Unpacking 3GPP standards
`
`Justus Baron
`
`Northwestern University
`
`Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth
`
`and
`
`Kirti Gupta
`
`Qualcomm Economics and Strategy
`
`and
`
`Brandon Roberts
`
`Qualcomm Inc.
`
`March 24, 2015
`
`
`
`
`
`1. Introduction
`
`Technology standards represent a set of rules and technologies adopted by a group of actors to ensure
`
`interoperability between products and services and to ensure that they meet specific industry requirements.
`
`The important role of technology standards is well understood in the Information and Communication
`
`Technology (ICT) industry, as they have been necessary for enabling mobile wireless communications, the
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`operation of the internet, etc. In many parts of the ICT industry, technology standards have traditionally
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`been defined cooperatively by governments or industry actors, working together to define technical features
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`of new products or services, within formal standard setting organizations (SSOs). As an incentive to
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`collaborate in standard setting, the participants are often allowed to seek intellectual property rights (IPR)
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`for their technical contributions and investments during the standardization process1. Specific policies are
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`set by SSOs for disclosure and licensing of such IPR, in order to enable access by all manufacturers of a
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`standard who may need a license from owners of IPR essential to the implementation of the standard.
`
`
`1 Some standards bodies produce open standards, i.e., participants forfeit their IP rights when contributing a technology into the
`standard, while others produce entirely proprietary standards, i.e., standards controlled by a single firm or a group of firms.
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`

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`Until recently, technology standards were little studied in the economic literature. Early research on
`
`technology standards was either theoretical or qualitative. Quantitative empirical research on technology
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`standards is more recent, and is still limited to date by the scarcity of available data. Yet, in recent years,
`
`standard setting and the value of standards essential patents (often referred to as SEPs) have been the focus
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`of many public policy and scholarly discussions. Several issues have been raised around standard setting,
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`and proposals abound for changes in IPR policies of standard setting organizations (SSOs), valuation
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`techniques for SEPs applied by the courts, as well as some proposed antitrust measures (FTC report (2011),
`
`Kuhn et al (2013)).
`
`Nevertheless, to date no systematic and comprehensive database on standards and the functioning of SSOs
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`is available for analyzing these issues empirically. The policy debate is therefore to a large extent based on
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`economic theory and anecdotal evidence. In consequence, many proposed reforms have been criticized as
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`being at odds with the complex institutional and technological realities of standard setting. Existing
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`empirical research has shed some light on standard setting processes at several SSOs (e.g. Leiponen, 2008;
`
`Simcoe, 2012). An important insight from existing research is that “one size fits all” insights and policy
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`recommendations may not be appropriate for SSOs. Caution is warranted when drawing general
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`conclusions from the empirical evidence, because economic effects of standardization processes and the
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`incentives of the participating parties depend upon the complex institutional setting of SSOs, which differs
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`from one organization to another.
`
`We therefore believe that a deep dive in the institutional understanding of specific SSOs along with the
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`relevant data collected from these SSOs may help in significantly advancing the literature on standard
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`setting. Detailed studies focusing on selected important SSOs can reveal how and why firms participate in
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`a specific standard setting process, how participating in this process affects the participating firms and
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`whether or how much participation in these SSOs enables coordination of R&D and knowledge sharing.
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`Careful empirical analysis of selected standardization processes can furthermore shed light on how
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`technical contributions and the participation of specific actors determine the success of the resulting
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`standards. Ultimately, such analysis can provide a solid basis for informed policy making for these
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`important institutions.
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`The purpose of this paper is to provide an institutional background and an overview of a comprehensive
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`data-set on the standard setting process for widely adopted and successful 3G and 4G wireless cellular
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`standards defined by the third generation partnership project (3GPP), a consortia of seven SSOs. We
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`selected 3GPP for our study, because several of the issues being raised with respect to standards have
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`

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`been related to the wireless communications standards developed at this organization2. For example, many
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`SEPs are declared to the seven member SSOs of 3GPP, inducing some observers to caution that 3G telecom
`
`standards are subject to “too many SEPs” (Lemley and Shapiro (2007)). It is however important to also
`
`consider the number of technical specifications, features and contributions in order to put the number of
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`SEPs into context. Another concern has been the possibility of the larger incumbent firms participating in
`
`the standards potentially controlling the standard setting process to push their proprietary solutions into the
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`standard (Bekkers et al (2013)). Detailed data on submitted technical proposals by different firms and their
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`final outcomes, i.e., the rate of acceptance or rejection of technical proposals by differently situated firms,
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`may help in shedding light on the fairness of the standard setting process.
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`The interest in 3GPP is unsurprising, given the enormous success enjoyed by the standards developed at
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`3GPP, and the enormous global economic impact they have generated. According to one estimate, the
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`mobile value chain generated almost $3.3 trillion in revenue globally in 2014 and is directly responsible for
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`11 million jobs, and one of the major drivers of this impact are identified as the 3G and 4G wireless cellular
`
`standards defined by 3GPP3.
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`This paper reflects a large data collection effort for unpacking the details of 3GPP standards from
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`thousands of documents collected from the SSO’s archives, such as meeting records, membership records,
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`specifications, and technical contributions. Our goal is to further the understanding of the standard setting
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`process, and share some preliminary insights from the data on 3GPP standards. We also hope that this
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`data-set will also serve as a template for the generation of other comprehensive data-sets for studying and
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`unpacking other SSOs.
`
`The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents a survey of the literature on technology
`
`standards, with a focus on studies of single SSOs. A comprehensive analysis of a single SSO involves
`
`collecting data on various aspects of that SSO, requiring to first understand the institutional structure of
`
`that SSO. Therefore, Section 3 provides a historical overview of the formation of 3GPP and the 3G and
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`4G standards under discussion. Section 4 discusses the organization structure, rules, and procedures
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`followed by 3GPP for the development of standards. After we assembled several data files via web-
`
`
`2 See Farrell, J., Hayes, J., Shapiro, C., & Sullivan, T. (2007). Standard setting, patents, and hold-up. Antitrust Law Journal, 603-
`670.; Bekkers, R., & West, J. (2009). The limits to IPR standardization policies as evidenced by strategic patenting in UMTS.
`Telecommunications Policy, 33(1), 80-97.; Bekkers, R., Bongard, R., & Nuvolari, A. (2011). An empirical study on the
`determinants of essential patent claims in compatibility standards. Research Policy, 40(7), 1001-1015.; Bekkers, R., Bongard, R.,
`& Nuvolari, A. (2009, September). Essential patents in industry standards: The case of UMTS. In Proceedings of the 6th
`international conference on Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology (SIIT 2009) (pp. 8-10).
`3 See, Julio Bezerra, et al., The Mobile Revolution: How Mobile Technologies Drive a Trillion-Dollar Impact, Boston Consulting
`Group (January 15, 2015), at pg. 28, available at
`https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/telecommunications_technology_business_transformation_mobile_revolution/.
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`scraping and downloading, we collated the files, cleaned the data and standardized firm names across files
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`to generate a comprehensive data-set that we organize into five major categories: membership, attendance,
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`contributions, change requests, and technical specifications. Section 5 presents the data on various aspects
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`of 3GPP standards. Section 6 concludes with some immediate insights and potential future research
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`questions that this data-set may help answering.
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`2. Literature Review
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`While a substantial economic literature has studied technology standards, the specific institutions in which
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`consensus standard setting takes place have only recently become a topic for economic analysis. Farrell and
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`Simcoe (2012) analyze the efficiency of alternative decision rules in standard setting organizations (SSO).
`
`Lerner and Tirole (2006) and Chiao et al. (2007) describe the rules and membership composition of SSOs
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`as endogenous to competition in the market for technologies, and in particular so-called forum shopping by
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`the holders of patented technologies.
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`Empirical evidence to support economic theories on consensus standardization in SSOs is scarce. There are
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`currently only very few studies comparing larger samples of SSOs with respect to their membership,
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`procedures and output (e.g. Chiao et al., 2007; Baron et al., 2013)4. Economists have therefore used
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`practitioner surveys (Weiss and Sirbu, 1990; Blind and Thumm, 2004; Blind and Mangelsdorf, 2013) or
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`companies' business communications (Aggarwal et al., 2011) to study SSO standardization. The most
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`frequent approach is to use data on declared SEPs, which is available from SSO websites and can be
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`matched with patent databases that are widely used in empirical economic research (e.g. Rysman and
`
`Simcoe (2008); Gupta and Snyder (2014))5. There is however still a lack of understanding how SSOs work,
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`how standards are developed, and what the role and incentives of member companies and technology
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`contributors are. A balanced and sound analysis of SSO policies and the role of SEPs requires a solid
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`understanding of how SSOs function as economic institutions.
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`Detailed case studies of single organizations are an essential contribution to a better understanding of SSO
`
`standardization. A number of qualitative case studies first shed light on the economic incentives and
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`strategic behavior of SSO members. Besen and Johnson (1986) and Farrell and Shapiro (1992) studied the
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`dynamics of standard adoption, standards competition and vested interests of participating firms in the
`
`development of television standards by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Comparing two
`
`standardization projects at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and at X3, Lehr
`
`
`4 see Baron and Spulber (2015) for a discussion and a new database.
`5 see Baron and Pohlmann (2015) for a survey, methodological discussion and presentation of a new compilation of SEP
`declarations data.
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`

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`(1996) studies the effect of SSO rules on cooperation among SSO members and firm preferences for a
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`standardization venue. Bekkers (2001) studies three important standard setting projects at the European
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`Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), and documents the increasing importance of SEPs.
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`DeLacey et al. (2006) compare the standard setting processes at the IEEE 802.11 working group and the
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`development of DSL telephony standards and describe the important role of participating companies' vested
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`interests and SSO rules. Blind (2011) analyzes the competition between ODF and OOXML document
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`standards at the International Standards Organization (ISO).
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`A number of SSOs also provide procedural data on their websites that can be used for quantitative economic
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`research. Two SSOs have been analyzed in a larger number of case studies: the Internet Engineering Task
`
`Force (IETF) and 3GPP. Using data on IETF meeting attendance, authorship of Requests for Changes
`
`(RFC), and working group chairmanships, Fleming and Waguespack (2009) investigate the effect of
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`participation in standard setting by start-up companies on the chances of a public offering. Simcoe (2012)
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`studies the effect of the composition of IETF working groups (i.e. the group working together on a RFC)
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`on the time that it takes to process the RFC and on measures of quality and success of the resulting standard.
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`Wen et al. (2014) study the effect of RFC releases on firms attending IETF meetings, distinguishing
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`between RFCs contributed by firm employees and academics.
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`Using data on 3GPP work items and consortia related to 3GPP, Leiponen (2008) analyzes the effect of firm
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`alliances on the likelihood that a firm's change requests are accepted. Using attendance data for 3GPP
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`meetings from 1999 to 2009, Bekkers and Kang (2013) and Kang and Motohashi (2015) match the name
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`of the individual attendees with inventors listed on SEPs to study the relationship between meeting
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`attendance and patenting. Baron et al. (2014) use data on 3GPP meeting attendance and authorship of
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`change requests to investigate the effect of participation in standardization on firm productivity.
`
`In addition, more limited procedural data has been used in studies on a number of other SSOs. Rosenkopf
`
`et al. (2001) use attendance data for meetings at the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) to
`
`study the effect of joint meeting attendance on alliance formation. Also using TIA meeting attendance data,
`
`Gandal et al. (2004) study the relationship between patenting and standardization strategies in the modem
`
`industry. Cohen-Meidan (2007) uses data on membership in the IEEE 802.14 committee and a competing
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`informal consortium to study the effect of competing standards on firm valuation. Wakke and Blind (2012)
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`use the number of seats that a firm holds in the German national standards body DIN to measure the effect
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`of participation in standardization on a firm's productivity. Ranganathan and Rosenkopf (2014) collect data
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`on firm votes on 242 ballots held at the International Committee for Information Technology Standards
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`(INCITS) to analyze the effects of R&D and commercialization alliances on the likelihood that a firm
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`supports another firm's proposal6.
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`The existing literature of quantitative SSO case studies is summarized in Table 1. It is apparent from this
`
`table that the different papers not only study different research questions, but also analyze different
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`organizations and different variables. Meeting attendance is the only variable that has been studied for more
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`than three different SSOs. Furthermore, many of the papers only study selected working groups at the
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`different SSOs of interest, and all papers observe an SSO over a limited period of time. E.g. Leiponen
`
`(2008) and Bar and Leiponen (2014) use attendance data for 3GPP meetings held from 2000 to 2003,
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`whereas Baron et al. (2014) analyze 3GPP attendance data for the period from 2004 to 2013. Finally, only
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`the coded data used in Simcoe (2012) are currently available on the author's website, and all the different
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`authors of the papers we surveyed manually coded their own data. This lack of a consistency between data
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`sets being used makes it very difficult to compare the results from different studies.
`
`Table 1: Overview of the reviewed quantitative case studies on SSOs7
`
`SSO
`
`Members
`
`Meeting
`
`Standards,
`
`Proposals,
`
`Collaboration
`
`Leadership;
`
`Attendance
`
`Releases
`
`Votes
`
`on work items
`
`Chairmen
`
`BK2013
`
`BK2013
`
`
`
`L2008
`
`L2008
`
`
`
`KM2015
`
`KM2015
`
`BGS2015
`
`BL2014
`
`BGS2015
`
`FW2009
`
`S2012
`
`FW2009
`
`S2012
`
`WFJ2014
`
`WFJ2014
`
`S2012
`
`FW2009
`
`S2012
`
`RMG2001
`
`GGG2004
`
`RR2014
`
`CM2007
`
`WB2012
`
`
`
`
`
`WFJ2014
`
`
`
`RR2014
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`3GPP
`
`IETF
`
`TIA
`
`INCITS
`
`IEEE
`
`DIN
`
`
`
`
`6They also use meeting attendance as control variable.
`7 RMG2001 = Rosenkopf, Metiu, and George (2001); GGG2004 = Gandal, Gantman, and Genesove (2004); CM2007 = Cohen-
`Meidan (2007)L2008 = Leiponen (2008); FW2009 = Fleming and Waguespack (2009); S2012 = Simcoe (2012); WB2012 = Wakke
`and Blind (2012); BK2013 = Beckers and Kang, 2013; RR2014 = Ranganathan and Rosenkopf (2014); WFJ2014 = Wen, Forman,
`and Jarvenpaa (2014); KM2015 = Kang and Motohashi (2015).; BGS2015 = Baron, Gupta & Spulber (2015);
`
`

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`The increasing number of quantitative case studies of SSOs yielded valuable insights on the standardization
`
`procedures at particular organizations, and also provided first evidence for more general economic research
`
`questions on standardization. Nevertheless, in order to make significant progress, it is necessary to create
`
`comprehensive and standardized databases covering all the important procedural data from a particular
`
`SSO, and to make this data widely available to other researchers. Studies using these data can be directly
`
`compared with each other, and their results can be easily replicated. This is the ambition of the database on
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`3GPP described in this paper. Ideally, our efforts on 3GPP set an example and a template for similar future
`
`projects on other SSOs.
`
`Parts of the new database have been used and described in Gupta (2013) and Baron et al. (2014). The present
`
`article and database covers detailed procedural data from 3GPP, including membership, attendance,
`
`technical specifications, meeting dates, location and attendance, work items and contributions (including
`
`change requests) and contribution authorship and outcome. This comprehensive coverage of data from all
`
`institutional aspects of 3GPP is complemented by two different data-bases that include parts of data related
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`to 3GPP standards: (1) Data on membership and standard output of a large sample of SSOs, including
`
`3GPP, presented in Baron and Spulber (2015); and (2) Data on patents declared standard-essential to 3GPP
`
`technical specifications is included in Baron and Pohlmann (2015), presenting a database aggregating
`
`declarations of SEPs from multiple SSOs. These databases share a system of common identifiers and can
`
`easily be used in conjunction for research
`
`3. Historical overview
`
`Using mobile devices for connecting with anyone anywhere around the world, browsing the internet,
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`emailing, gaming, and mobile applications would not be possible without the high data rates enabled by
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`core communications technology incorporated in the wireless cellular standards.8
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`Today, a majority of wireless systems in the world have adopted the so called third-generation (3G) and
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`fourth-generation (4G) wireless cellular standards defined by 3GPP. 3GPP was formed in 1998 to develop
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`a common wireless cellular system for Europe, Asia and North America, representing a unified collection
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`of seven global telecommunications SSOs and is primarily responsible for generating the standards endorsed
`
`by the member SSOs. This section provides a brief historical overview of the evolution of wireless cellular
`
`standards and the events that led to the formation of 3GPP.
`
`
`8 Ericsson Mobility Report on the Pulse of the Networked Society, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (June 2014), pg. 16 available
`at http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2014/ericsson-mobility-report-june-2014.pdf (“The modernization was primarily driven by
`the introduction of more efficient base stations that were capable of handling multi-standard technologies such as GSM/EDGE and
`WCDMA/HSPA. By contrast, modernization in other regions was primarily driven by the introduction of LTE.”)
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`

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`The fundamental constraints on a mobile network are the allocated radio frequency spectrum and how
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`efficiently this is utilized.9 These constraints determine how many users and how much data can be
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`transmitted through the network. Without significant advancements in spectrum efficiency, activities such
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`as browsing the internet, gaming, and a rich set of applications that run on today’s smartphones would not
`
`be possible. There are other significant challenges, such as ensuring seamless communications continuity
`
`as users move rapidly, making communications power efficient without draining batteries, creating high-
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`quality codecs for audio and video transmissions, etc. All of these fundamental advances occurred during
`
`the little told technology revolution that occurred in the realm of mobile technology standards over the last
`
`few decades. This section explores a brief history of the development of these standards, starting from the
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`first-generation (1G) all the way to the current fourth-generation (4G) standards.
`
`In 1983, Motorola’s “brick phone” retailed for $3,995; this device is often cited as the introduction of the
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`first-generation (1G) cellular system, which was based on analog signals transmitting voice between cell
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`phones and radio antenna (“base stations”). The 1G systems did not enable multiple users to transmit signals
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`simultaneously, and therefore, were expensive to scale. The phones required to transmit signals to far-away
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`base stations were bulky and expensive. Additionally, the 1G systems were not designed to be compatible
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`across countries, and global roaming was non-existent. Nevertheless, the popularity of cellular
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`communications increased rapidly resulting in the need for common standards for cellular systems.
`
`By the late 1980s, the telecommunications industry was drawn to developing a common set of 2G standards
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`to improve the ability of consumers to access mobile networks. In Europe, the European Conference of
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`Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) started an effort to define a single digital 2G
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`standard for mobile communications, establishing the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication)
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`in 1987, based on a new digital signal processing technology of the time called “time division multiple
`
`access” (TDMA). At around the same time, the United States witnessed a parallel effort for the creation of
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`digital 2G standards based on a rival technology called “code division multiple access” (CDMA), which
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`claimed to offer significant performance improvements over TDMA. In 1993, the American Cellular
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`Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) issued the IS-95 (Interim Standard 95) based on CDMA.
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`The 2G systems solved several important problems for wireless communications – mobile users could roam
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`freely across the globe and still make voice calls, the efficiency of the networks increased, the size of the
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`phones shrank, and voice quality improved significantly.
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`By the late 1990s, the industry was looking toward the next (third) generation of mobile systems, which
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`would provide substantially increased data transfer rates, for going beyond voice communications and
`
`
`9 That is, the number of bits-per-second can be transmitted over the given amount of spectrum.
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`

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`delivering data based services. In order to create globally applicable standards for 3G, 3GPP was formed as
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`a unified collection of six global telecommunications SSOs known as organizational partners10. The efficient
`
`day-to-day running of 3GPP is supported by ETSI. 3GPP started working on specifications for 3G based
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`on the established GSM core networks, though incorporating an evolution of the basic CDMA technology11.
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`At the same time, another group in the US, with membership that partly overlapped with 3GPP, formed the
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`3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2), to develop rival global specifications for cdma2000, a 3G
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`evolution of CDMA based IS-95. This led to a highly public “3G standards war” between Ericsson and
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`Qualcomm, with one firm proposing an evolution of GSM and another looking for an opportunity to
`
`develop a single, global CDMA based standard12. This dispute was resolved in around 1998, but the
`
`development of two standards – in 3GPP and in 3GPP2 – continued in parallel. The most widely used 3G
`
`standard today globally is WCDMA/UMTS developed in 3GPP, although the underlying technology that
`
`enabled the commercial use of CDMA has significant commonalities.
`
`The formation of the 3G standards occurred over almost a decade through the development of numerous
`
`3GPP releases. Each release encompasses important additions and improvements to the system. Figure 1
`
`illustrates the timeline of the releases developed by 3GPP covering both 3G (release 98 - release 7) and 4G
`
`(release 8 – release 12).
`
`The high data rates that 3G technologies enable gave birth to the user experience that changed the wireless
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`communications paradigm -- mobile broadband. As soon as users could effectively browse the internet on
`
`their devices, the demand for data-rate grew exponentially. By 2008, it became clear that 3G networks
`
`would be overwhelmed by the need for faster and broader internet access, driven by a growing number of
`
`the mobile users and growth of bandwidth-intensive applications such as streaming media. Therefore, 3GPP
`
`launched into the development of 4G technologies that enable high speed data for mobile devices in 2008,
`
`under the overall standard called the Long Term Evolution (LTE).
`
`The main motivations for the development of 4G was the need for higher data-rates from consumers and
`
`desire for improved network efficiency and reduced network complexity from wireless network operators13.
`
`4G LTE uses a different radio interface technology known as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple
`
`
`10 These include: Japan’s Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB), North America’s Automatic Terminal Information
`Service (ATIS), China Communications Standards Association (CCSA), European Telecommunications Standards Institute
`(ETSI), Korea’s Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA), and Japan’s TTC (Telecommunications Technology
`Committee). In 2014, a newly formed body called the (Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India) TSDSI
`became the seventh member.
`11 The underlying 3G technology in 3GPP standards is called wideband CDMA (WCDMA), and the specifications are often
`referred to as Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS).
`12 See, http://www.ericssonhistory.com/changing-the-world/Big-bang/A-new-fight-/; Hjelm, Björn 2000 Standards and
`Intellectual Property Rights in the Age of Global Communication. http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0109/0109105.pdf.
`13 http://www.3gpp.org/technologies/keywords-acronyms/98-lte.
`
`

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`Access (OFDMA) in addition to several core network improvements to achieve its desired objectives.
`
`These technologies enabled higher spectral efficiency, higher peak data rates and increased flexibility in
`
`the frequency and bandwidth that can be leveraged by networks.
`
`Like 3G, the formation of the 4G standards occurred over several years and releases, with each release
`
`encompassing important feature additions and technological improvements.
`
`
`
`Figure 1: 3GPP Releases by Freeze Date and Technology
`
`4. The standard setting process
`
`At the highest level, the purpose of 3GPP is to prepare, approve, enhance and maintain globally applicable
`
`technical specifications for 2G, 3G & 4G wireless devices14. 3GPP is based on voluntary participation by
`
`its individual member organizations, including firms and other entities. Decisions on technical
`
`specifications result from votes open to all members. Each quarter 3GPP consolidates all the technical
`
`specifications produced by all of its working groups. This consolidated information is provided to 3GPP’s
`
`member SSOs as formal specifications15. The member SSOs then make them available to the wireless
`
`industry as a whole, at which point they are referred to as formal standards.
`
`4.1 Organizational structure
`
`These standards develop from a substantial effort and collaboration across hundreds of organizations with
`
`diverse interests and incentives. The complexity of the objectives necessitates a high level of organization,
`
`collaboration and efficiency within 3GPP. To help achieve this, 3GPP breaks desired objectives and
`
`features into smaller and smaller pieces until a manageable and targeted goal is outlined16. The technical
`
`
`14 3GPP Partnership Project; Working Procedures (2012) http://www.3gpp.org.
`15 We refer to '3GPP members' as the individual member organizations participating in the standard development
`process, as opposed to '3GPP member SSOs' refering to the seven SSOs that together constitute 3GPP
`16 See Appendix A for excerpt from 3GPP Working Procedures at: www.3gpp.org/specifications-groups/working-procedures.
`
`

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`objectives are then assigned to one of the four main technical specification groups (TSG) that are organized
`
`around broad areas of technical expertise17. These are: RAN (Radio-Access Network) which focuses on the
`
`UTRAN and E-UTRAN specifications of the radio-physical layer interface, SA (Service and System
`
`Aspects) which focuses on the service requirements and the overall architecture of the 3GPPP system, CT
`
`(Core Network and Terminals) which focuses on the core network and terminal parts of 3GPP including
`
`the terminal layer 3 protocols and GERAN (GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network) which focuses on 2G
`
`technology including GSM radio technology, GPRS and EDGE.
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`Each TSG further breaks their assignments into specific goals known as features. Each feature is a new or
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`substantially enhanced functionality which represents added value to the existing system according to the
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`majority of 3GPP members18. A feature most commonly reflects an improved service to the end-customer
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`or increased revenue generation potential to the supplier. The features can be broken down into building
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`blocks that can in turn be organized into a number of work tasks which lead to the production of new
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`technical specifications or augment/improve existing specifications. The specific work tasks or work-items
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`are then assigned by the TSG to one of the Working Groups (WGs) that roll-up to it (see Figure 2). The
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`majority of the technical work that results in the development of technical standards occurs here in the
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`working groups. 3GPP currently has 13 working groups working on 3G and 4G standards. Each WG meets
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`6-8 times per year, with hundreds of representatives from member firms around the world, and therefore
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`the meeting locations rotate across continents.
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`The output of the WGs is then presented to the TSG at their quarterly plenary meeting for information,
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`discussion and approval. These meetings result in the final specifications provided by 3GPP to member
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`SSOs who subsequently publish them as formal standards. Each TSG meets 2 times per year at plenary
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`meetings.
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`The TSGs themselves are further governed by the Project Coordination Group (PCG), the highest decision
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`making body responsible for overall management of 3GPP technical work. The PCG ensures that the formal
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`specifications are produced in a timely manner as required by the market place, ratifies election results
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`(for the chair position of different groups within 3GPP), and allocates the resources committed to 3GPP. The
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`PCG also handles any appeals from the member organizations on procedural or technical matters. The
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`PCG meets twice per year.
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`17 http://www.3gpp.org/specifications-groups/specifications-groups
`18 See 3GPP TR 21.900 for definition.
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`Figure 2: Organizational structure of 3GPP
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`4.2 Chairmanships and the voting process
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`As in most organizations, leadership plays an important role in 3GPP. Two of the most important leadership
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`positions are the chairman and vice-chairman of a given working group (WG) or technical specification
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`group (TSG). The chairman = helps ensure that an objective and valid approach is used to determine