3GPP Architecture Explorer

June 10, 2026 · View on GitHub

An interactive, Obsidian-graph-view-style explorer for the complete 3GPP network architecture — 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G and IMS, up to Release-17.

Network elements (MSC, SGSN, MME, AMF, CSCF, …) are nodes; 3GPP reference points (N2, S11, Gx, Mw, …) are edges. Click anything to see what it is, which generations it belongs to, which protocols it speaks, and deep links into the official 3GPP specifications. Filter by generation or domain, search across names, aliases and reference points, and drag the physics around.

Built as a living companion to the 3GPP Overall Architecture and Specifications diagram.

Features

  • Force-directed graph (Canvas 2D + d3-force) with per-domain gravity anchors, so CS / EPC / 5GC / IMS clusters stay legible
  • Hover highlights a node's neighborhood and shows its reference points; click opens a detail panel with descriptions, generation badges, spec links and a clickable interfaces table for hop-by-hop exploration
  • Generation checkboxes (2G/3G/4G/5G/IMS) with set semantics — HSS survives when 4G is unchecked (it is also 3G+IMS), but S6a correctly disappears
  • Interactive domain legend doubles as the domain filter
  • Search with alias support (P-GW finds the PDN Gateway) and reference points (N4 finds SMF↔UPF)
  • URL deep links: ?node=amf, ?edge=n11
  • Display & Forces sliders (Obsidian-style), persisted locally
  • Double-click a node for focus mode (local graph); Esc backs out progressively

Development

Requires Node 24+.

npm install
npm run dev        # local dev server
npm run check      # typecheck + lint + tests + dataset validation
npm run build      # production build (dist/)
npm run preview    # serve the build with the production base path
npm run test:e2e   # Playwright smoke test (after build)

Dataset

The dataset lives in src/data/graph.json and is hand-curated — validated at startup and in CI by the Zod schema in src/data/schema.ts (referential integrity, generation sets, spec number format). To propose a change, edit the JSON and run npm run validate:data.

The initial dataset was machine-extracted from the source diagram's PPTX (reference/extracted-inventory.json, scripts/extract-draft.ts) and then enriched and verified against the rendered diagram domain by domain.

License

  • Code: MIT
  • Dataset & diagram-derived content: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, attribution: "3GPP Overall Architecture and Specifications" © Muneaki Ogawa