9 Security, applications, management and protocols

9.1 Four groups, four different questions

The radio and the architecture get the attention, but a feature is not shippable until four more questions have answers: is it safe, can applications use it, can an operator run and bill it, and what exactly goes on the wire.

Each belongs to a different group, each opened its own work, and all four are behind SA1 and SA2 in the queue — which is normal, because none of them can start until there is an architecture to hang off.

9.2 SA3, and what a sensing measurement is

SA3 does security and privacy. It has 227 documents across five meetings, from SA3#124 to SA3#128 SA3, all under one study, FS_Sensing_SEC ^[3].

SP-251242 opened it at SA#109 SP-251242, and the work plan entry names SA3 as leading it FS_Sensing_SEC.

Note what it is bound to: the SA2 architecture work. A security study cannot run ahead of the thing it is securing, and this one says so in its first sentence.

The report is TR 33.777, named by 226 documents, and it stands at 0.6.0 TR 33.777 — a draft. Its own scope narrows to the same slice as everything else: the security and privacy aspects of base-station sensing for aerial objects ^[4].

9.3 SA6, and the layer above the network

SA6 works above the network: the shared services an application uses, rather than the network itself. It has 284 documents across six meetings, from SA6#68 to SA6#73 SA6, and like SA1 and SA2 it ran its own study and then opened its own rule-writing on the back of it.

The study is FS_Sensing_APP, 215 documents ^[5], led by SA6 FS_Sensing_APP. The document the work plan points at is SP-251044, from SA#109, and it is a revised study item, not the one that opened the work — that one is not in this register, so nobody can name it from here SP-251044. Its objective is to look at SA1's use cases and find enhancements to SA6's own application enablement services that sensing results would make possible ^[6]. It also announced itself to the other groups by liaison, S6-254616 S6-254616.

The report is TR 23.700-15, at 20.1.0, named by 211 documents TR 23.700-15, and SP-260185 got it approved at SA#111 SP-260185. It describes itself as identifying potential enhancements to application enablement services and proposing architectural requirements, key issues and solutions ^[7].

The rule-writing is Sensing-APP, 75 documents so far ^[8], opened by SP-260317 at SA#111 SP-260317. Its objective is to develop the application enablement layer architecture and solutions concluded in the Rel-20 study ^[9].

The new specification is TS 23.138, "Use of sensing results for Vertical Applications", at 0.1.0 with 43 documents TS 23.138.

SA6 is also the group changing the most existing specifications. Five of them:

Specification	What it is for	Sensing change requests
TS 23.255 TS 23.255	drone systems	22
TS 23.437 TS 23.437	spatial maps	7
TS 23.286 TS 23.286	vehicles	3
TS 23.434 TS 23.434	on the work item's list	none yet
TS 23.436 TS 23.436	on the work item's list	none yet

The distribution is the whole story of this area in one table. The drone specification has taken more change requests than the other four together, which is what happens when a wide ambition narrows to one use case.

9.4 SA5, and running the thing

SA5 does charging and management. It has 127 documents across three meetings, from SA5#165 to SA5#167 SA5, and unusually it opened two separate studies rather than one.

• FS_Sensing_CH, charging, 67 documents ^[10], aimed at TR 28.893 FS_Sensing_CH and opened by SP-251665 at SA#110 SP-251665. Its objective starts by identifying business models and use cases for supporting sensing ^[11], which is a plain admission that nobody yet knows what is being sold. The report stands at 1.0.0 TR 28.893.

• FS_Sensing_OAM, management, 61 documents ^[12], aimed at TR 28.895 FS_Sensing_OAM and opened by SP-251668 at the same plenary SP-251668. It focuses on the management aspects after the introduction of sensing ^[13]. The report stands at 0.3.0 TR 28.895.

9.5 CT4, and the bytes

CT4 writes stage 3 for the core network: the actual messages, fields and encodings. Its involvement so far is nine documents at a single meeting, CT4#135 CT4 ^[14].

CP-261274 opened Sensing-CT at CT#112 CP-261274.

"As soon as those are available" is the honest description of stage 3 in this area. CT4 is waiting on SA2.

The work creates one specification and changes three.

• TS 29.545, "Sensing Function Services; Stage 3" — the protocol specification for the new function, at 0.1.0, with one document naming it TS 29.545.

• TS 29.510, the directory every network function registers in, so that a sensing function can be registered and found. Three change requests TS 29.510.

• TS 29.522, the interface through which outside applications talk to the network TS 29.522.

• TS 29.571, the shared data types every service-based interface uses TS 29.571.

Three work plan entries share the acronym Sensing-CT Sensing-CT Sensing-CT Sensing-CT, all described by CP-261274. That is the second of the two reasons this area counts 18 work plan entries ^[15] and 14 acronyms ^[16].

There is also a group missing from this chapter that should be in it. The CT work item names CT3 as doing half the job, but no document at a CT3 meeting carries a sensing acronym yet, so there is no CT3 entry and no count for it ^[2].

9.6 What these four have in common

Read together, the four groups in this chapter say one thing about the state of the area more clearly than any count does: everything here is downstream of SA2, and SA2 has not finished.

• SA3's study is bound to the SA2 Release 20 work by its own objective ^[1].

• SA6's rule-writing is bound to the conclusions of its own Release 20 study ^[9], which in turn sits on the architecture.

• SA5's management study is about the management aspects after the introduction of sensing ^[13] — a question that cannot be closed before there is something to manage.

• CT4 says outright that the normative work of the SA and RAN groups will be considered as soon as it is available ^[2].

That is a queue, and the front of it is TS 23.137, still at 0.3.0 TS 23.137.

9.7 Where to read the real thing

Eight documents, none of them carried here.

• TR 33.777 — security and privacy, still being written TR 33.777.

• TR 23.700-15 and TS 23.138 — the application-layer study and the specification coming out of it TR 23.700-15 TS 23.138.

• TS 23.255, TS 23.437 and TS 23.286 — the SA6 specifications actually being changed TS 23.255 TS 23.437 TS 23.286.

• TR 28.893 and TR 28.895 — charging and management TR 28.893 TR 28.895.

• TS 29.545 — the stage 3 protocol, such as there is of it yet TS 29.545.

Next, all 27 specifications in one place, with what each is for and what this work puts in it — The specifications, one at a time.