Newsletter 
A Samsung-hosted summit of the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) that started earlier today in Busan, South Korea, is meant to finalize the phase-one 5G standard set to serve as the backbone of the initial commercial implementation of the next wireless connectivity solutions. The working group(s) will be meeting on a daily basis until Friday, with approximately 1,500 representatives of the world’s telecom giants, smartphone vendors, infrastructure manufacturers, and chipmakers attending the gathering. Qualcomm, Verizon, and AT&T are among the parties confirmed to be present at the summit, together with the largest mobile service providers in the Far Eastern Country – KT, SK Telecom, and NTT Docomo.
5G terminal conformance testing methods and the standard itself will both be confirmed at the event, with the summit consisting of five working groups in total. The team chaired by Samsung will be dedicated to defining radio performance prerequisites for base stations and terminals seeking 5G-ready certification, the Seoul-based original equipment manufacturer said. The summit is meant to better define the Release 15 standard announced in December as part of 3GPP’s Lisbon, Portugal-based meeting which saw the consortium finalize the first non-standalone specification for the deployment of the fifth generation of wireless networks. The same configuration was used for a wide variety of experimental deployments in the meantime, including technologies showcased at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in late winter.
The new standard meant to be defined as part of the latest gathering will be confirmed and published in June, around the time South Korea starts its 5G spectrum auction. The Far Eastern country is expected to commercialize the next generation of wireless connectivity by early 2019, together with the four largest wireless carriers in the United States. Widespread deployment efforts still aren’t expected to begin prior to 2020, whereas the first 5G-enabled (Android) smartphones are still almost a year away from their commercial release, according to latest predictions outlined by numerous industry watchers. Samsung will be assisting Verizon in launching a 5G fixed wireless access service in the second half of this year.