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

The group and its six parts · chapter 3 of 16 · 7 minutes

3 What the numbers say about the size and shape of each group

Documents, meeting paper and people in the room, group by group — and the three different pictures they give.

3.1 Three different questions, three different answers

"How big is this group?" has no single answer, and the three obvious ways of asking it put the groups in three different orders.

Count the documents a group owns and RAN4 wins by a mile. Count the paper filed at meetings and RAN4 still wins, but barely. Count the people in the room and RAN1 wins, by a lot.

Each of those is a real measure of something different: how much of the standard a group is responsible for, how much argument it is currently having, and how many organisations think the argument matters enough to send somebody.

3.2 Documents owned

Group Active Specifications Study reports
RAN4 427 [1] 75 [2] 352 [3]
RAN3 168 [4] 106 [5] 62 [6]
RAN5 84 [7] 72 [8] 12 [9]
RAN1 66 [10] 15 [11] 51 [12]
RAN2 62 [13] 32 [14] 30 [15]
RAN6 54 [16] 47 [17] 7 [18]
plenary 198 [19] 90 [20] 108 [21]

Every figure in that table is a row count in the local specification catalogue on 4 August 2026, and each one links to the question that produced it.

Two things in that table are worth stopping on.

RAN4 is not mostly rules. 352 of its 427 documents are study reports [3] — homework a group did before deciding something, kept afterwards because it explains why a number is what it is. RAN1 has the same shape: 51 of 66 are study reports [12].

RAN5 is the opposite. 72 of its 84 are specifications [8]. A test case is a rule or it is nothing; there is very little to study.

3.3 The 38 series, split by owner

The 38 series is the set of numbers given to the 5G radio, and it holds 264 active documents [22].

RAN4 owns 138 of them [23] — more than RAN1's 34 [24], RAN2's 22 [25] and RAN3's 35 [26] put together.

RAN5 has 23 [27], the plenary 10 [28] and RAN6 none at all [29].

Those seven owners do not account for every one of the 264. The local record does not say who owns the rest, and this course does not guess.

3.4 Meeting paper filed

Group Meeting documents in the local database
RAN4 206017 [30]
RAN1 177799 [31]
RAN2 175440 [32]
RAN5 99770 [33]
RAN3 96152 [34]
plenary 55270 [35]
RAN6 1115 [36]

Again by row count, on the same day, this time in the meeting-document table.

The order changes. RAN3, third by documents owned, is fifth by paper filed. RAN1, fourth by documents owned, is second by paper filed. RAN5 moves up one place.

Owning a lot of documents and arguing about them a lot are plainly not the same thing. RAN1 holds 66 documents and has filed 177799 papers about them; RAN3 holds 168 and has filed 96152. The record shows the gap and says nothing about why it is there.

The plenary's 55270 is the smallest of the six that still meet. It decides rather than drafts, and the documents it approves are drafted elsewhere.

RAN6's 1115 is less than a single week of RAN4 [36].

3.5 People in the room

Meeting People in the room
RAN1#125 710 [37]
RAN2#134 426 [38]
RAN#112 (plenary) 396 [39]
RAN4#119 344 [40]
RAN5#111 274 [41]
RAN3#132 202 [42]

Five of those six meetings were the same week — 18 to 22 May 2026 — so they can be compared without any allowance for season. The plenary's figure is from its own meeting three weeks later.

RAN1 is the biggest room in RAN, and it is not close: 710 people, against 426 for the next largest working group.

The plenary at 396 is smaller than RAN1. That is worth holding on to, because it contradicts the usual mental picture of a hierarchy widening downwards. The body that decides is smaller than the body that drafts the air interface.

3.6 The heaviest week

The busiest single meeting in this record is RAN4#118, in February 2026: 3141 documents in five days 3GPPRAN4#118.

For scale, the same week's RAN1 meeting had 1744 documents 3GPPRAN1#124 and its RAN2 meeting 1324 3GPPRAN2#133. The plenary that quarter carried 827 3GPPRAN#111.

RAN4's next meeting, in May 2026, carried 2800 3GPPRAN4#119, and the extra week in between carried 1952 more 3GPPRAN4#118-bis. Three RAN4 weeks in a row, each of them in the thousands.

3.7 The documents that are no longer active

A catalogue row is either active or not, and the inactive ones are worth a glance because they say something about how each group works.

Group Withdrawn documents
RAN4 31 [43]
RAN3 13 [44]
RAN2 9 [45]
RAN5 8 [46]
RAN1 6 [47]
plenary 2 [48]
RAN6 1 [49]

Every one of those figures is small against the 1059 active documents [50]. Withdrawal is rare, and it is what you would expect of a catalogue where a document that has stopped being worked on is simply left alone rather than removed.

3.8 How much of this you can actually read

Of the 1059 active RAN documents, 470 are parsed into readable text on this machine [51]. The rest are not, and none of RAN6's are.

So a search across this course's material finds those 470 documents by their words. The rest are known by their number, their title and their owner only.

3.9 Where this meets the rest of the course

Which document numbers belong to which group, and where the pattern breaks, is The specification families, and what a number tells you. Which documents attract all that meeting paper is The documents that attract the most change, and what that says.

The meeting weeks behind the attendance figures — who meets when, and why RAN5 is out of step — are The meeting rhythm — plenary, working-group week and bis.

Where the numbers in this chapter come from

  1. 427 active RAN4 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R4' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  2. 75 active RAN4 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R4', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  3. 352 active RAN4 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R4', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  4. 168 active RAN3 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R3' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  5. 106 active RAN3 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R3', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  6. 62 active RAN3 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R3', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  7. 84 active RAN5 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R5' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  8. 72 active RAN5 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R5', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  9. 12 active RAN5 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R5', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  10. 66 active RAN1 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R1' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  11. 15 active RAN1 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R1', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  12. 51 active RAN1 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R1', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  13. 62 active RAN2 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R2' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  14. 32 active RAN2 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R2', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  15. 30 active RAN2 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R2', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  16. 54 active RAN6 specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R6' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  17. 47 active RAN6 specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R6', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  18. 7 active RAN6 study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R6', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  19. 198 active RAN plenary specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='RP' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  20. 90 active RAN plenary specifications (TS) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='RP', active='yes' and type='TS', read 2026-08-04
  21. 108 active RAN plenary study reports (TR) rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='RP', active='yes' and type='TR', read 2026-08-04
  22. 264 active documents in the 38 series rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite whose number starts '38.' and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  23. 138 active 38-series documents owned by RAN4 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R4', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  24. 34 active 38-series documents owned by RAN1 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R1', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  25. 22 active 38-series documents owned by RAN2 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R2', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  26. 35 active 38-series documents owned by RAN3 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R3', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  27. 23 active 38-series documents owned by RAN5 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R5', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  28. 10 active 38-series documents owned by RAN plenary rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='RP', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  29. 0 active 38-series documents owned by RAN6 rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R6', active='yes' and the number starts '38.', read 2026-08-04
  30. 206017 RAN4 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R4-', read 2026-08-04
  31. 177799 RAN1 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R1-', read 2026-08-04
  32. 175440 RAN2 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R2-', read 2026-08-04
  33. 99770 RAN5 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R5-', read 2026-08-04
  34. 96152 RAN3 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R3-', read 2026-08-04
  35. 55270 RAN plenary meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'RP-', read 2026-08-04
  36. 1115 RAN6 meeting documents in the local database rows in the pygppe meeting-document table /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite whose document number starts 'R6-', read 2026-08-04
  37. 710 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN1#125 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN1#125 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  38. 426 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN2#134 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN2#134 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  39. 396 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN#112 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN#112 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  40. 344 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN4#119 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN4#119 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  41. 274 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN5#111 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN5#111 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  42. 202 people sat in the room at 3GPPRAN3#132 Attendeesf2f of row for 3GPPRAN3#132 in /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/portal_meetings.sqlite, read 2026-08-04
  43. 31 withdrawn RAN4 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R4' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  44. 13 withdrawn RAN3 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R3' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  45. 9 withdrawn RAN2 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R2' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  46. 8 withdrawn RAN5 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R5' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  47. 6 withdrawn RAN1 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R1' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  48. 2 withdrawn RAN plenary documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='RP' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  49. 1 withdrawn RAN6 documents rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg='R6' and active='no', read 2026-08-04
  50. 1059 active RAN specifications rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where wg is one of RP, R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 and active='yes', read 2026-08-04
  51. 470 of the 1059 active RAN specifications are parsed into text on this machine active RAN rows of the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite whose number without dots is a folder under /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/friendlyspec/json, counted 2026-08-04
  52. 3 active catalogue rows carry no usable group rows in the pygppe specification catalogue /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/spec_catalog.sqlite where active='yes' and wg is empty, '-' or '0', read 2026-08-04
  53. address of the report the whole catalogue is read from 3gpp_specs_url in /var/www/whatthespec.net/pygppe/libs/pygpp/pygpp_globals.py, 2026-08-04

Every source this course is built on

Check yourself

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

Q3.1 Which RAN group owns the most active documents?

Q3.2 Most of RAN4's active documents are of which kind?

Q3.3 Which group is the exception to that pattern?

Q3.4 Which group had the most people in the room at the meeting week of 18 May 2026?

Q3.5 What is the heaviest single meeting week in this record?

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.