• Categories:Industry News
• Time of issue:2023-12-20

(Summary description)5G Standalone (5G SA) is still difficult to deploy, but even so, the industry continues to push toward 5G SA's next technology, known as "5G Advanced25G SFP-DD PON OLT." 5G Non-standalone (5G NSA) is the first iteration of network technology. It essentially requires a 4G core Network as an anchor for the new 5G Radio Access Network (RAN). It is estimated that 5G NSA currently supports more than 1 billion users worldwide25G SFP-DD PON OLT. But the development of the next generation of 5G technology, 5G SA, has not been smooth. While 5G SA eliminates the need for 4G anchor networks and supports technologies such as 5G New Radio Voice (VoNR) and network slicing, it has proved difficult to deploy25G SFP-DD PON OLT. 5G SA deployment status Dave Bolan, research director at Dell'Oro Group, writes: "Reliance Jio, China Telecom Macau and Global Telecom came to the rescue in the fourth quarter to deliver more 5G SA Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMMB) networks in 2022 than 202125G SFP-DD PON OLT." Earlier this year, Dell'Oro counted only 39 operators worldwide deploying 5G SA, which is disappointing compared to more than 200 5G NSA networks and more than 700 LTE networks25G SFP-DD PON OLT. T-Mobile in the United States was one of the first large carriers to launch 5G SA, and since then, other carriers including Dish Network, Telefonica and KDDI have also launched 5G SA. But other network operators explain why it's not an easy transition25G SFP-DD PON OLT. Howard Watson, chief technology officer at BT, said last year: "It will take quite some time to roll out the 5G core because of the huge changes in the underlying infrastructure25G SFP-DD PON OLT." At the same time, Verizon's head of networks Joe Russo had this to say about his company's delayed deployment of 5G SA: "We think 5G SA will be another enabler of new use cases without a doubt. But, all the data I've seen - both internal testing and external testing happening in the market - tells me SA is going to take a little more time25G SFP-DD PON OLT." VoNR is moving slowly In a 5G world, voice calls may seem like an afterthought. On most 5G NSA networks, voice calls are still relegated directly to 4G25G SFP-DD PON OLT. 5G SA opens up the potential to run voice calls on 5G, but some early adopters of the technology have been slow to move to VoNR. AT&T, for example, was still testing the technology in May, while T-Mobile slowly expanded its VoNR service after launching 5G SA in 2020. But other companies don't have the ability to rely on 4G for voice calls. Dish Network does not operate a 4G network, so it was forced to let VoNR work on its 5G SA network25G SFP-DD PON OLT. Dish executives lamented the challenges of launching VoNR, arguing that it hampered the company's ability to put users on the network unless they were data users. But those issues have eased in recent months as Dish has expanded its VoNR service to more markets25G SFP-DD PON OLT. Anticipation network slicing Among the many services enabled by 5G SA technology, network slicing may be one of the most anticipated. This is because it may allow network operators to carve out large amounts of network capacity for specific customers and use cases, and enable them to provide faster and more reliable services than the connections available on the public network25G SFP-DD PON OLT. Mike Irizarry, chief technology officer at Scellular, said earlier this year that operators are moving to 5G SA in part to apply network slicing technology to their new fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services25G SFP-DD PON OLT. Next up is 5G Advanced But 5G SA is not the last stop on the network technology development train. 3GPP, the standards organization behind 5G, confirmed to Light Reading in 2021 that "5G-Advanced" is the official new name for the organization's Release 18 and beyond25G SFP-DD PON OLT. The 3GPP releases new technical specifications for wireless networks about once a year. 5G first appeared in the organization's Release 15 in 2017. Release 18 is currently scheduled for full release in early 2024. According to 3GPP, the 18th version of the 5G standard package should include technologies such as improving network energy efficiency and artificial intelligence network applications.