▲Information and Communication Technology Award and Distinguished Service Award Ceremony 2024
(From the left in the back row:
Masaki Izumi, researcher of the Corporate Research and Development Group,
Yasuo Sugawara, associate manager of the Corporate Research and Development Group,
Shuichiro Chiba, researcher of the Corporate Research and Development Group.)
Sharp Corporate Research and Development Group’s Yasuo Sugawara, associate manager, Shuichiro Chiba, researcher, and Masaki Izumi, researcher, received “Distinguished Service Award” in the Information and Communications Technology Award and Distinguished Service Award Ceremony 2024 presented by the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) for their contributions to the development of standardization personnel related to 3GPP※1. The three members are members of the 3GPP Workshop. The award ceremony was held at Hotel Gajoen Tokyo (Meguro-ku, Tokyo) on June 18.
▲ “Distinguished Service Award” plaque
TTC was established to contribute to standardization in the field of information and telecommunications by creating standards related to information and telecommunications networks, as well as to promote the spread of such standards. In TTC, awards are presented annually to those who have made significant contributions to the execution of projects in line with these objectives.
The 3GPP Workshop is one of the activities of the 3GPP Working Group※2, aimed at developing young standardization personnel in 3GPP. The three awardees have been working as the 3GPP Working Group members since November 2021. In the 3GPP Workshop, they gave lectures on network slicing, which involves dividing virtual networks by user or service (the “NW Slice Workshop,” held from March to August 2022). Additionally, Chiba and Izumi made external presentations based on the results of the NW Slice Workshop at the TTC seminar. These contributions to the development of young standardization personnel were recognized, leading to the receipt of the “Distinguished Service Award.”
Sugawara has been participating in 3GPP SA2 meetings※3 since October 2019 and 3GPP CT1 meetings※4 since October 2020. He has led the team as the leader of the network team. Chiba has been participating in the 3GPP CT1 meetings since April 2021, and Izumi since August 2020. They submitted contribution documents which are technical proposals and promoted consensus building.
▲ “Distinguished Service Award” certificates
While continuing to provide industry-leading new mobile devices, Sharp has been actively engaged in research and development and patent applications related to wireless technologies and networks such as W-CDMA※5, LTE, LTE-Advanced, and 5G for over 20 years. As a result, it now holds more than 6,000 essential patents. Sharp will continue to contribute to technological innovation in the field of wireless communications, through research and development of core technologies related to wireless technologies and networks such as 5G.
- ※1
- 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) is a project to study and develop specifications for mobile communication systems dealing with 4G (4th generation mobile communication systems) and 5G (5th generation mobile communication systems) technologies. The developed specifications have been widely adopted for mobile communication systems in Japan and around the world.
- ※2
- The 3GPP Working Group consisting of TTC members shares information and exchanges opinions on 3GPP standardization, and establishes as TTC standards those specifications developed by 3GPP that are related to services, architecture, and protocols, those interfaces between the radio network and the core network that are independent of radio specifications, those interfaces between terminals and the core network, and those functions that provide IP-based multimedia services to mobile communication systems called IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem). The TTC standard includes interfaces between wireless networks and core networks that are independent of the radio specification, interfaces between terminals and core networks, and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), a function that provides IP-based multimedia services to mobile communication systems.
- ※3
- The 3GPP SA2 meeting is a working group in 3GPP that develops service requirements.
- ※4
- The 3GPP CT1 meeting is a working group in 3GPP that develops detailed protocols between terminals and core networks.
- ※5
- W-CDMA is abbreviation of Wideband Code Division Multiple Access. It is the third generation of mobile communications system technology, which has since evolved into fourth-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) and fifth-generation 5G.
The Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC)
Recipients of the 2024 "Distinguished Service Award"(Japanese)