GSA 5G SA Core Network Update Report
GSA is tracking the emergence of the 5G SA core network, including the availability of chipsets and devices for customers, plus the testing and deployment of 5G SA networks by public mobile network operators as well as private network operators.
5G SA networks can be deployed in a variety of scenarios: as an overlay for a public 5G non-SA network, as a greenfield 5G deployment for a public network operator without a separate LTE network, or as a private network deployment for an enterprise, utility, education, government or other organization requiring its own private campus network.
GSA has identified 115 operators in 52 countries and territories worldwide that have been investing (?) in public 5G SA networks in the form of trials, planned or actual deployments (see Figure 1.). This equates to 21.4% of the 535 operators known to be investing in 5G licenses, trials or deployments of any type.
At least 36 operators in 25 countries and territories are now understood to have launched or deployed public 5G SA networks, two of which have only soft-launched their 5G SA networks.
NOTE: Incredibly, that’s a DECREASE from GSA’s June 5G SA report which stated “GSA has catalogued 41 operators as having deployed or launched 5G standalone (SA) in public networks.”
Also, 19 cellular network operators have been catalogued as deploying or piloting 5G SA for public networks, and 29 as planning to deploy or evaluating, testing or trialing the technology.
Several organizations are testing, piloting or deploying 5G SA technologies for private networks. As of May 2024, 66 (just over 13% of total cellular private networks) organizations are known to be working with 5G SA core networks. These organizations include manufacturers, academic institutions, commercial research institutes, construction, communications and IT services, rail and aviation industries.
The number of 5G SA devices as a percentage of all 5G devices announced has been steadily increasing. They accounted for 35.6% of 5G devices in December 2019, 49.7% in December 2020 and 54.6% in December 2021 and a large increase to 81.8% in December 2022. As of June 2023, they account for 85.8%.
Software upgrades are almost always needed to enable 5G SA capability for existing 5G devices. There is a range of form factors to cater for different users, including modules for equipment manufacturers and vendors; customer-premises equipment (CPE), routers and gateways for enterprise or industrial customers or their systems integrators; CPE for home and business broadband; phones; and battery-operated hot spots for portable services.
Smartphones make up over half (59.0%) of the announced 5G devices with stated 5G SA support (1,034 phones), followed by fixed wireless access CPE (246) and modules (220).
Spectrum Support in 5G SA Devices:
Selected sub-6 GHz frequencies are increasingly well supported in 5G SA devices. The pattern of most-supported bands in sub-6 GHz 5G SA devices largely matches the pattern for most-supported bands across all 5G devices, with C-band, 2.6 GHz, 2 GHz, 1.8 GHz and 700 MHz.
Sub-6 GHz support by band, announced 5G SA devices, most-supported bands by most devices. Support for millimeter wave is not yet common.
Chipsets are being developed to support this capability — GSA has currently only catalogued eight chipsets specifically supporting 5G SA in millimeter-wave spectrum (eight mobile processors and platforms). 320 393 397 421 449 519 739 741 743 817 846 979 1,025 1,115 1,183 1,257 1,309 1,444 1,465 n48 n25 n66 n71 n12 n2 n20 n40 n79 n38 n7 n8 n5 n3 n28 n77 n1 n41 n78 We can expect support for spectrum bands above 6 GHz to increase in the future, as these bands are being promoted as an option for deployment of private 5G networks by regulators in various countries, as well as being promoted as capacity bands for high-traffic locations in public networks.
Summary:
The market is seeing the emergence of a strong 5G SA ecosystem with chipsets, devices of many types and users of public as well as private networks. We can expect to see the market go from strength to strength.
–>This author opines the 5G SA market is going from nowhere to no place!
As it does, GSA will continue to track its evolution and will be looking out for important new trends as they emerge.
Topics likely to become more important in the coming year in this context include 5G carrier aggregation in SA networks, ultrareliable low-latency communications (can’t be accomplished till 3GPP Release 16 URLLC in the RAN spec has been completed and performance tested) capabilities to support machine-to-machine connections in 5G SA systems, increasing support for millimeter-wave connections, network slicing in 5G networks and the introduction of VoNR in 5G SA networks.
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References:
GSM 5G-Market Snapshot Highlights – July 2023 (includes 5G SA status)
5G SA networks (real 5G) remain conspicuous by their absence
ABI Research: Expansion of 5G SA Core Networks key to 5G subscription growth
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T-Mobile has been building on its early move to 5G SA with other services ranging from carrier aggregation to private networks. At the same time, T-Mobile has been working to streamline its core network architecture
T-Mobile this week announced that software developers can use network slicing on its standalone (SA) 5G network to build video calling applications with more consistent uplink and downlink speeds and lower latency. The result, the company said, could be more reliable video calls that may not freeze or skip.
T-Mobile noted that companies like Dialpad Ai, Google, Webex by Cisco, Zoom and others have signed up to test out its new capability.
Analysts generally cheered the move.
“This is another important step in making sure 5G lives up to the promise of delivering new and user-centric services for consumer and business users,” wrote analyst Jack Gold on LinkedIn. “While some have questioned the promise of 5G improvements over current systems as functional improvements have been slow to appear, this move shows that forward-looking providers can achieve breakthroughs that advance the capabilities and usefulness of 5G for both businesses and consumers.”
The launch “is a big deal,” added Recon Analytics Founder Roger Entner on X (formerly Twitter).
https://www.lightreading.com/service-provider-cloud/programmable-5g-gets-little-more-real/a/d-id/785926?
In the US:
*In June 2021, AT&T announced it was moving its 5G SA core network to the Microsoft Azure cloud, but it still has not gone live.
*Verizon has invested into Casa Systems’ core.
*T-Mobile and Cisco have boasted of a 4G and 5G converged core. T-Mobile is the ONLY U.S. 5G network provider that has deployed a 5G SA core network.
*UScellular is in the midst of testing its Nokia standalone (SA) 5G core, but deployment will be slow
Moving to open, software-driven, cloud-native architectures represents a massive change from traditional telco networks and operations. 5G SA’s disaggregated, distributed architecture transforms telco networks from largely predictable, appliance-based infrastructures to a dizzying assortment of virtualized and containerized software elements that constantly change.
This transition is essential to make telco networks as agile and adaptable as other modern cloud environments, but it was always going to take some time. Now, service providers worldwide are beginning to go live with these new environments, and they’re seeing impressive results. Operators deploying 5G Core (5GC) report 72 percent power savings, 20 percent latency improvements, and 60 percent faster service deployments. Those are huge improvements, and they’re only just the start.
https://www.telecomramblings.com/2024/06/the-5g-standalone-revolution-has-officially-begun/