LTE  |  2019-07-12

Public Safety Communications Europe supports 2nd 5G-Vertical User Workshop in Rome

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

Public Safety Communications Europe (PSCE) recently supported the 2nd 5G-Vertical User Workshop, which took place on 9-10 July in Rome, at the Initiative of 3GPP Market Representation Partners (MRPs).

5G networks are intended to bring a new disrupting ecosystem, where actors such as the Vertical industries (automotive, Industry 4.0, health, media, security & public safety, energy, rail and maritime) will be involved alongside the telecom operators, manufacturers, SMEs and research institutes. Therefore, there is an increasing need to involve this wider range of industries to optimally capture end-user requirements and contribute to the 3GPP standardisation process. 3GPP’s working groups operate bottom-up based on partners contributions. As such, 3GPP would notably benefit from further developing the role and usefulness of 5G vertical industries as Market Representation Partners.

This 5G Vertical Users Workshop, as an initiative of a subset of European 3GPP Market Representation Partners (MRPs), is designed to help vertical industries become part of the standardisation process, create new synergies and obtain guidance from 3GPP by exchanging on future needs and upcoming standards developments.

To boost technical inputs and networking, the workshop is co-located with the 3GPP SA6 Meeting, with dedicated slots on day 2.

A key outcome of the workshop will be boosting contributions to 5G standardisation across verticals and 5G projects, with the current focus in 3GPP on Release 17. The agenda for this 5G Vertical Users Workshop therefore focuses on: 5G vertical technical viewpoints, common requirements and complementarities and common interests.

As a result, the workshop aims to produce a report (“Input Document”) shared directly with the 3GPP Project Coordination Group (PCG) and Technical Specification Groups (TSG) detailing concrete action points around greater involvement of the 5G Vertical Users in the 3GPP process. Other outputs will be a post-event report for public perusal and a concise version of this for other standards organisations to help ease future collaboration on 5G standards for vertical industries.