Study on requirements for NR beyond 52.6 GHz
This documents is to provide uses cases and deployment scenarios for NR system operation in carriers between 52.6 GHz and 100 GHz and also provide operational and system design requirements, which can facilitate 3GPP's future enhancements to NR beyond 52.6GHz. NR physical layer channels in Release 15 were designed to be optimized for uses under 52.6 GHz and with the potential to be used for above 52.6 GHz. In general, high frequencies are faced with more challenges, such as higher phase noise, larger propagation loss, and lower power amplifier efficiency, compared to low frequency bands. Additionally, the frequency ranges above 52.6 GHz potentially contain larger spectrum allocations and larger bandwidths that are not available for bands lower than 52.6 GHz and may support widely ranging use cases, such as V2X, IAB, NR licensed and unlicensed, fixed wireless access, Wireless HDMI, Industrial Automation/IoT, and non-terrestrial operations. With the aim of enabling and optimizing 3GPP NR systems for operation in above 52.6 GHz, as originally planned during the NR SI (TR 38.913 [4]), 3GPP should further work on physical layer channels including potential introduction of new waveform, procedures, and requirements, etc., where the operation is applicable for operations in licensed and unlicensed spectrum, to WAN operation, private networks, Integrated Access Backhaul (IAB), ITS application using vehicular communications (V2X), etc.
The objectives of the study item are the following [2]:
- identify target spectrum ranges, including survey on global spectrum availability, regulatory requirements, channelization, and licensing regimes,
- identify potential use cases and deployment scenarios,
- identify NR design requirements and considerations on top of regulatory requirements.