T-Mobile claims 5 standalone 5G firsts

T-Mobile US today said it plans to activate its standalone (SA) 5G network later this year, following a series of successful tests in anticipation of that goal. The operator, which recently closed its merger with Sprint, has designed a SA 5G network core with an assist from multiple vendors, including Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, and Qualcomm.

The world’s first SA 5G networks are coming online this year. The architecture removes all legacy gear, including the 4G LTE core from the equation, thereby delivering a complete 5G network across all components.

The advancement to SA 5G infrastructure will also enable operators to deliver higher speeds, lower latency, and more widespread connectivity. Today’s 5G networks are effectively piggybacking on 4G LTE, but T-Mobile and others plans to change that framework soon.

T-Mobile US claims to have achieved a series of “world firsts” during the last few weeks, including the first SA 5G data session between commercial modems from two suppliers on a production network with support from Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, and Qualcomm. The operator made a similar claim in July 2019, but that was accomplished in a lab.

Other achievements include a low-band SA 5G voice call using Evolved Packet System fallback to voice-over-LTE (VoLTE), the first low-band voice over new radio (VoNR) call on a production network, and the first video over new radio (ViNR) call on a production network. T-Mobile US said it also achieved these 5G firsts with a commercial smartphone.

As operators clamor to be the first to reach milestones on 5G some of the claims are more nuanced than others. South Korea’s SK Telecom, for example, previously said it initiated the “world’s first SA 5G data session” on a multi-vendor commercial 5G network in January.

SK Telecom previously laid claim to the world’s first commercially available standards-based 5G network in December 2018, and successfully used a SA 5G terminal, base station, and network core from Ericsson and Qualcomm in September 2019.

Standalone 5G Gains Momentum

Throughout the latest tests conducted by T-Mobile US, the operator said it initiated active and concurrent sessions in the same cell with SA and non-SA 5G devices.

“Powerful and reliable wireless networks are more important than ever, and these milestones mark a huge step forward for the entire wireless ecosystem,” Neville Ray, president of technology at T-Mobile US, said in a statement.

All of the vendors involved in T-Mobile’s tests applauded the success and noted how it showcases the thus far unmet potential of 5G. Cisco’s evolved packet core “will enable mobile edge and low latency use cases with control and user plane separation while improving data center space,” explained Jonathan Davidson, SVP and GM of Cisco’s Mass Scale Infrastructure group.

T-Mobile US was the last of the big four nationwide operators to deploy 5G, but it caught up quickly and deployed a “nationwide” 5G network covering more than 200 potential people in December 2019. AT&T’s 5G network now covers a potential population of more than 120 million people in 190 markets and it plans to deploy “nationwide” 5G coverage this summer.

AT&T previously said it will begin deploying SA 5G this year, and Verizon has said it will deploy a standalone core in 2020 or 2021. Verizon’s 5G network was live in 34 U.S. cities at the end of March, and the operator says it’s on track to deploy nationwide 5G service later this year.

―SDX Central