T-Mobile claims that it has successfully completed the first standalone end-to-end 5G data session in North America – and the first in the world on a multi-vendor 5G next generation radio and core network.
To complete the successful data session in its Bellevue, Washington lab, T-Mobile enlisted the help of industry leaders Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco and MediaTek. T-Mobile plans to introduce standalone 5G in 2020.
The over-the-air transmission marks a giant leap forward in realizing the true potential of 5G with new services, ultra-low latency, and even greater coverage and capacity than existing networks.
Current 5G networks are non-standalone, meaning devices connect to 5G and LTE simultaneously, delivering better mobile broadband speeds and performance than LTE. With standalone 5G based on a 5G next generation network, T-Mobile is paving the way to supercharge applications that require real-time responses and massive connectivity such as mobile augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), cloud gaming, smart factories and meters and even connected vehicles.
Neville Ray, CTO, T-Mobile
This major 5G breakthrough is another example of how the T-Mobile engineering team continues to innovate and drive the entire industry forward. I could not be more proud of them.
