As 5G continues to open doors to innovation across the consumer, enterprise, and industrial domains, mobile network operators (MNOs) are under increased pressure to deliver the architecture required to support such services.
Unlike non-standalone (NSA) 5G that requires an existing 4G LTE network for deployment, standalone (SA) 5G uses cloud-native principles to unlock characteristics like ultra-low latency communications, agility, and scalability, without relying on existing 4G infrastructure. The result is a 5G network that can more efficiently support the bandwidth-hungry services required of revenue-generating services.
These characteristics will be facilitated by what is known as the 5G Core (5GC), the center of the 5G network that utilizes cloud-native design to offer increased efficiency and scalability in place of virtualized architecture. The 5G Core supports various network functions such as session management, analytics, and connectivity in a way that can deliver an enhanced user experience to customers.
According to Omdia research, as of October 2022, most of the MNOs that have begun their 5G journey have done so utilizing NSA 5G. With consumers and enterprises now expecting lightning-fast response times, increased capacity, and popular new services like mobile gaming, only SA 5G architecture enabled by the 5G Core will be sufficient to support these demands.
Benefits of standalone 5G deployment
As the telecommunications industry looks to transform itself in the wake of declining growth and stagnation, 5G has emerged as the defining player in supporting a new wave of diverse service offerings. Although 3G and 4G helped usher in the last generation of innovation, Ericsson predicts 5G’s share of mobile traffic data will increase to 69% by 2028, reinforcing the fact that 5G is the fastest-growing category of mobile technology.
MNOs that have already begun their standalone 5G deployment journey are already leveraging the enhanced benefits standalone 5G has to offer and establishing themselves as market leaders. Alternatively, providers that remain dependent on traditional 4G network assets will find themselves struggling to support advanced, high value services.
Additionally, SA 5G’s simplified device infrastructure can pave the way for improved analytics and artificial intelligence, a major focus for operations in the post-pandemic world. With the ability to manage multiple network environments in a scalable, secure, and proactive way, MNOs can consolidate networks into one unified network, increasing service efficiency. This enables operators to pursue use cases that have the most potential for increased revenue.
Facilitating new use cases with the 5G core
Although many providers have embarked on their 5G journey, the majority have deployed an NSA 5G infrastructure, which enables them to utilize an existing network’s assets rather than deploying a completely new end-to-end network. However, this strategy will provide only limited capacity for use cases that require larger amounts of scalability and capacity. Standalone 5G’s key benefits lies in its cloud-native based 5G Core, which facilitates investment in a larger mix of revenue-maximizing use cases. We’ll explore some of these use cases more below.
Mobile gaming
New improvements in mass connectivity have caused the mobile and tablet gaming market to grow to $231.34 billion. As a result, mobile gaming now represents a billion-dollar opportunity for MNOs looking to diversify their service offerings by capturing a promising area of the market. In particular, cloud gaming platforms represent the most influential market segment as popularity of platforms like PlayStation Now and Microsoft X Cloud have boomed, which can connect mobile devices to a virtualized gaming environment. In 2020, Sapio Research found that 60% of gamers would pay more for a lag-free gaming environment that delivers faster and more reliable connections, proving that mobile gaming is not an opportunity operators want to neglect.
Autonomous vehicles
Today’s highway is home to more autonomous vehicles than ever before. To enable safe, independent decision-making, autonomous vehicles must draw from a variety of data sources including GPS-location specific data, other cars, and networks. The high-capacity interoperability of 5G will enable vehicles to collect, communicate, and analyze data like destinations, road conditions, reported traffic events, and location to drive better decision-making and human safety. Other 5G functions like hard network slicing isolates mission-critical network resources away from less critical resources, ensuring safety updates are still communicated even in the event of a network outage or disruption.
Drones
5G presents endless opportunities for drones in areas such as research, infrastructure, radio, and consumer pleasure. As demand grows, users will demand the ability to extend the reach and distance drones can navigate. Like autonomous vehicles, 5G networks will be necessary to ensure the transmission of important data like location and weather conditions. 5G’s improvements in higher speeds and capacity over 4G makes it a clear winner for immediate autonomous decision-making.
Challenges hampering the transition to standalone 5G
Some of the challenges facing operators with standalone 5G deployment can’t be ignored, however. When pursuing additional services, many MNOs using NSA eventually come to an important realization; the infrastructure is at capacity. From there, they face a difficult decision-they must either continue to build up their current network or build an entirely new 5G network. This leaves operators at a difficult crossroads where the high costs and time-consuming process of building a new network forces operators to choose to maintain their NSA. But with a flexible IP Optical transport solution, MNOs can mitigate some of these costs by converging all their mobile, and fixed, services onto a multiservice xHaul network. This new converged network results in space, power and OPEX savings, allowing MNOs to help deliver on their environmental commitments.
The future of the industry lies in operators’ ability to deliver multiple, unique services without compromising on performance or capacity. Although the majority of MNOs are already actively deploying the 5G required to support these services, most are leveraging their current 4G LTE network to do so, which will eventually meet capacity and offer no room for growth. By beginning the move to standalone 5G infrastructure, operators can capitalize on these new service opportunities and capture new revenue streams.
