Specifications, User Guidelines & Application Notes

Specifications

The latest published reference version of the G3 Specification is available on the ITU website: https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.9903.
Please note Amendment 1 includes the hybrid profile as Annex H of G.9903.   

Members with access rights can download the latest version of the G3 Specification from this page.

The latest extension to the G3 specification is support for batter-powered devices. The beta version of this companion specification is available for members of the G3-Alliance. It will be finalized after the upcoming plugfests and subsequently integrated in the G3 specification.

Companion specification Battery-powered Leaf Nodes

The reference version for the current G3-Alliance Certification version 7, for the following four certification profiles,
A: ‘CENELEC A’ (PHY, MAC, 6LoWPAN for CENELEC A)
C: ‘FCC Multipurpose Worldwide’ (PHY, MAC, 6LoWPAN for FCC)
D: ‘CENELEC B’ (PHY, MAC, 6LoWPAN for CENELEC B)
E: ‘ARIB (Japan)’, PHY/MAC/6LoWPAN

is: ITU G.9903 (08-2017) including Amendment 1 (05/21), Amendment 2 (03/23) and Corrigendum 1 (03/23) as published on https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.9903 , plus the following three changes:
– HYB_C_067: Clarification on Media Probing for PLC with valid tone-map
– HYB_C_068: Guard time for broadcast and slot alignment
– HYB_C_069: 802.15.4 Cor1 Reference.

The reference version for Certification Profile B ‘(PHY, MAC, 6LoWPAN (excluding routing), IPv6, UDP for Japan Route B, ARIB (defined in the JJ300.11 referencing ITU G9903)’ is Recommendation ITU-T G.9903 (05-2013) plus the following five changes:
– CCTT_121: Correction of Beacon payload encoding
– CCTT_122: Japan HEMS requirements for ID_S and ID_P
– ETT_DLL30 and ETT_DLL32: Routing disabling
– ETT_PHY14: Interleaver fix (conditional swapping)
– CCTT_171: Implementation of MAC security solution F2.

The latest version of the G3 Specification can be downloaded by members via the following links:

G3-Alliance-g3-alliance-specifications-cenelec-arib-fcc-revision-2022-final_clean

G3-alliance-g3-alliance-specifications-cenelec-arib-fcc-revision-2022-final with-track-changes

If you have any questions regarding the G3 specification, please contact generalsecretary@g3-alliance.com

User Guidelines

To help adopters properly integrate the G3 protocol stack in products and systems a set of user guidelines has been developed. Several user guidelines are already available, others are still under development and will be published later.

User guidelines developed or under development so far are the following:

1. PLC introduction for non-experts

Executive Summary
This paper is an introductory document to the G3 technology and precedes a series of user guidelines published by the G3-Alliance, intended to help end-users and manufacturers in implementing and deploying G3 products
In this document, the G3 protocol stack and its main characteristics will be briefly presented as well as an introduction to the G3-Alliance and its certification program.

3. Bootstrapping guidelines

Executive Summary
This paper reminds the principles of the bootstrapping mechanism, as described in G3 Specifications, which applies for both G3-PLC and G3-Hybrid solutions. Yet, designing the way higher layers (a local data collection node – e.g. the data concentrator – and/or the Head-End System) interact with the bootstrapping procedure and the higher layers, which are out of scope of the G3 Specifications, may affect general performances. Therefore, this document provides guidance to prevent implementers from encountering typical shortcomings.

4. IPv6 route establishment guidelines

Executive Summary
By design the G3 communication stack allows native support of IPv6, which grants end-user flexibility to fulfill business requirements when choosing the appropriate higher layers (ISO/OSI transport and application layers). This key feature also secures G3 infrastructures in the long term, thanks to the scalability and future application compatibility provided by IPv6

This document provides guidelines on how to make G3-ALLIANCE devices directly accessible over IPv6, by having one node acting as an IPv6 border router. In this document, we will assume that the border is the PAN-Coordinator, which is representative of the typical use case. This document will focus on unicast routing.

Optimisations are also proposed, allowing to reduce message size by using the full potential of the IPv6 header-compression mechanism.

In an annex, fundamental concepts related to IPv6 are reminded to provide some technical basics to the reader.

The complete document is available for download here for members with access rights.

5. Security guidelines

under development

6. Attribute Usage guidelines

Executive Summary
G3 provides a significant number of attributes which may be used to tweak the G3 protocol stack behaviour to better fulfill specific use cases or to better match local particularities. Yet changing the value of an attribute or doing so for a combination of attributes can lead to sub-optimal performance and even malfunction. This document provides guidelines for the configuration of G3-ALLIANCE attributes covering physical, MAC and adaptation layers.

Executive Summary
This document provides some important considerations for G3 Certification. The objective of this document is to make manufacturers aware of certain aspects related to the G3 certification early in their product development process. When manufacturers are not aware of these aspects, it may lead to rework after the manufacturers came to the test laboratories for certification.

The complete document is available for download here for members with access rights.

9. Added Value Services

Executive Summary
This paper shows how G3-Alliance solutions can be used to generate added value services for grid operation beyond the basic communication functions they have been designed for. More specifically, this document shows how G3 technologies can help grid operators to detect power outages, to enhance knowledge phase attachment of devices (e.g. smart meters) or grid cartography. Both G3-PLC and G3-Hybrid are considered.

The complete document is available for download here for members with access rights.

Application notes

1. Connecting mains-powered single-hop G3 devices to a gateway

Executive Summary
For some use cases, it is desirable that so called single-hop G3 devices shall establish a direct connection to a specific gateway. This architecture is typical when connecting in-home displays located inside a single household, when connecting prepayment terminals or when connecting water, gas or other electricity meters to a specific gateway. The aim of this Application Note is to outline the mechanisms that need to be put in place to achieve the desired functionality in this architecture.