With COVID-19 novel coronavirus creating havoc and upsetting everybody’s plans, the question on the minds of many people that follow standards development is, “How will it affect the 5G evolution timeline?” The question is even more relevant for Rel. 16, which is expected to be finalized by Jun 2020. I talked at length regarding this with two key leaders of the industry body 3GPP—Mr. Balazs Bertenyi, the Chair of RAN TSG and Mr. Wanshi Chen, Chair of RAN1 Working Group (WG). The message from both was that Rel 16 will be delivered on time. The Rel. 17 timelines were a different story though.
<<Side note: If you would like to know more about 3GPP TSGs and WGs, refer to my article series “Demystifying Cellular Patents and Licensing.” >>
3GPP meetings are spread throughout the year. Many of them are large conference-style gatherings involving hundreds of delegates from across the world. WG meetings happen almost monthly, whereas TSG meetings are held quarterly. The meetings are usually distributed among major member countries, including the US, Europe, Japan, and China. In the first half of the year, there were WG meetings scheduled in Greece in February, and Korea, Japan, and Canada in April, as well as TSG meetings in Jeju, South Korea in March. But because of the virus outbreak, all those face-to-face meetings were canceled and replaced with online meetings and conference calls. As it stands now, the next face-to-face meetings will take place in May, subject to the developments of the virus situation.
Since 3GPP runs on consensus, the lack of face-to-face meetings certainly raises concerns about the progress that can be made as well as its possible effect on the timelines. However, the duo of Mr. Bertenyi and Mr. Wanshi are working diligently to keep the well-oiled standardization machine going. Mr. Bertenyi told me that although face-to-face meetings are the best and the most efficient option, 3GPP is making elaborate arrangements to replace them with virtual means. They have adopted a two-step approach:1) Further expand the ongoing email-based discussions; 2) Multiple simultaneous conference calls mimicking the actual meetings. “We have worked with the delegates from all participant countries to come up with a few convenient four-hour time slots, and will run simultaneous on-line meetings/conference calls and collaborative sessions to facilitate meaningful interaction,” said Bertenyi “We have stress-tested our systems to ensure its robustness to support a large number of participants“
Mr. Wanshi, who leads the largest working group RAN 1, says that they have already completed a substantial part of Rel 16 work and have achieved functional freeze. So, the focus is now on RAN 2 and RAN3 groups, which is in full swing. The current schedule is to achieve what is called ASN.1 freeze in June 2020. This milestone establishes a stable specification-baseline from which vendors can start building commercial products.
Although, it’s reasonable to say that notwithstanding any further disturbances, Rel. 16 will be finalized on time. However, things are not certain for Rel. 17. Mr. Bertenyi stated that based on the meeting cancellations, it seems inevitable that the Rel. 17 completion timeline will shift by three months to September 2021.
It goes without saying that the plans are based on the current state of affairs in the outbreak. If the situation changes substantially, all the plans will go up in the air. I will keep monitoring the developments and report back. Please make sure to sign-up for our monthly newsletter at TantraAnalyst.com/Newsletter to get the latest on standardization and the telecom industry at large.
