It began in December 2017 when the 3GPP, which is the international organization that oversees cellular standards, approved a non-standalone 5G specification that still relied on existing 4G/LTE networks.
With a move that put the development of 5G closer, the 3GPP then approved standalone 5G specifications in June 2018, specifically the 5G NR standard, at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. "Now, the whole industry is taking the final sprint towards 5G commercialization," said the 3GPP in a statement.
"Two years ago, 5G was seen as a vision or even just a hype - with the closing of Rel-15, 3GPP has made 5G a reality within a very short time," said chairman of 3GPP CT Georg Mayer. "The outcome is an amazing set of standards that will not only provide higher data rates and bandwidth to end customers but which is open and flexible enough to satisfy the communication needs of different industries -- 5G will be the integration platform for heterogeneous businesses."
While the 5G as a standard is technically “finished”, there are things to be done to finalize things.
The real work or the entire industry is to build the hardware, infrastructure, chips, modems, phones, and antennas that will actually work with 5G, as well as the undertaking of rolling out those networks across the globe.
With the formal agreement upon the standards of 5G networks, companies are having a hard specification for what they need to build to commercialize 5G network.
For example, the International Telecommunication Union (the ITU) and the 3GPP officially defined "4G" network as providing a 100Mbps data rate when moving and a 1Gpbs (one gigabit) while stationary, something that the so-called existing 4G and LTE networks don’t provide.
As expected, the 5G specification covers a wide range of spectrum, ranging from the 600 and 700MHz bands to the millimeter wave portion of the spectrum at 50 GHz.
