If you thought that wrangling the multitude of technologies and standards for 3G and 4G was complicated, just wait for 5G.
Indeed, the industry is racing to 5G, but setting the standard for the technology won't be pretty.
"By definition, you're going to have a multitude of things coming together. But it's worse, by far, with 5G." said analyst Peter Jarich, VP of consumer and infrastructure at Current Analysis and a Fierce contributor
Still, the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has set a timeline for 5G standardization, known as IMT-2020, which would seriously begin writing regulations by 2016 in the hopes of having complete agreement by 2020. In line with that, 3GPP held a workshop last month to begin work on RAN and other radio technology-related research to meet IMT-2020's proposed timeline.
In its latest feature, FierceWirelessTech examines the complicated roadmap to 5G readiness. You can read the report here.