3GPP Release 18, billed as the first release of 5G Advanced, is creeping up on us with the formal launch imminent, after the final code freeze in March 2024. Major vendors are jostling to extract some marketing nectar as the bud bursts, and Qualcomm has set out its ‘five pillars of 5G’ which it claims will be advanced significantly by Release 18. Various authorities have defined certain ‘pillars’ for 5G, often with little overlap. It was common to align these pillars with technological advances associated with 5G in the early days. Five such pillars were higher frequencies (mmWave), network slicing, massive MIMO, beamforming, and full duplex. Most or all of these had already entered networks in the 4G era, even…