Despite the excitement about 5G trials and use cases, most operators expect LTE to have a continued life of at least a decade – not as a legacy network but as one which is continually being enhanced, and increasingly integrated with 5G and with other radio networks. There are particular areas where 5G will not provide an upgrade for current LTE technology until Release 16 (to be finalized early next year) or even later. These include unlicensed spectrum (a work item just being kicked off by Qualcomm); a low power variant to succeed NB-IoT and LTE-M; and the extremely low latency which, for some industrial and IoT applications, is seen as the chief differentiator of 5G. These three are all…