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Glossary

DRX (Discontinuous Reception) in 3GPP: meaning and where it is specified

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

At a glance

Term
DRX
Stands for
Discontinuous Reception
Defined in
3GPP TR 21.905 V19.2.0, clause 4
Used in
TS 38.321, TS 43.064, TS 44.160

In plain words

DRX stands for Discontinuous Reception. TS 43.064 says DRX sleep mode shall be supported when the MS is in Packet Idle mode. TS 44.160 states: "A mobile station in MAC-Idle state may use Discontinuous Reception (DRX) to reduce its power consumption." TS 38.321 covers Cell DRX configuration, stating that Cell DRX is configured if cellDTX-DRX-ConfigType is set to drx or dtxdrx.

Source: 3GPP TS 44.160 V16.0.0, clause 5.4.1.8. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/44_series/44.160/44160-g00.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 43.064 V19.0.0, clause 6.5.10. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/43_series/43.064/43064-j00.zip
  3. 3GPP TS 44.160 V16.0.0, clause 5.4.1.8. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/44_series/44.160/44160-g00.zip
  4. 3GPP TS 38.321 V19.4.0, clause 5.34.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/38_series/38.321/38321-j40.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.