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Glossary

RAC (Routing Area Code) in 3GPP: meaning and where it is specified

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

At a glance

Term
RAC
Stands for
Routing Area Code
Defined in
3GPP TR 21.905 V19.2.0, clause 4
Used in
TS 24.008, TS 29.274, TS 44.318

In plain words

RAC means Routing Area Code, and TS 44.318 says it "shall be included, if available in the MS.". Within the RAI field, TS 29.274 says RAC consists of 2 octets. TS 24.008 places RAC at octet 7 of the Routing area identification IE.

Source: 3GPP TS 44.318 V19.0.0, clause 10.1.5.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/44_series/44.318/44318-j00.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 44.318 V19.0.0, clause 10.1.5.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/44_series/44.318/44318-j00.zip
  3. 3GPP TS 29.274 V20.0.0, clause 8.21.3. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/29_series/29.274/29274-k00.zip
  4. 3GPP TS 24.008 V17.9.0, clause 10.5.5.15. © 3GPP Organizational Partners (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC). Official text: https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/24_series/24.008/24008-h90.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.