The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and China imt-2020 (5G) promotion group announced the 5G network timetable in November 2016. China will launch the second phase test of 5G network in 2017, conduct large-scale test networking in 2018, and start 5G network construction in 2019 on this basis, with the earliest official commercial 5G network in 2020.

At the 22nd meeting of the international telecommunication union (ITU)WP5D in June 2015, key elements such as IMT's name, vision and timetable were identified. In the IMT family of the international telecommunication union, the third generation mobile communication (3G) is called imt-2000 and the fourth generation mobile communication (4G) is called imt-advanced. Now, the fifth generation is officially named imt-2020.

The goal of 5G is to unify global standards, which are set by the ITU. As a non-technical organization, the ITU will commission technical organizations such as 3GPP to develop 5G standards. 3GPP is mainly negotiated by equipment vendors, terminal vendors and operators, and finally the technical standards and roadmap are determined.

According to 3GPP's timetable, early mobile 5G specifications will be launched as early as the end of 2017, and the first version of 5G standard will be launched in the second half of 2018. In China, according to the plan of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the second phase of 5G technology research and development test will be carried out in 2017, and the application scenarios of 5G mobile Internet and Internet of things will be verified by all manufacturers. After completing the second phase of testing, large-scale network technology development and testing will be conducted in 2018. After the official release of 5G standards, China will enter the stage of network construction, with the earliest commercial 5G network to be launched in 2020.