3GPP Plenary Approves 5G Stand-Alone New Radio Standards

A 3rd Generation Partnership Project plenary meeting approved completion of release 15 5G stand-alone (SA) new radio standards, NTT DoCoMo said Thursday in a release listing AT&T, Dish Network, LG, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Verizon, ZTE and many others. The group approved specifications for non-stand-alone (NSA) operation in December. “The whole industry is taking the final sprint towards 5G commercialization,” the company said. “Completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, not only gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment, but also brings a brand new end-to-end network architecture.” This is key to deployment of 5G, said Asha Keddy, Intel vice president-Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group: “Industry has not just taken more steps to advance the future of 5G, but has gone from a walk to a jog to a run, and is now in a full-blown sprint to commercialization.”