7 How to follow TSG RAN yourself, and what the record will not tell you

7.1 The rhythm to put in your calendar

RAN runs on a quarterly beat, and once you know it the paper stops arriving as a surprise.

The plenary meets four times a year, usually for four days. The recorded dates are 2025-06-09, 2025-09-15, 2025-12-08, 2026-03-09 and 2026-06-08 3GPPRAN#108 3GPPRAN#109 3GPPRAN#110 3GPPRAN#111 3GPPRAN#112.

The next two are already booked: Madrid on 2026-09-14 and Boston on 2026-12-07 3GPPRAN#113 3GPPRAN#114.

The five open working groups meet in the same week, in the same place, for five days. All five met from 2026-05-18 to 2026-05-22 in China 3GPPRAN1#125 3GPPRAN2#134 3GPPRAN3#132 3GPPRAN4#119 3GPPRAN5#111.

Between two of those weeks there is an extra one, written "bis". RAN1, RAN2, RAN3 and RAN4 all met again from 2026-04-13 in Saint Julian's 3GPPRAN1#124-bis 3GPPRAN2#133-bis 3GPPRAN3#131-bis 3GPPRAN4#118-bis.

RAN5 does not take it. Its meetings run 2026-02-09 and then 2026-05-18, with nothing in April 3GPPRAN5#110 3GPPRAN5#111.

The plenary sits a few weeks after the working-group week, so it decides on work the groups have just finished: groups on 2026-05-18, plenary on 2026-06-08 3GPPRAN1#125 3GPPRAN#112.

And RAN6 last met on 2020-10-26, for one day, by telephone 3GPPRAN6#18-Decision Teleconference.

7.2 The four documents to open at any plenary

Every meeting produces the same handful of papers, and they are the cheapest way in.

• The agenda, written by the chair — RP-260830 at RAN#112 RP-260830.

• The report of the previous meeting, written by the 3GPP secretariat — RP-260831, the draft report of RAN#111 RP-260831.

• Each group's status report — RP-260832 for RAN1, RP-260834 for RAN2 RP-260832 RP-260834.

• The equivalent one level down: a working group writes its own agenda, such as R1-2603480 for RAN1#125, and its own minutes, such as R5-261705 R1-2603480 R5-261705.

7.3 A routine that works

Four steps, once a quarter, and you will not be surprised by anything RAN does.

S1. After the working-group week, look at the agendas of the five groups. They say what each room intends to argue about, one level below the plenary R1-2603480.

S2. Before the plenary, read the group status reports. They are short, they are written to be read by people who were not there, and there is one per group RP-260832 RP-260834.

S3. At the plenary, read the agenda for what is being decided RP-260830.

S4. After the plenary, read the draft report of the previous one, which is tabled at the next meeting rather than published straight away RP-260831.

That last point catches people out: the record of a meeting arrives a quarter late, because it is a document put to the following meeting for agreement.

7.4 Where each kind of paper is addressed

Once you know the shape of an address you can go straight to a document instead of searching for it.

• A specification's information page sits on 3gpp.org, addressed by its number with the dots taken out ^[1].

• Its actual files sit in an archive folder named after the series and the number ^[2].

• The whole catalogue those pages come from is one page: the status report ^[3].

• Each group has one folder of its own on the 3GPP file server — RAN1's, for example RAN1.

• A meeting has a page on the 3GPP portal, addressed by its meeting number ^[4], and the list of that meeting's documents has an address of its own ^[5].

• A single meeting document is a zip file under its meeting's folder ^[6].

• Who has chaired a group is a page in its own right ^[7].

7.5 What the record does not tell you

This is the part to read twice, because most wrong statements about a standards group come from treating silence as evidence.

No person is named. The data carries a company or a role — "ETSI MCC", "Nokia" — and never a human being.

No reason for any decision. A status is approved, revised, noted, withdrawn or not pursued. Anything about why is invention.

No versions, no release dates, no freeze dates. There is no date a release opened or closed anywhere in this data.

No document text. Of the 1059 active RAN documents, 470 are parsed into readable text on this machine ^[8]. The rest are not, and none of RAN6's are.

No membership, no company counts, no votes. Attendance is the only people-number, and only for meetings the portal recorded one for. RAN6's teleconferences record nobody, and the register leaves the field out rather than printing a zero 3GPPRAN6#18-Decision Teleconference.

No full archive. Only 23 RAN meeting folders are mirrored here, the most recent ones ^[9].

The counts are counts of this machine. They are honest about the database and silent about the world.

The catalogue has holes. Three active rows carry no usable group at all ^[10].

7.6 Where to go from here

Three places, in the order that suits most people.

The quick-start course of this track is the same subject in four chapters and under an hour — worth handing to somebody who has to join the conversation tomorrow.

The in-depth course of this track takes the same material at working depth, mechanism by mechanism.

The document itself. TS 38.300 is short by 3GPP standards and its first clause tells you exactly what it will and will not settle §1. Every clause this course cites opens beside the text, and the course's own sources page lists every register entry it leaned on, each with the question that produced it.