A 3GPP spokesperson has confirmed that the Release 13 feature for Mission Critical Push to Talk (MCPTT) is now complete.
"They've now finished all the protocol work... and the actual specification is now mature," the spokesperson said.
The feature's specification (TS 23.179) currently has around 35 documents currently for submitted for maintenance – as documented in SP160058 – for approval at the last Technical Specification Group Service and System Aspects (TSG-SA) Plenary. The documents, which are proposed corrections, come from manufacturers who are working to implement the feature in devices.
There will be a new study for Release 14 that will gather the requirements for mission critical services over Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) and is expected to be completed by September 2016.
TSG SA Working Group 6 (TSG SA WG6), which focuses on mission critical applications, is working on Release 14 and on Release 13 maintenance. The spokesperson said that there is “an on-going discussion” on how TS 23.179 should be split to inspire new work. This will be discussed at SA WG6 meeting#10 on the 11-15 April in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
“There are some markets that want to roll this out very quickly and this allows them to do it,” said the spokesperson. “Now there’s a lot of important work coming on in how to deliver video and other type of data services.”
“The latest release is a big step forward, the first time there has been real critical communication features in the global LTE standard and in that respect it’s a real step forward,” commented Phil Kidner, CEO of the TETRA + Critical Communications Association.
3GPP will be at this year’s Critical Communications World in Amsterdam from 31 May to 2 June.
