RAN Rel-18: Public Safety Requirements from PSCE and TCCA
Tero Pesonen, Chairman of Critical Communications Broadband Group at TCCA gave a joint presentation with PSC-Europe at the 3GPP MRP virtual workshop on RAN Release 18 for Industry Verticals in June 2021.
Coverage, availability, resilience, performance, scalability and functional suitability are all key frivers for 5G standardisation in public safety and critical communications.
RAN -18 requirements
Connectivity is the lifeline in critical communications – be it public safety, transport or another sector. Every action that improves coverage, availability and resilience are important as lives are at stake. Once a trusted connection is in place then ability to perform given duties safely and efficiently becomes the focus i.e. need for secure MC services over 5G, positioning for situational awareness. For the market to move forward certified interoperability is required to enable governmental actors to buy products. For railways below 5 MHz NR channel bandwidths are to enable migration from GSM-R.
FirstNet input to Rel 18 RAN workshop:
- MC Services over 5G utilizing ProSe and 5MBS:
- Critical need for public safety for reliable off-network operation and on-network operation in congested cells requiring NR sidelink and 5MBS.
- UE to UE Relay including multi-hop ₋ NR sidelink solutions cannot match LMR legacy off-network coverage without this feature.
- Towards service continuity enhancements, inter-gNB mobility, indirect/indirect path switch and group mobility, should be considered in Rel-18 sidelink relay enhancement.
- Vehicle Mounted Relay (VMR)/Smart Repeaters
- On-network coverage extension is important for public safety incident handling.
- Ranging (distance and direction)
- Accurate knowledge of first responder location is critical in emergency situations.
- Enhanced Location utilizing Side link
- In-coverage, partial coverage, and out-of-coverage NR including floor-level positioning for public safety
- Enhancements to 5G over satellite
- Support broadcast and MC services.
Download the presentation here.
