Standards

3GPP standards for drones on mobile networks.

Mobile networks were not built for aircraft. Since 2018 3GPP has been adding how to identify, track and serve a drone on the network. Here is a map of the standards and what AKIZU takes from them.

Map of the standards

Document	Release	What it covers	Why it matters for AKIZU
TR 36.777	Rel-15	Study of LTE for aerial devices: interference and measurement at altitude.	First evidence that the network behaves differently at altitude.
TS 22.125	Rel-16 to 19	Requirements for UAS on 3GPP networks: C2 commands, video, identification, tracking.	Numeric limits for video when flying beyond sight.
TS 23.255	Rel-17	UAS application layer: architecture and flows between drone, controller and USS/UTM.	Where an image-age record could plug in.
TS 23.256	Rel-17	UAS connectivity, identification and tracking in the 5G core and the EPC.	Drone identity on the network and C2 link authorisation.
TS 29.255, 29.256	Rel-17	Protocols and APIs for the UAS functions.	Interfaces through which network events can be read.
TS 38.331	Rel-18	NR RRC: altitude events H1 and H2, flight-path reporting.	The network knows the drone's height and can prepare.

3GPP releases and drones

Click a release to see what it brought for drones. Years are approximate completion years.

What Release 18 brought

01Height-based reporting

Events H1 and H2 tell the network when the drone crosses a set height.

02Several cells at once

The drone reports only when several cells meet the condition at once, which helps with interference.

03Height-specific configuration

Different settings below and above rooftops.

04Flight path

The network can request the planned route with times and prepare cells.

05Subscription-based identification

The network serves only a drone with a matching subscription.

06BRID and DAA over PC5

Broadcast identification and avoidance directly between drones.

Latency limits in numbers

Numeric limits compared with AKIZU targets and measurements. Every bar carries a provenance tag.

3GPP values per TS 22.125 as quoted on this site. AKIZU Z values are internal measurements with a phone as transmitter; C values are targets.

What AKIZU takes from the standards

We treat the 140 ms video limit as an upper bound, not a target. The LET-1 target is 50 ms p99.
We leave drone identity on the network to the operator and TS 23.256.
Image age adds what the standards do not measure: how old the image the pilot sees right now is.