The Rise and Fall of 3GPP – Time for a Sabbatical?

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The Rise and Fall of 3GPP – Time for a Sabbatical?
6 achievable game changers that don’t require 6G
Moray Rumney
9th July 2025
CW TEC 2025
6G Anarchy in the UK

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From spark gaps to Massive MIMO in 125 years!

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Wireless evolution - highlights
LTE-Adv.
(R10 and beyond)
802.16m /
[WiMAX2]
4G
802.16e
(Mobile WiMAX)
HSPA+ /
E-HSPA
LTE
(R8/9 FDD/TDD)
3.9G
HSDPA
HSUPA
EDGE
Evolution
1x EV-DO
0 ➔ A ➔ B
3.5G
TD-SCDMA
(China)
W-CDMA
(FDD & TDD)
E-GPRS
(EDGE)
cdma2000
(1x RTT)
3G
Market
evolution
802.11ax
802.11ad
802.11ac
HSCSD GPRS
iMODE IS-95B
(US CDMA)
2.5G
WiBRO
(Korea)
802.16d
(Fixed WiMAX)
802.11h/n
802.11a/g
802.11b
GSM
(Europe)
IS-136
(US TDMA)
PDC
(Japan)
IS-95A
(US CDMA)
2G
Increasing
efficiency,
bandwidth
and
data
rates
5G
WLAN
Cellular
eMBB
802.11ay
mMTC
MCC
UR/LL
Enhanced Mobile
Broadband
Massive Machine
Type communications
Mission Critical
Communications Ultra
Reliable / Low Latency
NB-IoT
(R13 and beyond)

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G Whizz
1G Wow! – nice brick on Wall Street
2G Nailed it – on the farm!
3G Nice voice, shame about the data
4G Nice data, shame about the voice - and the antenna
5G Nice 3.5 GHz spectrum – but mMTC, UR/LLC, mmWave…
6G 72 ideas in search of a generation?
7G Hopefully a G of rest
GSM firsts: Digital – Equalizer – Channel coder - Voice coder - GMSK 0 dB PAPR
- Power control - HD-FDD - Freq hopping – Encryption – SMS – CSD - GPRS later
In 2008, 5.1 billion owned phones, only 4.2 billion toothbrushes

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• No explicit criteria for deciding what to do
• Increasing fragmentation and complexity – too many options
• No evaluation of actual benefits
• No evaluation of deployment
The Wurst thing about standards…

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1995 3G Japan:
FOMA - Freedom of Mobile
Multimedia Access
3G drivers - FOMA

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6G drivers - FOMO
2025 6G summit in Korea:
FOMO – Fear of missing out
800 delegates served by Wi-Fi!
Big carbon
footprint!

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How many pages does it take to define UE max power?
GSM Today’s smartphone
Pages
3G 12
4G 132
5G 213 + 40
Total 397!

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Generation Defined frequency bands CA combinations
GSM 13 0
UMTS 25 42
LTE 74 890
NR 71 + 7 (FR2) 973
Band growth and CA combos

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• The robustness and resilience of cellular
systems is not being managed
• Charles Perrow proposed a structural theory of
systems and their potential for failure and ability
to recover
• This theory was to help analyze safety critical
systems
• Wireless is now an essential technology that has
huge consequences when it fails
Robustness and resilience

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Cellular wireless is moving from robust to brittle
Linear loosely coupled systems:
Low potential for system failures
Typically inefficient
Spacial segregation
Dedicated connections
Segregated subsystems
Easy substitutes
Few feedback loops
Single purpose segregated controls
Direct information
Extensive understanding
Complex tightly coupled systems:
High potential for system failures
Typically efficient
Proximity
Common mode connections
Interconnected subsystems
Limited substitutions
Many feedback loops
Multiple and interacting controls
Indirect information
Limited understanding
Wireless evolution
0G 1G 6G?
2G 3G 4G 5G
Robust Brittle

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• Forever pursuing higher peak data rates may be possible but is in sustainable?
• In the 1950s we used to think cars like this were cool
Green stuff
What’s the cellular
equivalent of the Smart
Car?
And what is the environmental
impact of all the resources that
go into making a smartphone
that has a two-year life?

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Standards feature creep
Standardized by ETSI
Implemented by vendors
Deployed
Used by users
Useful
Profitable!
2G GSM Phase 1 5G NR
Standardized by 3GPP
Not to scale
Standards define possibilities, not probabilities

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Form factor vs. antenna performance
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2025
The new brick
0 dBi
-5 dBi
-15 dBi
-10 dBi

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850 Total Radiated Power
Vendor proposed radiated requirements
R4-1709053
Poor TRP also means poor sensitivity which means higher downlink power needed,
wasting energy and creating higher intercell interference giving lower cell edge throughput
Conducted requirement 23 dBm ± 2 dB

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Why SISO OTA performance matters
4G had no radiated requirements, 5G has 4 of 71 bands defined 10 years after the first release

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3GPP focusses on baseband IP, not end-user performance
Measure with a
micrometer (± 0.1 dB)
Mark with
chalk (± 3 dB)
Cut with a axe
(- 15 dB)
Baseband
(RAN1)
Cabled
Conformance
tests (RAN4/5)
The antenna
meets the high
street

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Speedtest.net global index of mobile download speeds
Rank Country Speed
1 United Arab Emirates 539.84
2 Qatar 529.34
3 Kuwait 350.89
4 Bahrain 245.67
5 Bulgaria 232.79
6 Brazil 222.02
7 China 209.31
8 South Korea 208.07
9 Denmark 202.67
10 Saudi Arabia 196.28
11 Brunei 188.39
12 Netherlands 172.28
Rank Country Speed
13 United States 170.81
14 North Macedonia 169.85
15 Singapore 163.29
16 Malaysia 163
17 Norway 160.59
18 Georgia 148.89
19 Estonia 147.46
20 Vietnam 146.64
21 Luxembourg 145.98
22 France 143.62
23 Finland 142.03
24 Latvia 140.26
Rank Country Speed
25 Oman 138.43
26 Portugal 138.02
27 Lithuania 137.36
28 Slovenia 134.85
29 India 134.46
30 Austria 130.29
31 Sweden 129.88
32 Switzerland 129.77
33 Croatia 128.49
34 Taiwan 119.65
35 Greece 117.99
36 New Zealand 116.86

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Speedtest.net global index of mobile download speeds
Rank Country Speed
37 Australia 115.66
38 Cyprus 113.58
39 Thailand 107.35
40 Slovakia 104.57
41 Belgium 103.53
42 Poland 102.3
43 Czechia 99.73
44 Canada 98.82
45 Montenegro 97.58
46 Kosovo 93.58
47 Albania 93.57
48 Italy 89.51
Rank Country Speed
49 Hong Kong (SAR) 87.84
50 Kazakhstan 84.8
51 Tunisia 80.84
52 Chile 79.95
53 Romania 78.05
54 Hungary 76.86
55 Germany 75.67
56 Spain 75.14
57 Azerbaijan 73.83
58 Türkiye 70.18
59 United Kingdom 70.11
60 Serbia 69.68
Rank Country Speed
61 Morocco 66.6
62 Ireland 63.05
63 Japan 62.83
64 South Africa 61.96
65 Argentina 61.66
66 Israel 61.65
67 Iran 59.89
68 Philippines 59.47
69 Iraq 57.08
70 Guatemala 55.96
71 Uzbekistan 55.34
72 Moldova 53.99
The UK is not 59th in global rankings due to lack of technology, rather lack of investment

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• Give 3GPP a sabbatical for a few years to allow what has already been
standardized to be either implemented or scrapped – the market will decide
• Introduce new sustainability criteria for all new work items to consider the
usefulness to society, impact on limited resources, reliability and resilience
Time for a change?
Page 20
Wireless Present
We prioritize We discount
Unlimited Performance Resources
Unlimited Capacity Energy
Efficiency Complexity
Flexibility Resilience
Intellectual Property Mobile Antennas
Green Wireless Future
We should prioritize We should discount
Baseline services Excessive efficiency
Sufficient capacity Unlimited capacity
Reliability Corporate profit
Resilience Intellectual Property
Mobile Antennas Flexibility

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This is a
bit dull
This is
Reality
A tale of two books
This is
exciting!
This is

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Within control of the UK:
• Set minimum standards for smartphone antenna efficiency (Denmark)
• Set coverage requirements (including indoor) for licenses based on area not
population
• Set pricing guidelines to discourage high-capacity low value services and the
impact on cloud storage energy demands
Within control of the industry:
• Reverse the appalling decline in battery life
• Drive down device costs
• Reverse the continuing decline in antenna efficiency
6 achievable game changers that don’t require 6G
50 Ω
The requirement for a 50 Ω temporary antenna connector is thwarting efficient design

The Rise and Fall of 3GPP – Time for a Sabbatical?

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