With the non-standalone 5G New Radio (NR) specification approved by 3GPP in December 2017, the telecom ecosystem is rapidly conducting standard-compliant interoperability testing to prepare for commercialization as soon as the second-half of this year. The non-standalone 5G NR standard uses the LTE core and RAN with the addition to 5G component carrier whereas standalone 5G NR, set for standardization in June, has a new core and RAN.
Early spec-based 5G deployments will leverage LTE investments to provide primarily enhanced mobile broadband services, as well as support for the booming internet of things. Once the standard was adopted at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, operators, vendors and device OEMs immediately got to work on interoperability testing to help ensure a rapid commercialization that can help them begin to return on the massive, and ongoing, investment in 5G. Let’s take a look at recent global 5G NR interoperability testing.
