The GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) has said that in the first quarter alone at least 25 operators from 15 countries have demonstrated 5G technologies, or announced 5G tests, or trials.
And 18 operators are currently committed to the implementation of services based on pre-standards 5G technology by or before 2019, says the GSA quarterly “Evolution from LTE to 5G” report.
Although the GSA does not name all the specific pre-5G operators within the report, it does mention Etisalat, Telia Sonera, TIM and Verizon as four examples.
A further 26 operators are trialling, deploying or planning LTE-Advanced Pro networks exhibiting multiple Rel-13 features such as those related to carrier aggregation, modulation scheme, MIMO, latency and MCPTT (mission-critical push-to-talk).
An important milestone was reached in March 2017 when the 3GPP agreed on an intermediate target for early completion of Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G NR mode for enhanced mobile broadband. NSA mode anchors connections in 3G, using 5G NR carriers to augment data rates and reduce latency where needed. It was agreed to work towards finalization of the NSA standard by March 2018.
At the same time, the group said it was still committed to completing the standard for Standalone (SA) 5G NR mode by September 2018. In February 2017, a large group of operators and vendors had lent their public support to this new approach, expressing the view that it will enable standards-based field trials to begin in 2019.