First Real 5G Specifications Officially Approved by Members of 3GPP

We are hearing this for quite a while, but nothing solid has appeared until now.

3GPP is the organization that governs cellular standards has officially signed off on the first specification for 5G (specifically, the 5G NR standard) at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal.

This standard is necessary for full-scale development of 5G NR, which will enhance the capabilities of 3GPP systems, as well as facilitate the creation of vertical market opportunities.

As expected, members of the 3GPP ratified the Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G New Radio (NR) specification for what will form the basis of commercial 5G products, capping off months of meetings and work to get consensus.

This is a huge step forward towards bringing 5G networks for commercial use, as the standard of 5G networks has now been approved, by all the companies involved in creating mobile standards.

The 3GPP group will publish the specifications this week and are set to encompass support for low-frequency (600MHz, 700MHz), mid-range (3.5GHz) and high-frequency (50GHz) spectrum. While the millimeter wave portion of the spectrum will be at 50 GHz.

Arnaud Vamparys, SVP radio networks at Orange said: "Orange welcomes this inaugural first release of a worldwide standard for 5G". It will provide a backbone for developing mature LTE networks. However, 3GPP expects to finalize 5G SA (Standalone) in next summers. With more than 160 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum available in the top 100 USA markets, this gives Sprint the largest nationwide block of sub-6 GHz 5G spectrum available for wide-scale use in the U.S. It might take a while for the companies to build a network which can handle the speed of 5G wirless network.