5G Americas, the American association for 5G and LTE, along with RCRWireless News, has released a new report outlining key milestones in the progression of 5G from LTE.
5G standards development, testing, simulations, trials and deployments have shown rapid progress over the past few years. These 5G experiences have boosted the momentum of progress with initial 5G network deployments coming in late 2018 and early 2019. In December 2017, the journey to 5G had a green light with the completion of the 3GPP standards for Non Standalone 5G New Radio (NSA 5G NR). This formal adoption by 3GPP set in motion concrete plans for deployments.
To support user expectations toward 5G, service providers continue to upgrade LTE networks, taking advantage of the spectral and user experience benefits of technologies like carrier aggregation, Licensed Assisted Access, 4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM. In fact, some of the more than 250 LTE-Advanced networks, using radio equipment available on the market, can upgrade certain elements to standard-compliant 5G through simple upgrades. The report, New Horizons: The Roadmap to 5G, outlines various routes and technologies currently being deployed to arrive at the destination of 5G technology while building on the LTE foundation.
The RCR report is in confluence with the upcoming 5th Global 5G Event, 5G New Horizons Wireless Symposium hosted by 5G Americas on May 16-17 in Austin, TX. The conference is being held at a critical time for industry collaboration as global wireless leaders convene from China, European Union, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, U.S. and Canada to discuss the future of 5G.
Topics at the Forum will include spectrum, trials, commercial deployment plans, LTE network transformation, use cases and other important elements of the 5G ecosystem with presentations from operators, association leaders, scientists, manufacturers, analysts, policy makers and academic professors. The Honorable Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner of the United States Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will provide the keynote address to open the two-day conference on May 16, 2018.
Click here for a complete list of LTE deployments worldwide.
