March 9, 2017

By Dino Flore, 3GPP RAN Chairman

A major decision was taken this week in RAN on the 5G New Radio (NR) workplan. In particular, the group agreed to have an intermediate milestone for the early completion of the Non-standalone (NSA) 5G NR mode for the enhanced Mobile BroadBand (eMBB) use-case. In Non-standalone mode the connection is anchored in LTE while 5G NR carriers are used to boost data-rates and reduce latency.

With the updated workplan, NSA will be finalized by March 2018.

At the same time, the group re-instated its commitment to complete the Standalone (SA) 5G NR mode by September 2018 and put in place a plan to achieve that.

The agreed 5G NR workplan for eMBB can be found in RP-170741.

Further reading on 3GPP 5G

• Webinar - 3GPP RAN Status (September 2017)
• Presentation on the "5G infrastructure work in 3GPP" (April 2017)
• Two 3GPP presentations on 5g - from the 5G Infrastructure Association's 5G conference (November 2016)

Contact for this article: Kevin FLYNN, Marketing and Communications Officer, 3GPP