Australia Issues Standards for 5G NR Mobile Equipment Air Interface

Communications Alliance of Australia revised standards on general requirements for connection to the air interface of a Telecommunications Network (AS/CA S042.1:2022) on March 8, 2022. In addition, the standard that specifies requirements for IMT-2020 Customer Equipment (AS/CA S042.5:2022) was also published by the Communications Alliance on March 8, 2022.

AS/CA standards take in account the needs of the industry and are amended accordingly to these needs based on the latest version. The AS/CA S042.1:2022 and AS/CA S042.5:2022 are intended to be mandated by a replacement of the ACMA Telecommunications (Mobile Equipment Air Interface) Technical Standard 2018 (the 2018 ACMA Standard). However, currently the 2018 ACMA Standard remains valid and will be mandatory for 12 months after the announcement on its replacement.

The AS/CA S042.1:2022 Standard applies to Customer Equipment (CE) that is designed or intended for connection to:

• Public Mobile Telecommunications Service (PMTS) and is an addressable device

• or a Satellite Service and is an addressable device

• or both

‍In the new version, the following main changes were made:

• Updated standard references in Section 3

• Added the acronyms and definitions according to the newly issued Part 5 for IMT-2020 Customer Equipment (CE)

• Applied new term ECS Access Mode instead of the STS Access Mode term

• Added the ECS requirements with device identifiers used by 5G CE

• Specified new Permanent Equipment Identifier (PEI) for 5G CE

‍The AS/CA S042.5:2022 Standard applies to IMT-2020 CE and defines the technical conditions and requirements for IMT CE that is designed or intended for use in connection with an IMT-2020 PMTS that are based on the:  

• 5G New Radio

• 5G New Radio and E-UTRA (LTE)