January 4, 2018
By Nicolas Chuberre and Cyril Michel
There is increasing interest and participation in 3GPP from the satellite communication industry, with companies and organizations convinced of the market potential for an integrated satellite and terrestrial network infrastructure in the context of 5G.
The roles and benefits of satellites in 5G have been studied in 3GPP Release 14, leading to the specific requirement to support satellite access being captured in TS22.261 - “Service requirements for next generation new services and markets; Stage 1”, recognizing the added value that satellite coverage brings, as part of the mix of access technologies for 5G, especially for mission critical and industrial applications where ubiquitous coverage is crucial.
Lisbon, Portugal - December 21, 2017
We are reproducing this press release text, for information. 3GPP is proud to have such strong industry support and commitment to the standards process:
Global Mobile Industry Ready to Start Full-Scale Development of 5G NR
"Today the 3GPP TSG RAN Plenary Meeting in Lisbon successfully completed the first implementable 5G NR specification. AT&T, BT, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Intel, KT Corporation, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, MediaTek Inc., NEC Corporation, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, Sony Mobile Communications Inc., Sprint, TIM, Telefonica, Telia Company, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, Vodafone, and ZTE have made a statement that the completion of the first 5G NR standard has set the stage for the global mobile industry to start full-scale development of 5G NR for large-scale trials and commercial deployments as early as in 2019.
On February 27, 2017 in Barcelona, global mobile industry leaders announced their support for the acceleration of the 5G NR standardization schedule, which introduced an intermediate milestone to complete the first implementable specification for Non-Standalone 5G NR operation. As a result of this announcement, the schedule acceleration was agreed at the 3GPP RAN Plenary Meeting on March 9 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. This first specification was completed as part of 3GPP Release 15.
This standard completion is an essential milestone to enable cost-effective and full-scale development of 5G NR, which will greatly enhance the capabilities of 3GPP systems, as well as facilitate the creation of vertical market opportunities. 3GPP plans to continue to develop Release 15, including the addition of support for Standalone 5G NR operation also agreed upon by 3GPP in Dubrovnik. The 5G NR lower layer specifications have been designed so that they can support Standalone and Non-Standalone 5G NR operation in a unified way, to ensure that 3GPP benefits the global industry with a large-scale single 5G NR ecosystem. We express our appreciation for the tremendous efforts that 3GPP has dedicated to accomplishing this challenging standardization schedule."
In his RAN report to the TSG SA Plenary – at the end of a week of meetings in Lisbon, Portugal – Balazs Bertenyi presented details of the group’s approval of the Non-standalone 5G NR specifications and also outlined how RAN will now turn towards the completion of Release 15, by June 2018.
December 13, 2017 (Update)
A joint 3GPP SA4 & VR Industry Forum Workshop on Standards took place in Santa Clara from the 4 - 6 December. Around 120 participants attended sessions on:
The following presentations are now available for download on the 3GPP server:
October 14, 2017
In Release 14, 3GPP has added features to enable mobile networks to deliver television services in new and improved ways. Television and content providers may now directly provide their services over standardized interfaces. Among the many enhancements to the system, highlights include greater radio broadcast range, free-to-air services and transparent mode delivery of digital video signals.
Search and download specs, docs, CRs and more from the 3GPP FTP Server:
Webinar on RAN Rel-16 progress and Rel-17 work area discussions
3GPP SA6 work on new verticals