It’s seemed a long time coming, but 5G is finally real, in terms of finalized 3GPP standards anyway. The first wave of 5G New Radio (NR) specifications, NSA (Non-Standalone, which requires an LTE core) was approved just before the holiday began, at a 3GPP RAN plenary meeting in Lisbon, and most of the big vendors leapt to announce support. At the end of a week of meetings, Balazs Bertenyi presented details of the RAN group’s approval of initial specs and said the next goal was to complete all the Release 15 standards – including Standalone 5G NR – by June 2018. Completing Release 15 will be the main priority for the coming months, although the group will also work on…