Ericsson predicts that the UK could lead the deployment of standalone (SA) 5G in 2022 as the telecoms industry begins the next phase of its 5G journey.
Three of the four UK operators – EE, Telefonica and Vodafone – have already selected Ericsson to deploy 5G core standalone across the country and other operators are set to do the same. Ericsson’s strategy for SA 5G aims to provide instant response times and a better network that non-standalone (NSA) 5G can’t guarantee.
Ericsson VP of digital services for UK and Ireland Andrea Spaccapietra said: “Most deployments today consist of a non-standalone (NSA) deployment model where existing 4G LTE infrastructure is leveraged to enable 5G connectivity.
“However, it is in the SA 5G era – with the ability to efficiently support the most demanding applications in terms of high bandwidth, ultra-low latency and reliability – that we will start to see the most transformative use cases.”
With 5G usage increasing exponentially in the UK, Spaccapietra also forecasts that SA 5G will be implemented in many segments of society this year.
“Supply chains, manufacturing and healthcare are just a few of the industries that we will start to see leverage SA 5G this year,” he said.
“With supply chains particularly stretched and ripe for innovation, we’ll see pioneering use cases emerge where millions of sensors and IoT devices track products from source to final destination.”