School of Specs TSG RAN — the group that specifies th…In depth

What the group writes down · chapter 10 of 16 · 6 minutes

10 The documents that attract the most change, and what that says

The ten most-changed RAN documents, why the top of the list is radio numbers and test cases rather than architecture, and what a change request actually looks like.

10.1 Why "most changed" is the useful ranking

Which document is longest tells you nothing. Which document is oldest tells you nothing. Which document has the most change requests filed against it tells you where the work actually is, and it is a number nobody has to interpret.

The local meeting database records, for each document, the specification it changes. 243160 RAN documents name one [1]. Grouping those by the specification named gives the ranking below.

10.2 The ranking

Document Documents changing it Owner What it is
TS 38.133 18987 [2] RAN4 5G radio resource management requirements
TS 38.331 11787 [3] RAN2 5G radio connection protocol
TS 38.101-1 9008 [4] RAN4 what a 5G phone's radio must do
TS 38.523-1 8655 [5] RAN5 5G protocol test cases
TS 36.331 6988 [6] RAN2 4G radio connection protocol
TS 38.533 6735 [7] RAN5 5G radio management test cases
TS 36.521-1 5724 [8] RAN5 4G radio transmission test cases
TS 38.521-1 5564 [9] RAN5 5G radio transmission test cases
TS 36.133 5545 [10] RAN4 4G radio resource management requirements
TS 38.508-1 5520 [11] RAN5 common test settings

10.3 Four things that list says

RAN4 and RAN5 hold eight of the ten. The three RAN4 entries are requirements; the five RAN5 entries are the tests that prove them. Only two entries in the table belong to RAN2.

The exam changes almost as often as the rule. 38.523-1 with 8655 and 38.533 with 6735 sit close behind the requirements they test. That is not waste — a new band, a new feature or a corrected requirement needs a matching test case, and the test case is a separate document in a separate group.

4G is still being worked on. 36.331 at 6988 [6], 36.521-1 at 5724 [8] and 36.133 at 5545 [10] are all in the top ten. Anybody who assumes the 36 series is frozen will misread a RAN2 or RAN4 agenda.

The architecture documents are not here at all. Neither TS 38.300 nor TS 38.401 appears in this ranking. The descriptions of how the system works are changed, but an order of magnitude less often than the numbers.

10.4 The 4G and 5G pairs, side by side

Three documents in the table have an equivalent in the other generation, and comparing the pairs is the clearest picture of where effort sits.

Subject 5G document 4G document
radio resource management requirements TS 38.133, 18987 [2] TS 36.133, 5545 [10]
radio connection protocol TS 38.331, 11787 [3] TS 36.331, 6988 [6]
device radio transmission tests TS 38.521-1, 5564 [9] TS 36.521-1, 5724 [8]

Two of the three pairs run the way you would expect, with the 5G document ahead. The third does not: the 4G radio transmission test document has more documents against it than the 5G one.

These are cumulative totals over the life of each document, not a rate, so a document that has existed for longer has had longer to collect them. The record gives the totals and nothing about when they arrived.

10.5 What a RAN meeting is actually made of

Change requests are not the commonest thing at a RAN meeting. 190421 documents are change requests [12] and 257341 are marked simply "discussion" [13] — more than all the change requests together.

Around those sit the intermediate forms: 40530 drafts of change requests [14] and 23061 changes to draft study reports [15].

And the plenary does not approve change requests one by one. It approves them in bundles: 7012 documents are change request packs [16].

That is the real shape of the process. Argue in a discussion paper, propose in a draft, agree in a change request, and be approved inside a pack somebody else assembled.

10.6 Two real change requests

R4-2605235 is a change request from Nokia, agreed at RAN4#119, whose whole job is to introduce radio band n115 into the base station test document TS 38.141-1.

It is a good example of the commonest kind of RAN change: not a new mechanism, but a new entry in a table of bands, in one document, in one group, agreed in one meeting.

R3-261019 is a change request against the architecture description TS 38.401, introducing self-organising network enhancements. Its author field lists seven companies together, and its status in the database is "revised" — the version that was tabled was replaced during the meeting.

10.7 Why a document changes at all

Once a specification is published there is exactly one way to alter it: a change request. Nothing else counts, and a corrected sentence in a mailing list has no standing.

That is why the counts here are so large. Every band, every correction, every clarification, every new feature that touches an existing document arrives as a separate numbered paper with its own author, its own status and its own place in a meeting agenda.

How a change request comes to exist, and what happens to it between a working group and the plenary, is How a radio feature travels from a question to a rule.

10.8 Where this meets the rest of the course

Which group owns each document in the table is The six working groups, and where the line between them runs; how the numbering works is The specification families, and what a number tells you.

Why the test documents sit so high, and why the tests are written by a group that does not write the requirements, is Conformance testing, and why a separate group writes the exam.

Where the numbers in this chapter come from

  1. 243160 RAN documents name a specification they change rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a non-empty crspec column and a RAN document number, read 2026-08-04
  2. 18987 RAN documents change 38.133 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  3. 11787 RAN documents change 38.331 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  4. 9008 RAN documents change 38.101-1 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  5. 8655 RAN documents change 38.523-1 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  6. 6988 RAN documents change 36.331 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  7. 6735 RAN documents change 38.533 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  8. 5724 RAN documents change 36.521-1 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  9. 5564 RAN documents change 38.521-1 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  10. 5545 RAN documents change 36.133 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  11. 5520 RAN documents change 38.508-1 rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite with a RAN document number, grouped on the crspec column after trimming spaces, read 2026-08-04
  12. 190421 RAN meeting documents of type 'CR' rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite where tdoctype='CR' and the number starts with a RAN prefix, read 2026-08-04
  13. 257341 RAN meeting documents of type 'discussion' rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite where tdoctype='discussion' and the number starts with a RAN prefix, read 2026-08-04
  14. 40530 RAN meeting documents of type 'draftCR' rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite where tdoctype='draftCR' and the number starts with a RAN prefix, read 2026-08-04
  15. 23061 RAN meeting documents of type 'pCR' rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite where tdoctype='pCR' and the number starts with a RAN prefix, read 2026-08-04
  16. 7012 RAN meeting documents of type 'CR pack' rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite where tdoctype='CR pack' and the number starts with a RAN prefix, read 2026-08-04

Every source this course is built on

Check yourself

Answers appear when you pick one, with where they come from.

Q10.1 Which RAN document has the most documents changing it?

Q10.2 What is the commonest kind of document at a RAN meeting?

Q10.3 How does the plenary approve change requests?

Q10.4 Which is changed more often, the 5G radio connection protocol or its 4G equivalent?

Q10.5 What does R4-2605235 do?

This chapter was written against TS 38.300 version 19.3.0, and built from a source register generated 2026-08-04. A newer version of the document may say something else.