Telstra, Ericsson Make Standalone 5G Call

Australian mobile giant Telstra has successfully completed what it describes as ‘the nation’s first end-to-end 5G standalone call’ at its 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast. The call took place in conjunction with vendor partner Ericsson and was completed using 3.6GHz spectrum and a forthcoming commercial chipset.

Channa Seneviratne, the telco’s Network Engineering Executive, explained: ‘A standalone deployment or SA, uses 5G technology including new 5G signalling between the 5G device, the base station and new standalone network architecture in the core network. The 5G standalone call is the first step in moving towards a 5G core which will bring flexible network architecture and even lower latency.’

Telstra says that it has launched 5G sites in ten Australian cities to date, a footprint which it seeks to increase to at least 35 cities over the next twelve months. The telco paid AUD386.0 million (USD271.7 million) for a total of 143 regional spectrum lots in the 5G-suitable 3.6GHz band in December 2018.―Tele Geography