Standalone 5G progress remains ‘a disappointment’

The standalone (SA) version of 5G has often been touted as “real” 5G. But if that’s the case, today there does not appear to be a huge amount of interest from network operators in real 5G.

The latest findings on 5G SA come from research firm Dell’Oro Group, which has kept a count of all the big mobile network operators around the world that have launched the technology. It reports that only 39 have deployed 5G SA.

“Reliance Jio, China Telecom-Macau and Globe Telecom came to the rescue in the fourth quarter to push 2022 over 2021 for the number of 5G SA eMMB [Enhanced Mobile Broadband] networks launched,” wrote analyst Dave Bolan on the firm’s website. “This was a disappointment in contrast with over 200 5G non-standalone (5G NSA) networks and over 700 LTE networks that could be implementing 5G SA networks.”

5G NSA was widely considered a temporary stopgap for the global wireless industry. Introduced in the 3GPP’s first batch of 5G specifications, NSA uses a new 5G radio access network with an existing 4G LTE network core. Because it was quicker and easier to launch, most of the world’s network operators used that version of the technology to go to market.

Now, operators are working to shift from 5G NSA to SA, with some moving much more quickly than others.

“There were hopes early in the year that many more [SA networks] would be launched in 2022, but the hopes were lowered as the year progressed,” Bolan explained. “By the end of 2022, we had identified 39 MNOs [mobile network operators] that had deployed 5G SA eMMB networks.”

“Why is SA taking time to implement and scale?” wrote Heavy Reading analyst Gabriel Brown late last year. Heavy Reading and Light Reading are both owned by Informa. “In a nutshell, in the words of one anonymous operator CTO, ‘because it’s difficult’.”

At a press conference late last year, BT CTO Howard Watson confirmed that assessment. “The reason it is taking quite a while to roll out the 5G [SA] core is that’s a sea change in the underlying infrastructure,” he said.

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