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Broadband Standard

News & Events

Lifetime Achievement Award

January 11, 2018

The first 3GPP lifetime achievement award has been presented to Andrew Howell, of the UK Home Office, in recognition of his commitment and leadership over the lifetime of the project.

Andrew was elected Vice-Chairman of CN1 Working Group, responsible for core network radio protocols, between 2001 and 2005. In 2005 he was elected Technical Specification Group GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) Chairman, a post he held until 2007 in his first two terms, followed by re-election in 2009 - serving until 2014. That same year, Andrew was instrumental in the setting up of a new group in 3GPP, for Mission-critical applications. He convened the first SA6 Working Group meeting and chaired it through its initial meetings.

System architecture milestone of 5G Phase 1 is achieved

December 21, 2017

By Frank Mademann, 3GPP SA2 Chairman

The past two years have seen the 3GPP 5G architecture work progressing from the study period in 2016 to the delivery of a complete set of stage 2 level specifications. By achieving this milestone in 3GPP Release 15 the 5G system architecture has been defined - providing the set of features and functionality needed for deploying a commercially operational 5G system.

Video - NR first specs & 5G system progress

January 5, 2018

This interview was recorded during the 3GPP TSG Plenary meetings, in Lisbon, December 21, 2017. Guy Daniels, the Director of content at TelecomTV, talks to Balazs Bertenyi (TSG RAN Chairman) and Erik Guttman (TSG SA Chairman) about the achievements at that meeting - notably the news of the "First 5G NR Specs Approved". The transcript of the interview follows, but you can see the video...here

Satellite components for the 5G system

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.

satellite01a 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.

Industry support for 3GPP NR announcement

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."