School of Specs Inside one plenary: TSG SA#112Overview

What it did, and what the record will not say · chapter 6 of 7 · 5 minutes

6 What the numbers say about where the work is going, and what they do not

Release 20 is being written, Release 19 finished off and Release 21 has only a timeline — plus the twelve specifications that took the most changes, and the four things these numbers cannot tell anybody.

6.1 Three releases at three different stages

A release is a numbered edition of the standard. At any one meeting several are alive at once, at different stages, and the document counts show which is which.

Release 20 is the one being written. 140 documents carry it [4], and 487 of the change requests inside packs belong to it [5].

Release 19 is being finished off. 26 documents [6] and 143 change requests [7] — plus the technical report that summarises every Release 19 feature, approved at this meeting SP-260604.

Release 21 has only a timeline so far. 11 documents carry it [8], and the timeline was not SA's own decision.

The plenary also set itself a date to look again at where the split between the radio side and the core side should fall.

6.2 Old releases are still being repaired

Frozen releases do not stop moving. 36 change requests landed on Release 18 [9] and 7 on Release 17 [10] at this meeting alone. The plenary's own word for them is "frozen", which still takes corrections; "closed" would mean no change of any kind.

The plenary noted the principle that this ought to be rare, and said why in one sentence.

That is a rare thing in this record: a reason, written down. Most decisions in the report carry none.

6.3 Not everything belongs to a release

162 of the 346 documents [11] carry no release at all [12] — agendas, reports, liaison statements, project management.

That is a useful corrective. A plenary is not only a release machine; a large part of it is running the project.

There is a second oddity in the same direction. Release planning has its own agenda item, AI 5, and it drew three documents [13] — while 140 documents elsewhere on the agenda carry Release 20.

Whatever "release planning" is, at this meeting it was not where the releases were being worked on. The work sat under the item for new work items and study items, which drew 80 documents [14], and under the Release 20 change-request item, which drew 63 [15].

6.4 Where the changes landed

689 change requests [16] landed on 114 specifications [17]. These twelve took the most.

Specification What it is Change requests
TS 23.482 TS 23.482 architecture for the AI/ML enablement service 46
TS 23.502 TS 23.502 procedures for the 5G system 38
TS 23.369 TS 23.369 architecture for ambient power-enabled Internet of Things 33
TS 23.501 TS 23.501 system architecture for the 5G system 29
TS 28.312 TS 28.312 intent driven management services 29
TS 28.552 TS 28.552 5G performance measurements 29
TS 23.503 TS 23.503 policy and charging control framework 24
TS 23.288 TS 23.288 network data analytics 23
TS 23.228 TS 23.228 IP Multimedia Subsystem 22
TS 28.561 TS 28.561 management aspects of network digital twins 19
TS 23.433 TS 23.433 SEAL data delivery for vertical applications 18
TS 28.541 TS 28.541 5G network resource model 18

The column of names is shortened; each register entry carries the exact published title.

6.5 6G arrives as letters, not as specifications

The word 6G runs through this meeting, and almost never as a specification. It arrives as post, as naming decisions and as questions about how to write the documents at all.

  • SA WG2 wrote in on the state of the 6G architecture study SP-260372

  • NGMN wrote in on when 6G can realistically be deployed SP-260385

  • The Utility Technology Council wrote in asking that gas and water meters not be forgotten in 6G SP-260382

  • Ten public bodies wrote in asking that 6G be secure from the start; that paper was noted and its revision withdrawn SP-260584, SP-260643

Two naming decisions came out of the same stretch: the core network is to be called "6GC or 6G CN" [18], and SA WG2 was asked to develop the interface names and report back in September 2026 [19].

And the whole of agenda item 9 — 11 documents — was about how 6G specifications should be written rather than what they should say [20].

6.6 What these numbers do not say

Everything above is read out of one meeting's paperwork, and the narrative half of that paperwork is a draft marked "Status: Draft - for comment" [21].

Four limits are worth holding on to, because they are the ones people cross:

  • Nothing here says what any of this means for a network operator. No deployment dates, no product impact, no market view. It is a meeting's paperwork and nothing more.

  • Nothing here says how contested anything was. There are no vote counts and no per-company positions; one objection is named in the whole report [22].

  • Approved is not published. 26 specifications and reports were approved [23]; when any of them reached the server is not in this data.

  • Two change-request counts exist and both are honest. 689 comes from one method [16]; adding the four release counts together is another, and it comes to less. Say which one you are quoting.

Where the numbers in this chapter come from

  1. 'SP-260595 was presented in the Joint session and was agreed.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  2. 'conclusion: checkpoint in Dec.26 for RAN-CN other than connectivity services.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  3. 'Care should be taken to agree or endorse CRs against frozen releases in the working group level, especially given the existing commercial deployments.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  4. 140 documents belong to Rel-20 sqlite3 /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite "select count(*) from tdoc where meeting='SP-112' and release='Rel-20';", read 2026-08-04
  5. 487 change requests in packs belong to Rel-20 the crrelease field of every entry of the crsinpack list inside the line column of tdoc for meeting='SP-112', read 2026-08-04
  6. 26 documents belong to Rel-19 sqlite3 /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite "select count(*) from tdoc where meeting='SP-112' and release='Rel-19';", read 2026-08-04
  7. 143 change requests in packs belong to Rel-19 the crrelease field of every entry of the crsinpack list inside the line column of tdoc for meeting='SP-112', read 2026-08-04
  8. 11 documents belong to Rel-21 sqlite3 /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite "select count(*) from tdoc where meeting='SP-112' and release='Rel-21';", read 2026-08-04
  9. 36 change requests in packs belong to Rel-18 the crrelease field of every entry of the crsinpack list inside the line column of tdoc for meeting='SP-112', read 2026-08-04
  10. 7 change requests in packs belong to Rel-17 the crrelease field of every entry of the crsinpack list inside the line column of tdoc for meeting='SP-112', read 2026-08-04
  11. 346 documents at SA#112 sqlite3 /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite "select count(*) from tdoc where meeting='SP-112';", read 2026-08-04
  12. 162 documents carry no release sqlite3 /var/www/whatthespec.net/data/database/api/api.sqlite "select count(*) from tdoc where meeting='SP-112' and (release is null or release='');", read 2026-08-04
  13. Agenda item 5: Release Planning the agenda table of SP-260361_SA112_Agenda_v2.md for the wording; rows of tdoc whose ainumber starts '5' for the count, read 2026-08-04
  14. Agenda item 6: Work Item Descriptions, Study Item Descriptions, Specifications the agenda table of SP-260361_SA112_Agenda_v2.md for the wording; rows of tdoc whose ainumber starts '6' for the count, read 2026-08-04
  15. Agenda item 20: Rel-20 CRs the agenda table of SP-260361_SA112_Agenda_v2.md for the wording; rows of tdoc whose ainumber starts '20' for the count, read 2026-08-04
  16. 689 individual change requests the crspec column of every CR and CR pack row of tdoc for meeting='SP-112', split on spaces and counted. Each token is one change request against one specification, read 2026-08-04
  17. 114 specifications were changed distinct tokens of the crspec column over the same CR and CR pack rows, read 2026-08-04
  18. 'It was decided to use '6GC or 6G CN'.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  19. 'SA WG2 were asked to develop 6G interface names and naming convention, especially for RAN -CN interfaces and report to TSGs in September 2026.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  20. Agenda item 9: Study on Modernization of Specification Format and Procedures for 6G (FS_6GSpecs) the agenda table of SP-260361_SA112_Agenda_v2.md for the wording; rows of tdoc whose ainumber starts '9' for the count, read 2026-08-04
  21. SP-112 draft meeting report, version 0.0.5
  22. 'Qualcomm objected to this decision.' found character for character in SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, which is a draft and says so on its cover, read 2026-08-04
  23. 26 specifications and reports were approved the '26 Entries' line closing the matching annex table of SP-112_Draft_Report_v005.md, read 2026-08-04

Every source this course is built on

Check yourself

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

Q6.1 Which release carried the most documents at SA#112?

Q6.2 How far had Release 21 got by this meeting?

Q6.3 How many of the meeting's documents carry no release at all?

Q6.4 Which specification took the most change requests at this meeting?

Q6.5 What did the plenary note about changes to frozen releases?

This chapter was built from a source register generated 2026-08-04. A fresher build of the register may hold different numbers.