Several 5G driven technology companies and mobile operators have revealed some of their plans after the 3GPP TSG #80 Plenary Meeting approved the standalone (SA) Release 15 5G specifications – paving the way for 5G commercialization.

The release of the 5G NR specifications for non-standalone (NSA) operation was in Dec. 2017. The completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment.

More than 600 delegates from the world’s major telecom operators, network, terminals and chipset vendors, internet companies and other vertical industry companies have witnessed this moment for 5G.

Balazs Bertenyi, chairman of 3GPP TSG RAN, said: “The Standalone 5G NR radio specifications represents a major milestone in the quest of the wireless industry towards realizing the holistic 5G vision.”

5G NR Standalone systems increase the mobile broadband speeds and capacity. 5G will bring new revolution for new industries.

The 5G System opens the way for commercialization of services based on the New Radio and 5G Core Network and their advanced capabilities.

Li Zhengmao, vice president of China Mobile, said: “The industry will carry the momentum to accelerate the maturity of the 5G end-to-end system, create cross-industry integration, cultivate a new model for 5G development, and make contributions to the development of the global digital economy”.

Takashi Seike, senior vice president of Anritsu Corporation, said: “Anritsu will contribute to commercial success of 5G by ensuring device and service quality through close collaboration with customers and partners.”

Fang-Ming Lu, chairman of Asia Pacific Telecom, said: “Asia Pacific Telecom is willing to create 5G+8K eco-system to enrich our digital life and provide Industrial IoT services to offer more innovative solutions for society.”

Hank Kafka, VP Access Architecture and Standards at AT&T, said: “This milestone will allow for more advanced testing using standards-compliant equipment and paves the way for our commercial 5G launch in a dozen cities later this year.”

Neil J. McRae, chief architect at BT, said: “This step provides the crucial foundation to enable the power of 5G to deliver on low latency, scale and high availability.”

Wang Zhiqin, deputy director of CAICT, said: “IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group is going to work with industrial partners to promote the successful deployment and development of 5G.”

Chen Shanzhi, vice president of Datang Telecom Group, said: “SA operation can be regarded as a prerequisite of 5G supporting both mobile internet and IoT, and an accelerator for 5G commercialization and a multiplier for 5G showing its social value.”

Liu Guiqing, EVP of China Telecom said: “China Telecom plans to lead the efforts on verifying the specified performance and optimizing the innovative features through field trials in many cities.”

Shao Guanglu, EVP of China Unicom, said: “China Unicom will work together with the whole industry to build a good ecosystem and create a new dimension for 5G development.”

Kuo-Feng Lin, CTO of Chunghwa Telecom, said: “It sets a remarkable milestone for the ecosystem towards 5G eMBB commercialization, but also heralds the start of R16 5G specifications towards broader mMTC and uRLLC opportunities.”

Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Research & Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom, said: “

“Deutsche Telekom recently implemented the world’s first non-standalone architecture trial in a commercial network in Germany.”

Mariam Sorond, vice president of Technology Development at DISH Network, said: “5G is set to be a paradigm shift for the industry and the completion of standalone (SA) 5G new radio (NR) specifications will enable new entrants to usher in innovative solutions.”

Erik Ekudden, chief technology officer, Ericsson, said: “Together with our ecosystem partners we will sustain this momentum and ensure that communication service providers can successfully launch 3GPP standard-based 5G networks.”

Masayuki Seno, head of Network Products Business Unit at Fujitsu, said: “Fujitsu will provide 5G network products and connected services to co-create human centric innovation through digital technologies.”

Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei 5G product line, said: “Huawei will invest on the research and development of 5G key technology and product.”

Asha Keddy, vice president – Next Generation and Standards, Intel, said: “This new air interface is another major step in our journey to power this first wave of 5G. Intel, with our end to end network, cloud and client focus, and our partners are reimagining the network to deliver a convergence of computing and communications.”

Robert DiFazio, vice president, InterDigital Labs, said: “The completion of the 5G NR standalone specification is the culmination of years of work from all the companies and engineers at 3GPP.”

Satish Dhanasekaran, senior vice president of Keysight Technologies, said: “Keysight is engaged in providing scalable 5G test and measurement solutions all the way from L1 to L7.”

Yoshiaki Uchida, director of KDDI, said: “With this completion of the 5G NR specification, KDDI will continue our collaboration with various business partners and prepare for the commercial 5G service launch in 2020.”

Hongbeom Jeon, head of KT Corp.’s Infra Lab., said: “Ever since our 5G trial at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February, we have sought to elevate 5G standards in 3GPP to a higher level of excellence.”

Masahiro Inagaki, general manager of Corporate R&D Group at Kyocera, said: “5G technology will change the efficiency of network resource utilization, deployment flexibility and support of various applications with different QoS requirements such as IoT and V2X, some of which require high efficiency, ultra-reliable, low latency operations.”

Yong Rui, CTO of Lenovo Group, said: “Lenovo has been working with key industry partners like China Mobile to accelerate the commercialization of 5G technologies to bring their full benefits to both our consumers and clients.”

IP Park, chief technology officer of LG Electronics, said: “We are ready to deliver 5G-based intelligent mobile products and convergence services to worldwide markets and look forward to making significant contributions to the evolution of 5G standards.”

Joosik Choi, head of 5G Strategy Planning, said: “Based on this standard, LG Uplus is preparing for the deployment and commercialization of 5G in 2019.”

MediaTek SVP Cheng-Te Chuang said: “With the completion of both SA and NSA specifications, MediaTek’s commercial-ready 5G chipset is getting mature and MediaTek will be one of the first-tier suppliers in 5G commercial markets.”

Takashi Nishimura, executive officer in charge of Communication Systems Group at Mitsubishi Electric, said: “It is our great pleasure to be a member of the group that has created a new 5G standard.”

Atsuo Kawamura, head of the Network Service Business Unit at NEC, said: “NEC will develop and provide innovative 5G solutions for society that enable communications and a diversified range of sophisticated services.”

Marcus Weldon, corporate CTO of Nokia, said: “This milestone connects the 5G radio (NR) to the new 5G Core Network, in line with Nokia’s Future X vision.”

Hiroshi Nakamura, CTO of NTT DOCOMO, said: “NTT DOCOMO will continue the collaborative effort aiming to spark the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Levin Liu, VP of OPPO, said: “ OPPO is willing to cooperate with China Mobile and other operator partners to provide unprecedented user experience to end-users globally by introducing 5G capable devices at the earliest time.”

Arnaud Vamparys, SVP Radio Networks in Orange, said: “This ensures flexibility and freedom for our future 5G roll-outs, enabling 5G autonomous deployment, depending on each country’s specific context and corresponding strategy.”

Yoshiyuki Miyabe, CTO of Panasonic, said: “Panasonic is pleased this set for the 5G NR standard has been completed. 5G can be used not only for enhancement of voice and visual communication but also for new services such as IoT and autonomous driving.”

Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm, said: “Qualcomm is putting effort into making NR commercial through our 3GPP 5G NR spec compliant prototypes and interoperability testing and with the development of 5G NR modem chipsets which support both NSA and SA operation.”

Andreas Pauly, head of Test and Measurement division  at Rohde & Schwarz, said: “R&S participated in all stages of 5G standard development, and cooperated with industry chain partners to complete all 5G trial test.”

Seunghwan Cho, EVP of Samsung Research, said: “We will continue our efforts for the commercial success of 5G and deliver a new level of mobile experience to everyone’s life.”

Yoshiro Nakano, BU President, Mobile Communication BU at Sharp Corporation said: “Sharp will accelerate development of innovative technologies, such as 8K (ultra-high-definition imaging) and AIoT (people-oriented IoT).”

Jinhyo Park, head of ICT R&D Division, SK Telecom, said: “Timely completion of the 5G NR SA standard will encourage operators to quickly move towards 5G commercialization.”

Junichi Miyakawa, CTO of SoftBank, said: “SoftBank has a huge expectation toward the upcoming 5G era, and is willing to lead the whole industry to accelerate the commercialization of 5G.”

Hidehiko Teshirogi, director of Sony Mobile, said: “Sony Mobile is ready for the development of 5G NR smartphones to take benefit of the opportunities offered by the new standard.”

Wright Nigel, EVP Global Sales, Spirent Communications, said: “Spirent will continue to work with the industry to reduce the complexity and cost of 5G testing, and accelerate innovation and time to revenue for new 5G-enabled services.”

Zhang Ping, founder of StarPoint, said: “As a mobile testing solution provider, StarPoint is proud of having played a part of this process and will continue to work closely with our partners.”

Toshiaki Kakii, managing executive officer of Sumitomo Electric Industries, said: “Sumitomo will continue developing advanced products to support the introduction of 5G NR commercial devices and networks.”

Enrico Bagnasco, head of Technology Innovation of TIM, said: “The availability of a full set of NSA and SA standards will open several options for the deployment of the new technology, boosting a new generation of devices.”

Jingming Wang, chief operation officer of Unisoc, said: “The finalization of 3GPP R15 consolidates the standard foundation for the commercialization of 5G in year 2020, aiming at which the 1st generation 5G terminal chip from Unisoc is under developing with full power.”

Ed Chan, chief technology architect of Verizon, said: “Earlier this month, Verizon marked two important industry firsts in 5G development: the completion of outdoor data sessions based on the 3GPP NR standard and the completion of multi-carrier aggregation, boosting the signals into the gigabit range.”

Ian Langley, SVP at VIAVI Solutions, said: “VIAVI will accelerate the development of TM500 test instruments supporting the 5G SA and provide comprehensive support for the development and verification of 5G network infrastructure.”

Yujian Shi, CTO of vivo, said: “Vivo are stepping up the 5G smart phone R&D and strive to release 5G SA smartphone in 2019.”

Luke Ibbetson, head of Vodafone Group R&D said: “This adds further capability to the 5G family of technologies including 5G NR, LTE evolution and LPWA”

Wang Xiang, senior VP of Xiaomi, said: “By making use of the advantages of its ecological system and 5G technology, Xiaomi will continue to make contributions to the development of 5G industrial applications.”

Zhang Jianguo, SVP of ZTE Corporation, said: “The development of enterprises and industrial applications will benefit the whole society.”