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Glossary

DCI (Downlink Control Information) in 3GPP: meaning and where it is specified

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

At a glance

Term
DCI
Stands for
Downlink Control Information
Defined in
3GPP TR 21.905 V19.2.0, clause 4
Used in
TS 36.212, TS 36.523-3, TS 38.212

In plain words

DCI means Downlink Control Information, a vocabulary term in 3GPP TR 21.905. In TS 36.212, it "transports downlink or uplink scheduling information for one cell and one RNTI." TS 38.212 says a DCI transports downlink control information for one or more cells with one RNTI. TS 36.523-3 notes that for DCI format 1C, the first RB index has no meaning since distributed virtual resource blocks are assigned in this case.

Source: 3GPP TS 36.212 V19.3.0, clause 6.4.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/36_series/36.212/36212-j30.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 36.212 V19.3.0, clause 6.4.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/36_series/36.212/36212-j30.zip
  3. 3GPP TS 38.212 V19.4.0, clause 7.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/38_series/38.212/38212-j40.zip
  4. 3GPP TS 36.523-3 V19.1.0, clause D.1.3.4. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/36_series/36.523-3/36523-3-j10.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.