Since April 2015, Dr. Leo Lehmann is the elected Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks, with focus on IMT-2020, cloud computing and trusted network infrastructures). Before his election, he already served the ITU-T as Vice-Chairman of Study Group 13 since October 2008. Furthermore, he was the Rapporteur on “multimedia service mobility management” in the ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia Services) for many years.

An internationally recognized expert, Leo has worked in telecommunications for 24 years and has experience in private industry as well as the public sector. Prior to joining OFCOM Switzerland in 2002, Leo held senior management positions in network engineering, system design and services at major telecommunications players on both the vendor and operator side of business.

During the last two years IMT2020/5G has gained significant attention worldwide and in the telecommunication sector in particular. In order to better suit the growing expectations from the potential users, academia, operators, vendors as well as regulatory bodies have tried and are still trying to identify the framework and requirements for the IMT2020/5G network architecture and services within several standards-making bodies, alliances and consortia. Generally one can now observe a transition from discussing possible network innovations necessary to achieve the IMT-2020/5G goals towards intensive work related to IMT-2020/5G standardization by all groups mentioned above.

The presentation intends to give some current snapshot related to the landscape of IMT-2020/5G standardization with a specific focus on the activities of Study Group 13, the Lead Study Group on Future Networks and IMT-2020 non radio related parts within the Telecommunication Sector of the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU-T). In particular network softwarization, and slicing are considered, which support the enormous number of future diverse ICT applications by deeply programmable networks, able to be sliced into virtual networks with very specialized capabilities. Beside these topics aspects of fix mobile convergence and information centric networking are marked. Different standards-making bodies, industry associations and open-source initiatives are currently defining IMT2020/5G. Ensuring mutual awareness on the different work programs of these groups is essential to bring harmonized and interoperable solutions. Therefore the presentation will highlight at its end the JCA IMT2020 (Joint Coordination Activity on IMT-2020), a coordination mechanism by ITU-T. This mechanism intends to provide a platform for contributions and information on what work is done in the different groups dealing with IMT2020/ 5G.