GSA: 5G Non Terrestrial Networks, 5G SA and 5G Advanced gain momentum
5G NTNs:
During an April 16th webinar titled “GSA Snapshot: 5G networks, spectrum & devices,” Joe Gardiner, market analyst at CCS Insight and a member of the GSA research team, said GSA data through March 31st reveal that 97 operators in 70 countries have announced they are investing in LEO satellite D2D technology.
“There’s a lot of interest in this area, but there’s also a lot of interest and movement towards 3GPP standards (see Note below), and the convergence of the terrestrial and the non-terrestrial standards map” starting with 3GPP Release 17, Gardiner observed.
Skylo, for example, is following a standards-based approach and already has D2D partnerships with operators such as Orange in France, Verizon and Vodafone IoT.
“Other players are [also] looking to use the standards-based approach, and looking to purchase the spectrum that’s compatible with the standards,” Gardiner said.
Note that 3GPP is not a SDO- it depends on ETSI and ITU-R to rubber stamp its specs and transpose them into official standards.
Image credit: GSA
He said that “Part of the reason Amazon is acquiring satellite Globalstar, was because of the spectrum assets that Globalstar has.” Gardiner added that a “lot of trials are taking place that are looking at the next stage of the standards, Release 18 with 5G NR NTN services.”
Gardiner referenced the trial announced by the European Space Agency (ESA), together with Airbus Defence and Space, Eutelsat OneWeb, and industry partners in November 2025.
In addition, Spain’s Sateliot is following the standards-based approach and has launched a Series C financing round to raise €100 million (US$117 million) to help fund the deployment its IoT-focused 5G satellite constellation. “We expect more trials like this to take place over the next few months and years,” Gardiner said. There is a “movement towards using mobile satellite services (MSS) spectrum,” although the drawback with this spectrum is the current lack of compatible mobile devices on the market.
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5G SA and 5G Advanced:
Ian Fogg, a research director at CCS Insight, who also works within the research team at the GSA, talked up the move towards 5G standalone (SA) and 5G Advanced networks.
“Globally, we have 184 operators in 74 countries investing in 5G standalone. This is publicly. 28.5% of all 5G networks are now 5G standalone. So there’s real momentum happening here,” Fogg said.
Source: GSA
5G Advanced “is something that’s happening at the moment. We have 36 operators globally publicly saying they’re investing in 5G Advanced. We’ve seen eleven 5G Advanced networks commercially launched,” Fogg said, citing activity in China, Canada, Japan, Kuwait and Vietnam.
“I think what will happen in the next few years is we’ll see the gap between an operator adopting 5G standalone and 5G Advanced narrowing, because if you go to 5G standalone, it’s a natural thing to move fairly quickly on to 5G Advanced, if possible, because you get a lot more capabilities once you’re on a 5G advanced network,” he added.
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References:
https://gsacom.com/webinar/5g-networks-spectrum-devices/
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