The latest set of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Plenary electronic meetings (e-meetings) concluded on September 19. The meetings focused on Release 18 (R18) which is currently in progress. R18 will become the inaugural release for 5G Advanced that includes new innovations toward the 5G vision. The plenary e-meetings made solid progress on the study items and work items that form the basis to advance the agreed upon R18 features. The following reports discuss the current status of R18 work.

Global Beam Telecom, Inmarsat and Cobham Satcom announced the launch of a new push-to-talk (PTT) offering, BGAN PRISM PTT+, in partnership with Hytera. The complete satellite-enhanced connectivity solution, now available through Hytera mobile radios, will help businesses overcome coverage redundancy and operational downtime associated with traditional radio systems.

The winners of the 2022 International Critical Communications Awards (ICCA) winners were announced during Critical Communications World (CCW) 2022.

The U.K. Home office told the U.K. Competition and Market Authority that Motorola Solutions should be required to provide an interworking solution between its Kodiak mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) solution and an alternative MCPTT solution.

Pryme and Streamwide partnered to provide more streamlined collaboration and enhanced push-to-talk (PTT) over cellular (PoC) communications for industries in both the public and private sectors.

TCCA announced the shortlist for its 2022 International Critical Communications Awards (ICCA). The award winners will be presented 21 June in Barcelona.

Dereck Orr, the chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research Division (PSCR) looks at the research that the division has completed over the last couple of years.

A lawsuit over whether Sprint has abandoned the Nextel trademark began April 11.

AT&T is working on making its two mission-critical push-to-talk (MCPTT) solutions interoperable, possibly by the end of the year.

Motorola Solutions provided Swisscom a next generation, Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)-standards-compliant push-to-talk (PTT) solution, enabling the Swiss telecommunications provider to offer an instant communication service to its business customers. The new PTT service connects individuals and groups instantaneously over Swisscom’s broadband network and allows it to offer priority usage to critical users in emergency situations.