3GPP Delays ‘Second Wave’ of 5G Specs

Six months after hitting a critical milestone by approving the 5G standalone (5G SA) specification that is part of the Release 15 standard, the 3GPP appears to have encountered something of an obstacle in its work to complete what it described as the second wave of 5G specifications in Release 15.Balazs Bertenyi, chairman of the 3GPP group, TSG Radio Access Network (TSG RAN), said it was decided at the TSG RAN plenary on December 10, 2018 in Italy to delay the delivery or “freeze” schedule for the third and final step of Release 15 by three months to March 2019. The ASN.1 freeze will not take place until June 2019.The third step, the so-called “late drop,” essentially concerns the development of architecture options to aid the migration from LTE to 5G. However, Bertenyi stressed that the delay “does not in any way impact the first 5G deployments. The compatibility of devices and networks used for the first deployments are not impacted.”The delay will have an inevitable impact on Release 16, with the freezing of the start phase moved back three months to the fourth quarter of 2019. The 3GPP has also started work on Release 17, and expects to have approved the work items describing its features by December 2019. Any hint of a hold-up in the move toward a fully-fledged 5G standard is likely to cause some consternation at carriers and equipment vendors that are already working on 5G network launches. However, the 3GPP has completed two important steps for Release 15 with the approval of 5G SA in June 2018 and the completion of the 5G non-standalone (NSA 5G NR) specification in December 2017. 5G NSA was locked down in March 2018 and 5G SA in September 2018.