The 111th plenary meeting of the 3GPP Core Network and Terminals Technical Specification Group (TSG CT) was recently held in Fukuoka, Japan. During the meeting, the project "Study on 6G System Resilience and Reliability," led by China Telecom, was successfully approved and established. The project is spearheaded by Liu Liu, a young backbone member born in the 1990s from the Core Network Technology Research Institute of China Telecom, serving as the rapporteur. This marks China Telecom's first 6G network standard project in the 3GPP CT domain and is one of the first four 6G projects approved at this meeting.
Network resilience and reliability are critical to the deployment and operation of carrier networks. In recent years, global telecommunications network outages have frequently occurred. As 6G evolves toward complex scenarios such as artificial intelligence, integrated sensing and communication, and space-air-ground integration, the core network, as the central hub, directly impacts the service capabilities and operational stability of 6G networks. Therefore, research on core network resilience and reliability has become a key focus in 6G technology development and standardization.
The newly approved project will address the reliability risks and challenges posed by new 6G technologies and scenarios. It will systematically study mechanisms and processes for achieving highly reliable 6G core networks, focusing on three core technical directions: first, optimizing technical solutions to reduce the probability of network outages and enhancing the network's resilience from the source; second, researching mechanisms to minimize the impact of faults and reduce the disruption caused by network anomalies to services; and third, building a rapid network recovery system to enable efficient restoration after failures. Additionally, the project will explore new methods for enhancing network reliability through the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.