numerous technical contributions are submitted and discussed to identify challenges and evaluate potential solutions. Through this rigorous consensus-building process, globally applicable standard specifications are established.
DOCOMO’s Role in 3GPP
DOCOMO actively participates in 3GPP and contributes to discussions across a wide range of technical areas.
Through its participation in working groups and leadership roles, DOCOMO leads global standardization activities.
3GPP is organized into three Technical Specification Groups (TSGs) under the oversight of the Project Co-ordination Group (PCG).
The PCG determines the overall operational policies of 3GPP and coordinates collaboration among the TSGs (see Table 1). Each TSG includes multiple Working Groups (WGs) that carry out detailed discussions for specific technology areas.
DOCOMO participates in most of these working groups and contributes to standardization activities across multiple technical domains.
Click to zoom
Study groups in 3GPP
Click to zoom
Organizational structure of 3GPP and chair and vice-chair positions served by DOCOMO
DOCOMO delegates also take on leadership roles in discussions related to 5G and 6G. They serve as vice chairs, facilitating meetings, managing schedules, and supporting consensus building, as well as rapporteurs, who coordinate and consolidate technical discussions. Through these roles, DOCOMO leads the standardization process.
DOCOMO’s Contributions to 3GPP
As a mobile network operator, DOCOMO contributes to 3GPP discussions by leveraging insights from operating commercial networks.
These contributions support the evolution of mobile communications and future network technologies.
Across the various working groups, DOCOMO contributes by leading technical discussions and submitting proposals from a medium- to long-term perspective, drawing on insights gained from the operation of commercial mobile networks.
With an understanding of how communications should evolve to support future society and industry, DOCOMO contributes to technical studies within 3GPP, supporting the realization of the continued evolution of mobile communications. Below are examples of DOCOMO’s contributions.
RAN area (TSG RAN)
TSG RAN develops specifications for the entire radio access network, including connections from user devices to base stations and further to the core network.
As a mobile network operator, DOCOMO contributes to the enhancement of radio access technologies from a wide range of perspectives. These include studies on radio interface technologies and control procedures that support future services, as well as commercial requirements such as spectrum usage and antenna implementation required for near-term commercial deployment.
SA area (TSG SA)
TSG SA covers specifications for the overall architecture of mobile systems, including the core network, as well as the services capabilities.
As a mobile network operator, DOCOMO actively participates in discussions by contributing operational insights from commercial networks, addressing service-driven functional enhancements, next-generation system architecture, and new services enabled by technologies such as AI and computing.
CT area (TSG CT)
TSG CT defines communication methods and procedures related to the core network and terminals, as well as the protocols and interface specifications used between network functions.
As a mobile network operator, DOCOMO contributes to discussions on enhancements to the core network and improvements to protocols and procedures for future networks, based on requirements directly related to customer services, such as interoperability, operationability, security, international roaming, and disaster recovery.
Emerging Technologies Toward 6G
In addition to advancing existing communication technologies, 3GPP is exploring new technology areas that will shape future networks.
These studies support the evolution of 5G and the development of 6G.
While the 4G era and early 5G development focused primarily on steadily improving the fundamental communication system functions, 3GPP has recently expanded its scope of activities toward 5G-Advanced and 6G to include a broader range of new technological elements.
The following sections introduce examples of emerging technology topics.
AI
AI technologies are being explored to enhance network performance and automation in future communication systems.
AI technologies are being discussed within 3GPP to optimize radio link performance, enhance core network automation, and define the frameworks required to support these capabilities.
As radio networks become increasingly complex, these discussinos aim to enable more advanced and intelligent network control through the use of AI technologies.
Sensing
Sensing technologies enable communication signals to detect surrounding environments and objects, creating new possibilities for future services.
Sensing technologies are being discussed within 3GPP to enable the use of communication signals for detecting surrounding environments and objects.
By applying sensing capabilities using signals that have traditionally been used only for data transmission, new applications are expected to emerge, including automation and digital-twin use cases.
In-Network Computing
In-Network Computing enables networks to orchestrate both communication and computation, supporting advanced services such as XR and AI.
In-Network Computing (INC), a concept that offloads device-side computation to network nodes, is being discussed within 3GPP. This approach allows the network to control not only communications but also computing processes.
INC is expected to enable compute-intensive services that use XR and AI to operate smoothly even on lightweight devices such as wearables.
DOCOMO’s Standardization Achievements
DOCOMO has long contributed to international standardization activities as a mobile network operator and has played a leading role in advancing standard specifications.
Within 3GPP, DOCOMO has continuously participated since the standardization phase of the 3G era, contributing network operator expertise and reflecting Japan-specific requirements in global standards.
In addition to submitting technical contributions, DOCOMO’s representatives have served as Chairs and Vice Chairs, playing critical roles in consensus building and specification development. Through these efforts, DOCOMO has made significant contributions to the advancement of the mobile communications industry.
Through standardization activities, DOCOMO has realized technologies that enhance safety, reliability, and network performance. These contributions include enabling communication during disasters, supporting emergency alerts, improving LTE and 5G speed and capacity, and enhancing voice quality.
Key examples of DOCOMO’s achievements are presented below.
Contribution to standardized technical specifications
The following are activities aimed at improving safety and security, quality and higher-speed communication along with areas of contribution in the future.
- Each link from the activity area will take you to related articles in Technical Journal.
| Activity area | DOCOMO’s contributions |
|---|---|
| Ensuring communications in the case of disasters (Safety & Security) |
DOCOMO contributed to establish the technical specification for a system to distinguish types of communications and assign them priorities in order to ensure critical communications such as calling emergency numbers (e.g. 110 and 119) in the case of disasters. |
| Emergency alert (Safety & Security) |
There are many natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. As a Japanese representative of Japanese mobile operator, DOCOMO contributed to establish the technical specification for a system (CBS and ETWS) as a platform to promptly send emergency alerts to people who might be affected. |
| Improvement of voice quality | DOCOMO contributed to the establishment of a technical specification for Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) which provides communication’s voice quality closer to real voice than at initial VoLTE service. |
| Combined 3G/LTE mobility management (LTE) |
In order to provide LTE early, which enables higher rate packet communications comparing to 3G, DOCOMO contributed to the establishment of a technical specification for a system to allow continuous communications by switching back to 3G in case the LTE service area is not available. |
| Enhanced communications quality when moving at high velocity (LTE) |
DOCOMO reflected the discussion on the availability of LTE even in high-velocity transportation, such as bullet trains in Japan, and contributed to the establishment of a technical specification for continuous LTE packet communications when users move even at high velocities beyond several-hundred km/h. |
| Higher-speed & higher capacity (LTE/LTE-Advanced) |
DOCOMO proposed the concept of LTE, aiming at smooth migration to higher-speed and higher capacity mobile communications systems. Upon receiving supports from operators and manufactures over the world, DOCOMO led its standardization activities. DOCOMO contributed to the establishment of a technical specification for LTE-Advanced, comprising carrier aggregation technologies, advance multi-antenna technologies, etc. to cope with further increase in mobile traffic. |
| Key technologies for 5G | For 5G, DOCOMO is leading standardization in a large number of key technologies which enable higher data rates, lower latency and a larger number of connections than LTE/LTE-A. By collaborating with other operators, DOCOMO contributed to the promotion of overall 5G standardization. |
DOCOMO’s contributions
Contribution to promotion of standardized technologies
DOCOMO patents the technical know-hows obtained through its standardization activities, and also licenses them in order to contribute to the spread of 3GPP-standardized specifications.
Links
Building on its extensive experience in international standardization, DOCOMO continues to actively contribute to the development of next-generation wireless communication standards toward 5G-Advanced and 6G.
For further details and the latest developments, please refer to our developer blog and technical journal articles.
Technical Journal
Technical journals that introduce new technologies, services and R&D activities at NTT DOCOMO and Group companies.
