November 10, 2016

We have two speakers in the 5G Infrastructure Association's 5G conference "Enabling the 5G EcoSphere", in Rome this week. There are also many friends of 3GPP - Past Chairs, Delegates and Partners - in attendance, to discuss how standards will help make 5G happen.

Frank Mademann, 3GPP SA2 Chairman, looked at 3GPP’s flexible 5G system architecture, giving delegates details of the phased approach being adopted by 3GPP.

He emphasised how much effort will go in to 3GPP Release 15, to ensure that it delivers the 5G Phase 1 system definition, including all that is needed for deploying a base system.

His presentation included details of the group's work on network slicing, the functional network architecture and on a Quality of Service model that may bring what he described as 'lighter QoS sessions'.

Dino Flore, 3GPP RAN Chairman, spoke today - in a session on the 5G air interface and radio resource management. He told delegates that the 3GPP submission for 'IMT-2020' will include both the “New Radio of 5G” and LTE. He echoed details about the two phase approach to 5G - with the first specifications to be completed by September 2018 - for a subset of industry priorities. This will be followed by a full set of 5G specifications, addressing all of the identified use cases & requirements, by March 2020 (Release-16).

Both 3GPP presentations are available...here.

About the conference:

In 2015 a group of 5G associations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to cooperate on building global consensus on 5G. The five organizations - the 5G Infrastructure Association (EU), 5G Americas, the Fifth-Generation Mobile Communications Promotion Forum (5GMF, Japan), 5G Forum (Rep. of Korea) and the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group (China) - have co-produced the 5G Infrastructure Association's 5G conference "Enabling the 5G EcoSphere".