This week, the quarterly 3GPP RAN Plenary Meeting in San Diego, California, marks two important milestones that will take us another step closer to our vision for 5G— a unifying connectivity fabric that will expand the reach of mobile to new services, deployments, and spectrum types:
- The first milestone was the completion of the 5G NR specifications for standalone (SA) mode. It is the culmination of the joint efforts from the different 3GPP working groups (RAN — Radio Access Network, SA — System Aspects, and CT — Core network & Protocols) and is an addition to the 5G NR non-standalone (NSA) mode that was completed late last year, which leverages the LTE core network.