With COVID-19 novel coronavirus creating havoc and upsetting everybody’s plans, the question on the minds of many people that follow standards development is, “How will it affect the 5G evolution timeline?” The question is even more relevant for Rel. 16, which is expected to be finalized by Jun 2020. I talked at length regarding this with two key leaders of the industry body 3GPP—Mr. Balazs Bertenyi, the Chair of RAN TSG and Mr. Wanshi Chen, Chair of RAN1 Working Group (WG). The message from both was that Rel 16 will be delivered on time. The Rel. 17 timelines were a different story though.
