4 Overview

38.523-13GPP5GSPart 1: ProtocolRelease 17TSUser Equipment (UE) conformance specification

4.1 Test methodology

4.1.1 Testing of optional functions and procedures

Any function or procedure which is optional, as indicated in the present document may be subject to a conformance test if it is implemented in the UE.

A declaration by the apparatus supplier (ICS) is used to determine whether an optional function/procedure has been implemented.

4.1.2 Test interfaces and facilities

Detailed descriptions of the UE test interfaces and special facilities for testing are provided in TS 38.509 [6].

4.2 Implicit testing

For some 3GPP signalling and protocol features conformance is not verified explicitly in the present document. This does not imply that correct functioning of these features is not essential, but that these are implicitly tested to a sufficient degree in other tests.

Implicit testing of 5GS requirements may be done also in tests specified in other 3GPP conformance test specifications. For clarity these are listed below:

– Indication for support of EN-DC: if the UE supports E-UTRA-NR dual connectivity, then the UE shall set the DCNR bit to "dual connectivity with NR supported" in the UE network capability IE of the ATTACH REQUEST/TRACKING AREA UPDATE REQUEST message; verified implicitly (the setting of the DCNR bit to 1) by tests specified in TS 36.523-1 [13].

NOTE 1: It is assumed that an UE supporting EN-DC will support EPS (legacy LTE) and therefore it will be tested against all relevant legacy LTE tests.

4.3 Repetition of tests

As a general rule, the test cases specified in the present document are highly reproducible and don’t need to be repeated unless otherwise stated. However, the rate of correct UE behaviour such as cell re-selection, measurement and handover is specified statistically, e.g. "at least 90%" [8], [9]. Additionally, in some of the test cases, presented in TS 38.523-3 [3], HARQ retransmissions are not tolerated, because of characteristics of the test case. In such cases a repetition of test may be required. Details are FFS.

4.4 Handling of differences between conformance requirements in different releases of core specifications

The conformance requirements which determine the scope of each test case are explicitly copy-pasted from relevant core specifications in the especially dedicated for this clause of each test with the title ‘Conformance requirements’.

NOTE: When in the copy/pasted text there are references to other specifications the reference numbers will not match the reference numbers used in the present document. This approach has been taken in order to allow easy copy and then search for conformance requirements in those specifications.

When differences between conformance requirements in different releases of the cores specifications have impact on the Pre-test conditions, Test procedure sequence or/and the Specific message contents, the Conformance requirements related to different releases are specified separately with clear indication of the Release of the spec from which they were copied.

When there is no Release indicated for a conformance requirement text, this should be understood either as the Conformance requirements in the latest version of the spec with release = the TC Applicability release (which can be found in the column ‘Release’ for the relevant for the test case entry in the tables in TS 38.523-2 [2], subclause 4.1, or, as the Conformance requirements in the latest version of the spec of the release when the feature was introduced to the core specs.