5G Gets Boost From 3GPP Release 16

5G celebrated another major milestone earlier this month with the completion of Release 16 from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). The global wireless standards consortium announced the freeze of Release 16 specifications in early July, concluding the process of defining the technologies contained within.

Release 16 is the second phase of the 5G New Radio (NR) standard because it builds on the primary concepts established in 3GPP Release 15 and extends the range of 5G capabilities. Release 15 set the technical foundation for 5G, establishing aggressive targets for high-bandwidth and low latency. It also introduced many of the technologies and use cases we most associate with 5G and enabled commercial deployments to begin.

Release 16 builds on that foundation, raising the bar for latency and bandwidth targets, enhancing those technologies and use cases, and adding others to the mix. Release 16 also extends the applicability of 5G to a host of different industries.

In all, Release 16 adds more than 20 technical features to 5G, including improvements for enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive multiple-input / multiple-output (MIMO) and beamforming technology, dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS), and carrier aggregation.

Let's take a closer look at a few of the key areas where elements of Release 16 improve 5G.

These are just a handful of the goodies found in 3GPP Release 16. There are many others, some of which we will be examining in greater detail in future Keysight blog installments.

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