Standalone (SA) 5G networks are considered the turning point for demonstrating the potential benefits of 5G, the next generation wireless communications, and according to a new survey from Enea, 37% of mobile operators will begin deploying 5G standalone within the next two years. The survey also showed that 27% of operators will deploy 5G SA within 12 to 18 months and an additional 10% within 24 months. A total of 49% of operators plan to deploy 5G SA within the next four years, Enea said.
Standalone 5G is using infrastructure built specifically for 5G instead of non-standalone (NSA) equipment that carries 5G signals on the infrastructure put in place for 4G networks, which is most networks today.
"We've now entered a phase where operators plan to deploy a 5G SA core as the next step after introducing 5G radio access running on existing 4G core," said Jan Haglund, president and CEO at Enea. "It is interesting to see that most operators have identified the benefits of a common 5G data management layer that serves as the backend for all their network applications."
While 85% of the operators plan edge deployments at some point, more than half have no strategy for doing so, the survey said. Among respondents, 32% are going only with specific use cases for edge deployments such as smart factories, smart cities or retail, while others are holding off until the business case for edge deployments becomes more viable.
About half of mobile operators plan to move to a common network data layer across their network functions as they roll out 5G. But only 2% will choose to keep vendor specific data storage, showing that architectural choices will need to be made in the future, Enea said.
Learn more about Enea’s findings with its 5G Mobile Operator Survey.
