3GPP Release 19 Document Still Taking Shape as Industry Looks to 6G

The next big 3rd Generation Partnership Project document, Release 19, is still taking shape and the approach it will take to 5G standards isn’t clear, experts said Wednesday during an ATIS webinar. Many 3GPP meetings remain remote, they said. 3GPP Release 17 “focused on a select set of verticals, like the factory, like medical,” T-Mobile’s Greg Schumacher said. That document was “the big rush and flood of new verticals,” he said. “Release 18 had some new verticals, but it was a little more balanced” and “more of the work was focused on providing services across multiple verticals,” he said. “We will see what Release 19 looks like,” Schumacher said. “We expect to have more work to discuss and agree upon this coming quarter,” he said. The target is to get to 80% completion of the release in Q2 of next year, with the document complete at the end of Q3, he said: “This is subject overall to 3GPP schedules, which often are driven by other external forces,” he said. The timeline for Release 16 slipped about six months in 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2009220052). 6G won’t hit the market until the end of the decade, but “these technology and generational transitions have a very long lead time,” said Iain Sharp, ATIS principal technologist. Now is “a time to be looking at the early stages of what technology goes into 6G and what is its vision,” he said. In February, ATIS released the "Roadmap to 6G" by its Next G Alliance (see 2202170049). “We are in a pre-standards phase,” he said: “It’s really only in 2027 and beyond that we get to the standardization phase.” Work on 6G shouldn’t “detract” from work being done to make 5G work better, he said.