4 Where to look yourself, and what nobody can tell you yet

4.1 Search by the short name

3GPP's document database is organised around the short name of each piece of work. Type the short name and you get every document filed against it; search for a phrase and you get a scatter of unrelated hits.

Eight short names cover most of what has happened.

• FS_AmbientIoT — the founding study, and confusingly also the architecture study, which is a separate piece of work with the same short name. FS_AmbientIoT FS_AmbientIoT

• FS_Ambient_IoT_RAN — the radio feasibility study. FS_Ambient_IoT_RAN

• FS_Ambient_IoT_solutions — the radio solutions study, and the single heaviest item in the area with 2357 documents. FS_Ambient_IoT_solutions

• AmbientIoT-ARC — the architecture work that produced TS 23.369. AmbientIoT-ARC

• AmbientIoT-SEC — the security work that produced TS 33.369. AmbientIoT-SEC

• AmbientIoT-CT — the protocol work of CT1, CT3 and CT4. AmbientIoT-CT

• Ambient_IoT_Solutions-Core — the normative radio work. Ambient_IoT_Solutions-Core

• Anything containing Ph2 — the second phase, in Rel-20. AmbientIoT_Ph2-ARC

4.2 The documents that decided things

A piece of work is defined by a short proposal document, and section 4 of that proposal is the objective in the proposers' own words. It is the fastest honest answer to "what was this for".

• SP-220085 opened the whole area, at plenary SP-95-e. SP-220085

• RP-232404 opened the radio feasibility study, and RP-240826 the solutions study. RP-232404 RP-240826

• SP-250377 started the architecture work, and CP-252196 the protocol work. SP-250377 CP-252196

• RP-252105 started the normative radio work, and RP-252894 its second phase. RP-252105 RP-252894

4.3 The four numbers to open first

• TS 23.369 — the system. Most of the work landed here. TS 23.369

• TR 38.769 — why the radio design looks the way it does. TR 38.769

• TS 24.369 — what a device actually says. TS 24.369

• TS 22.369 — the requirements underneath everything, with its report TR 22.840. TS 22.369 TR 22.840

4.4 What nobody can tell you yet

This is the part that keeps everything above honest. Six things are simply not in this record.

• Why anybody decided anything. The data holds the outcome word beside a document — approved, agreed, revised, noted, merged, withdrawn — and nothing about the argument. SP-220085

• What the letters between groups said. Four recent ones are named by number and subject, from SA3 and SA2 in mid-2026, but their texts are not held here. S3-262519 S2-2605244

• Whether anyone has built one. Not one of the 10771 documents says whether a single Ambient IoT device exists, has been sold, or has run in a network. This is 3GPP's paperwork, and it stops at the specification. ^[1]

• What the odd names mean. AIOTF, Topology 2, Device 1, DO-A appear exactly as their documents wrote them, and are explained in those documents, not here. ^[2]

• Anything about 6G. One phase 2 work item's scope excludes the features of 6G relevant to IoT, and that single clause is everything the register holds on the subject. ^[3]

• When phase 2 will land. Every date attached to it is a target in a work plan, and a target is not a promise. Ambient_IoT_Solutions_Ph2-Perf

4.5 One date never to quote

The outdoor active-device study carries a start date of 2019-03-07 — years before this subject existed. It is a leftover from a document template. Its finish date, 2026-03-03, is real. FS_Ambient_IoT_Outdoor_Active

Small traps like that are the reason this course cites a source for every figure: a number with no origin is a number nobody can check.

4.6 Where to read this yourself

Everything named above is a document number, and every one of them links to 3gpp.org.

The proposals SP-220085 and RP-252105, the specifications TS 23.369, TS 24.369 and TS 22.369, the reports TR 38.769 and TR 22.840. SP-220085 RP-252105 TS 23.369 TS 24.369 TS 22.369 TR 38.769 TR 22.840

The School of Specs carries the text of none of them. Its job is to tell you which number answers your question and hand you the link; the reading is yours.