Major mobile operators and technology partners have announced their joint support to a proposal to accelerate the Schedule for 3GPP 5G New radio (NR) standardization to meet increasing global mobile broadband needs.
The group telecom companies to support this initiative is comprised with: AT&T, NTT DOCOMO, INC., SK Telecom, Vodafone, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., British Telecom, Telstra, Korea Telecom, Intel, LG Uplus, KDDI, LG Electronics, Telia Company, Swisscom, TIM, Etisalat Group, Huawei, Sprint, Vivo, ZTE and Deutsche Telekom.
The wide industry support to this proposal shows thata carriers are convinced that it delivers the ability to address the increasing global demand for enhanced mobile broadband services with 5G NR in 2019, while continuing to address the broader vision for 5G NR in 2020 and beyond.
The announcement was unveiled just before the official inauguration of the Mobile World Congress currently being held in Barcelona from 27th February to 2nd March.
First stage of trials and deployments by 2019
The first 3GPP 5G NR specification will be part of Release 15 – the global 5G standard that will make use of both sub-6 GHz and mmWave spectrum bands. Based on the current 3GPP Release 15 timeline the earliest 5G NR deployments based on standard-compliant 5G NR infrastructure and devices will likely not be possible until 2020.
That’s why the new proposal introduces an intermediate step to complete specification documents related to a configuration called Non-Standalone 5G NR to enable large-scale trials and deployments starting in 2019.
Non-Standalone 5G NR will use the existing LTE radio and evolved packet core network as an anchor for mobility management and coverage while adding a new 5G radio access carrier to enable certain 5G use cases starting in 2019. The new proposal and the intermediate phase also re-affirm and solidify the schedule for the complete standard, including Standalone 5G NR in Release 15.
Compatible design as a main commitment
The supporting companies are further committed to make forward compatibility a key design principle for the standardization of the first release of 5G NR. This will enable in-band introduction of new capabilities and features in subsequent releases critical to enabling yet to be identified industries and use cases and achieving the 5G vision to connect everything to everything.
The proposal is consistent with 3GPP’s commitment to enable a flexible evolution and inter-working of the radio access network towards 5G NR and the evolution of the core network towards the 5G System.
Image over the headline.- Mobile World Congress 2017, logo. © GSMA
