Membership of ITU including key industry players, industry forums, national and regional standards development organizations, regulators, network operators, equipment manufacturers as well as academia and research institutions together with Member States, gathered in Geneva today, as the working group responsible for IMT systems, and completed a cycle of studies on the key performance requirements of 5G technologies for IMT-2020.

Draft New Report ITU-R M.[IMT-2020.TECH PERF REQ] is expected to be finally approved by  ITU-R Study Group 5 at its next meeting in November 2017.

“IMT-2020 will be the global cornerstone for all activities related to broadband communications and the Internet of Things for the future – enriching lives in ways yet to be imagined,” said ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao.

“The IMT-2020 standard is set to be the global communication network for the coming decades and is on track to be in place by 2020. The next step is to agree on what will be the detailed specifications for IMT-2020, a standard that will underpin the next generations of mobile broadband and IoT connectivity,” said François Rancy, Director of ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau.

We can anticipate that there will now be a number of early technical trials, market trials and deployments of 5G technologies based on the foreseen developments slated for IMT-2020. These systems may not provide the full set of capabilities envisaged for IMT-2020, but the results of these early activities will flow forward into, and assist the development of, the final complete detailed specifications for IMT-2020.

ITU claims that IMT is the on-going enabler of new trends in communication devices – from the connected car and intelligent transport systems to augmented reality, holography, and wearable devices, and a key enabler to meet social needs in the areas of mobile education, connected health and emergency telecommunications.

E-applications are transforming the way we do business and govern our countries, and smart cities are pointing the way to cleaner, safer, more comfortable lives in our increasingly urbanized world.