There was much sound and fury when the 3GPP delayed the next stages of its 5G standards process because of Covid-19. In fact, pushing the timescale for the finalization of Release 16, and then of Release 17, by three months will not make a material difference to most operators. Far more important to their plans are vendors’ timescales to support the key elements of the new specifications – not just on paper, but in a way that is readily deployable, even by operators without huge inhouse engineering teams, and truly standardized. The last stages of new standards have often been lengthened in the past, with dire warnings about the impact on sales and the availability of new services. But in…