Dell’Oro Group, says that telecom wireless carriers have spent 208% more on 5G Standalone (SA) than they had on 4G Core functions at the same point in the technology’s lifecycle. However, 5G Mobile Core Network revenue growth is expected to slow over the next two years, as carriers put off transformation projects due to elevated server costs.

“The way the 3GPP specifications unfolded created an offset between 5G RAN spending and the implementation of 5G SA,” said Siân Morgan, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “However, the complexity of the 5G SA is driving cumulative vendor revenues much higher than they were at the same stage in the LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC) lifecycle.

“5G SA revenues have not yet peaked,” Morgan added. “The majority of mobile network operators haven’t made 5G SA services available to a broad base of their customers.  Some operators are delaying core transformation projects because memory shortages are driving up server prices, but we expect double-digit 5G Mobile Core Network revenue growth to resume in 2028.”

Additional highlights from Mobile Core Network and Multi-access Edge Computing 5-Year Forecast July 2026 Report include:

• EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) will drive the most Mobile Core Network revenue over the next five years.
• Despite being superseded by 5G, 4G core revenue grew in 2025, and Dell’Oro Group raised the forecast for this market.
• AI will have a variable impact on mobile core networks, with opportunities for efficiency and revenue generation, alongside a risk of escalating costs.

About the Report

The Dell’Oro Group Mobile Core Network & Multi-Access Edge Computing Quarterly Report offers complete, in-depth coverage of the market with tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, shipments, and average selling prices for Traditional Packet Core, Evolved Packet Core, 5G Packet Core, Policy, Subscriber Data Management, Signaling, Circuit Switched Core, and IMS Core by geographic regions. To purchase this report, please contact us at [email protected].

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From Perplexity.ai and Ericsson:

Analysis:

5G SA differs from NSA because it uses a 5G core rather than relying on 4G core (EPC) anchoring, which makes it better suited for advanced capabilities like network slicing and more flexible service control. All 5G features and functions, e.g. 5G security, network slicing, MEC, etc require a 5G SA core network.  5G network operators can package differentiated services instead of treating 5G only as a faster broadband layer.

Adoption is already broadening geographically. Ericsson says more than 60 service providers had deployed or launched public 5G SA networks by the end of September 2024, with early leadership in North America, China, Southeast Asia, and Australia, and with deployments expanding into Latin America, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and South Africa.

Device readiness is also improving quickly. Ericsson notes that the share of announced 5G devices supporting SA was about 70 percent by the end of June 2024, which lowers one of the biggest historical blockers to mass adoption.

From a vendor and operator perspective, the value of SA is shifting from coverage to monetization. Dell’Oro says many operators already use SA for enterprise and fixed wireless access, even if they have not yet opened it broadly to consumers, which suggests the strongest initial revenues may come from business services before mass-market consumer plans.

Market Forecast:

The strongest public forecast in the sources is subscriber growth: Ericsson projects global 5G SA subscriptions will reach about 1.2 billion by the end of 2024 and approximately 3.6 billion by 2030, which would represent nearly 60 percent of all 5G subscriptions by that time.

On the infrastructure side, Dell’Oro expects the 5G mobile core network market to grow at a 6 percent CAGR from 2024 to 2029, largely driven by SA adoption, while MEC is forecast to grow faster at 17 percent CAGR because of network slicing, RedCap, and network APIs tied to Open Gateway.

A reasonable market view is that 2025–2027 will be the period when SA shifts from launch announcements to scale, especially as more operators convert consumer traffic, expand enterprise use cases, and retire older core dependencies. By the late 2020s, growth should be driven less by “first deployment” and more by monetization density: more SA subscribers, more eligible devices, and more services built on top of the SA core.ericsson+1

What to watch:

• Consumer rollout pace. Operators that keep SA limited to enterprise and FWA will likely monetize more slowly than those that open it to consumers.

• Device defaults. SA-enabled devices matter less if SA is not the default setting, so default-on support is an important adoption catalyst.

• Enterprise use cases. Slicing, private wireless integration, and low-latency applications are likely to produce the clearest near-term ROI.

• Regional timing. China and India are expected to remain major contributors, while Europe and parts of the Americas close the gap later in the decade.

References:

5G Standalone Revenue Triples 4G Core at Same Stage of Tech Cycle, According to Dell’Oro Group

GSA: 5G Non Terrestrial Networks, 5G SA and 5G Advanced gain momentum

Dell’Oro: Mobile Core Networks +15% in 2025; Ookla: Global Reality Check on 5G SA and 5G Advanced in 2026

Dell’Oro: RAN market stable, Mobile Core Network market +14% Y/Y with 72 5G SA core networks deployed

AT&T deploys nationwide 5G SA while Verizon lags and T-Mobile leads

Ericsson CEO’s strong statements on 5G SA, WRC 27, and AI in networks