BARCELONA � Verizon still hopes to see �a single standard� serve as a foundation for 5G, even if it doesn’t sign on to every proposal along the way, reports fiercewireless.com
Verizon, the U.S.�s largest carrier, was �conspicuous by its absence� earlier this week when a group of 22 companies signed off on a proposal to support a plan for the first phase of the 5G NR specification at the next 3GPP RAN plenary meeting next week in Croatia. Backers include major carriers such as AT&T, Sprint, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, and other heavyweight supporters include Ericsson, Intel, Huawei and ZTE.
Carriers are pursuing next-generation technologies to varying degrees. For example, T-Mobile US continues to focus on maximizing its 4G technologies and services rather than �punch the accelerator toward 5G.� Verizon, on the other hand, has vocally expressed its eagerness to test and deploy 5G as quickly as realistically possible, and that eagerness has left some concerned that it could result in a fragmented marketplace. Verizon is a massive carrier, but �it risks becoming an outlier if it uses technologies that don�t ultimately become part of universal standards,� according to the same article.
Sanyogita Shamsunder, Verizon’s director of network infrastructure planning, said during theMobile World Congressgoing on now in Barcelona that the latest proposal is a relatively small part a much broader picture where much work has yet to be done. �There are a lot of aspects of 5G that are not part of this,� Shamsunder said. �We need to have a single standard � The devil is in the details.”
