I'm talking specifically the ongoing 3GPP work from Rel-16 to Rel-19, and the proposed work by Qualcomm and Thales to validate the use-cases for formalisation o

I'm talking specifically the ongoing 3GPP work from Rel-16 to Rel-19, and the proposed work by Qualcomm and Thales to validate the use-cases for formalisation of the standard. Rel-18, the initial release for 5G-Advanced, only brought in the support for the new frequency bands for NTN above 10 GHz - the Ka band where most of our interest lies for large-scale large-bandwidth provisionment - in June of last year for equipment manufacturers. https://www.lightreading.com/6g/5g-advanced-arrives-with-3gpp-s-release-18 https://www.lightreading.com/6g/5g-advanced-arrives-with-3gp... You're not wrong in saying that most of what we hope to be achieved with NTN is, to be fair, NTN-NR - or 5G NTN - as a lot of it depends on NR technologies like MIMO and beamforming in certain spectrums. Skylo did the first rollout of emergency SMS in Europe as per the 3GPP Release 17 specifications for Direct-to-Handset (D2H) connectivity in Q4 of last year. Note that Rel 17 designated only two usable frequency bands in Release 17 for 5G NTN use in the 5G FR1 range https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2024/11/26/deutsche-telekom-skylo-qualcomm-team-up-for-satellite-based-smartphone-connectivity/ https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2024/11/26/deutsche-telekom-...