From 5G to 6G: A Deep Dive into 3GPP’s Standardization Journey

3GPP is a partnership project launched in December 1998 by national and regional standardization organizations to develop standard specifications for third-generation mobile communication systems (3G). The standard specifications created by 3GPP are published as national and regional standards by the six standardization organizations in different parts of the world that serve as organizational partners (OPs) in standardization. OPs collaborate to propose standard specifications to ITU.

These become international standards when ITU approves them as recommendations. 3GPP consists of two major groups: the Technical Standardization Group (TSG), in which companies and other organizations directly participate to create technical specifications, and the Project Coordination Group (PCG) in which OPs participate to determine the overall timeline and manage progress.

3GPP publishes standard technical specifications, for which a release number is assigned to each functional set, called a “Release.” Release 15 (Rel-15), which was completed in 2018, defined 5G, which is now commercially deployed worldwide. After formulating Rel-15, 3GPP issued Rel-16 and Rel-17 to expand the scope of functionality and improve the performance of 5G. 3GPP calls Rel-18 and follow-up releases “5G-Advanced” and started the development of the Rel-18 specifications in 2022. 5G-Advanced is targeted for commercial service in the late 2020s and will serve as a steppingstone toward 6G, which is targeted for commercial service by around 2030.

The Figure  shows the 3GPP standardization timeline for the 2010s and 2020s. The 6G-related schedule in the figure is a projection backward from the target for commercial service launch by around 2030. At this point, the schedule for future 3GPP releases and their correspondence to 6G have not been determined, but it is expected that 5G-Advanced will be covered by Rel-18 to Rel-20, just before the 6G specifications are developed.