May 18, 2020

The 3GPP TSG and Working Group chairs have today notified the community that all 2020 meetings will now be planned as electronic meetings, by default. This decision will allow all groups to plan their e-meetings around the plenary weeks:

• TSGs#89 CT/RAN/SA; week of Monday 14 September 2020.
• TSGs#90 CT/RAN/SA; week of Monday 7 December 2020.

In their emails to the groups, the TSG chairs expressed optimism for the re-commencement of face-to-face meetings, but advised that if the circumstances improve to the extent that physical meetings can be resumed, meeting announcements and invitations must be sent out no later than 8 weeks ahead of the meeting start date.

All groups can now plan for the second half of the year, assuming that meetings will be held remotely, but with a process in place that would allow the leadership to bring the work back to physical meetings – with that 8 week period of notice - when the situation allows.

Note to Reader: All of the previous updates to this story are listed below this line (Oldest at the bottom).

May 7, 2020 Update

The TSG leadership have today announced that there will not be any face-to-face 3GPP meetings before the end of August 2020. In separate emails to their respective technical groups the three TSG Chairs each confirmed that, although conditions do seem to be allowing for the gradual return to work, it is likely to be some time before travel and large scale meetings can start again.

The following face-to-face meetings are now cancelled, in addition to all other meetings between now and then - see announcements below. The WG Chairs will now decide on the organization of replacement e-meetings.  

April 3, 2020 Update

After coordination at the Technical Specification Group level and discussion with the Working Group leadership, it has been decided to shift the TSG CT#88-e, RAN#88-e and SA#88-e Plenary meetings to the week spanning Monday, June 29 to Friday, July 3 (Week 27).

The dates are two weeks later than the original face-to-face TSG#88 meetings they replace.

The freeze of Release 16 (Stage 3 and coding), in all three TSGs, will be the main focus of work, in the lead up to TSGs#88-e.

March 25, 2020 Update:

The 3GPP leadership today announced that the next Plenary meetings (TSG#88), scheduled for June 15-19, will be e-meetings.

March 12, 2020 Update:

Today, the three 3GPP Technical Specification Group (TSG) Chairs have announced further meeting cancellations due to continuing concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak.

The TSG Chairs have decided that:

• All face-to-face SA/RAN/CT Working Group (WG) meetings scheduled for May will be cancelled.
• In the light of recent e-meetings, the exact means for the electronic replacement of the WG meetings is being studied. There may be more extensive use of GoToWebinar and some further improvements on the email processes - TBA.
• Announcements regarding the face-to-face TSG#88 plenary meeting scheduled for June will be made after next week’s TSG#87-e plenary meetings. 

March 3, 2020 update:  On Monday, March 2, delegates to 3GPP Working Group and Plenary meetings were informed that due to the need for further precautionary measures to help tackle the COVID-19 outbreak, the following decisions have been agreed by the Technical Specifications Group (TSG) leadership and Working Group Chairs:

• In addition to the decision to cancel all face to face TSG and WG meetings in Q1 2020; face-to-face 3GPP WG meetings scheduled for April 2020 will be cancelled.
• The conversion of these meetings into e-meetings will be decided by the WG chairs individually.
• The focus of the work during Q2 will be on Release-16 completion.
• The 3GPP WG meetings scheduled for May 2020 are currently to proceed as planned.
• 3GPP leadership is following the current situation closely and will send an update on the May 2020 meetings in the week after the March plenaries (TSG#87-e).

February 11, 2020

In the light of the current Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, 3GPP has reluctantly decided to cancel all face to face TSG and WG meetings in Q1 2020.

Where practical, the meetings are being replaced with electronic meetings, the details of which are posted on the 3GPP meeting calendar - on this web site - and on the 3GPP portal; https://portal.3gpp.org 

Meetings in Q2, originally scheduled to be held in China, are now being relocated to other locations - as a precautionary measure. As the situation develops and as we hopefully start to get better news on the end of the coronavirus outbreak, we will publish updates to this page.

Meanwhile, 3GPP would like to express our collective best wishes to everyone affected by this virus and the illness related to it. Our thoughts are with you at this time.

Further reading:

• WHO page on the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak
• 3GPP Calendar of meetings
• 3GPP email lists - A good way to see how each group is organising its work at this time

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