3GPP is a partnership of telecommunications standards organizations whose members, including mobile operators, chip designers and equipment makers, develop specifications that help cellular networks work together. It began in 1998 to support third-generation networks and later covered 4G LTE, 5G and the emerging 6G generation.
Much of the work is organized into numbered releases. Each release collects changes to radio access, core-network functions, signaling and other technical interfaces. Working groups debate proposals, test their feasibility and agree on a common specification rather than leaving every vendor to invent an incompatible system.
3GPP does not allocate national radio licenses and it does not operate mobile networks. Governments and spectrum regulators handle domestic licensing, while the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates international radio arrangements and the IMT framework. The two processes influence each other, but they are not interchangeable.
When a company says that a feature is 3GPP-based, check the exact release, feature status and equipment support. Being discussed in a study is not the same as appearing in a finalized interoperable specification.