September 21, 2020 -- A firm decision on the delay to the freeze date of 3GPP Release 17 will be made in December 2020.

During today’s TSG SA#89-e meeting the three TSG Chairs (CT, RAN and SA) confirmed that their groups will continue to study the situation, to arrive at the best common decision possible at the next Plenaries (December 7 – 11).

Although the Chairs have already agreed that the first half of 2021 meetings will be e-Meetings, by default, it is hoped that the next three months will bring clarity as to whether 3GPP can start to plan for getting back to face-to-face meetings later in the year.

In his RAN meeting summary (SP-200890) Balazs Bertenyi, TSG RAN Chair, expressed the hope that meetings could resume in 2021, to allow the groups to get Release 17 done with a minimum delay. However, he warned that if e-Meetings need to carry on beyond June, the delay could be greater than the six months currently being projected by the RAN leadership.

Lionel Morand, the TSG CT Chair presented his report (SP-200858), which echoed the need for a firm decision on the new schedule in December. He commented “The decision we take – on the delay to the Release 17 Stage 2 (normative) freeze date should be considered as firm and definitive. A moving target would make it very difficult to correctly plan for the Stage 3 (protocols) work.”

Georg Mayer noted that the groups are well aligned on the meeting schedules and now officials and delegates will continue the discussion about how long the delay must be. He advised that for the immediate Stage 2 work; more time was granted already. For the release as a whole, he said: “We want to give a clear statement in December on how long the Release 17 work will take. This situation is not ideal, but these are not ideal times.”