3GPP, a standards organization that develops 5G technology, said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the expert group does not expect to complete the next version until 2022.

According to 3GPP, the new timetable for Release 17 is: June 2021 to complete the second phase of “function freeze”, March 2022 to complete the third phase of “protocol freeze”, and June 2022 to complete the final “protocol code freeze”. The Release 17 plan includes a series of new technologies from Sidelink to 5G Light and more advanced equipment energy-saving technologies.

3GPP stated in a press release that, taking into account the special circumstances caused by life during the pandemic (in the busiest team, the maximum number of emails sent per day can exceed 1,000), the working group has released this revised and well-thought-out timetable.

3GPP has stated in March this year that it will postpone the third phase of Release 17 freeze by 3 months to September 2021. At that time, there was widespread concern in the industry that Release 17 will eventually be postponed to 2022, and this is the result of the 3GPP’s vote this week.

Brian Daly, senior vice president of AT&T Standards and Industry Alliance, said in October this year that under normal circumstances, most of the work of the technical standards meeting is carried out in the corridor and dinner, but in the current virtual meeting, it is not possible to implement, but also caused the flood of e-mail, so the working group had to rethink and design the entire process.

3GPP said this week that it will decide in March 2021 whether to resume physical meetings in the second half of 2021.

The first batch of 5G standard Release 15 released by 3GPP is divided into three parts, and the last part was completed in the middle of last year. The organization released the Release 16 series of standards earlier this year. 3GPP confirmed the technologies included in Release 17 at the end of last year, and is expected to select the technologies included in Release 18 at the end of 2021.