April 2, 2019

By Xutao Zhou, Samsung, 3GPP RAN4 Chairman

- RAN Working Group 4 has been focusing on ensuring the stability and compatibility of the Release 15 specifications as it draws to a successful completion. Now, the focus shifts to work on Release16, where RAN4 has made tremendous early progress on new 5G NR bands and band combinations. 

Due to practical reasons the Release 16 version of RAN4 specifications will only be created in June 2019 RAN Plenary. In the meantime, the completed Release 16 band specifications are maintained in RAN4 as a set of endorsed Change Requests. Note that band specifications have always been release independent. Consequently, from a specification perspective Release 16 NR bands and combinations can be supported by Release15 User Equipment (UE) and network.

Further Reading:

It is recognized that there is wide industry interest in these early Release 16 band specifications. To satisfy this interest a document has been compiled to summarize the already completed Release 16 band specification work.

RP-190715 Contains an introduction to the discussions in RAN 4 and the approved way forward. It also contains the Release 16 new bands and band combinations for Frequency Ranges 1 and 2

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