3GPP Scout / Glossary

Glossary

AMF (Authentication Management Field) in 3GPP: meaning and where it is specified

Published 2026-10-16Updated 2026-10-16

At a glance

Term
AMF
Stands for
Authentication Management Field
Defined in
3GPP TR 21.905 V19.2.0, clause 4
Used in
TS 33.102, TS 33.105, TS 33.401

In plain words

AMF means Authentication Management Field in the 3GPP vocabulary. TS 33.102 says "An authentication and key management field AMF is included in the authentication token of each authentication vector.". TS 33.105 states that AMF has a length of 16 bits. TS 33.401 says an ME accessing E-UTRAN shall check during authentication that the separation bit in AUTN’s AMF field is set to 1.

Source: 3GPP TS 33.102 V19.1.0, clause 6.3.2. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/33_series/33.102/33102-j10.zip

Sources

  1. 3GPP TR 21.905 V19.2.0, clause 4. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/21_series/21.905/21905-j20.zip
  2. 3GPP TS 33.102 V19.1.0, clause 6.3.2. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/33_series/33.102/33102-j10.zip
  3. 3GPP TS 33.105 V19.0.0, clause 5.1.7.4. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/33_series/33.105/33105-j00.zip
  4. 3GPP TS 33.401 V17.7.0, clause 6.1.1. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/33_series/33.401/33401-h70.zip

How this page was made

The facts box comes straight from the 3GPP TDoc list and specification archive as indexed by 3GPP Scout. An AI model (GPT-6 Luna) wrote the paragraph and named the source of each sentence. Code checked every quote word for word against the stored source text and every number against the cited source. A second AI model from another company (Claude Opus 5.5) reviewed the paragraph against the same sources. The 3GPP documents themselves govern.