AT&T has activated SA 5G, aka standalone 5G, bringing the true potential of the next-generation cellular technology for users. Rolled out nationwide, the advanced technology offers faster data speed, much lower latency, and consistency. The telco now joins T-Mobile in deploying SA 5G in the US.
The development is important because with NSA 5G, which is non-standalone 5G, users get only a slight improvement from 4G. It’s because NSA 5G uses 5G radios over the existing 4G LTE infrastructure. The switch to SA 5G, on the other hand, changes the game completely. It operates independently on a 5G core. Whether for regular users or businesses, SA 5G delivers the optimum efficiency an operator can offer.
If you are interested, find more information on SA 5G vs NSA 5G.
A SA 5G delivers:
- Faster download/upload speed
- Consistency, reliability
- Minimal latency
- Network slice and other benefits
AT&T’s SA 5G is a step towards a ‘cloud’ future
AT&T’s SA 5G is designed on an open architecture, which lays the foundation for the company to fully embrace cloud-native operations. It has a collaboration with Microsoft to host its 5G core on the Azure cloud. “Our industry needs to move away from calling it names and digits,” AT&T SVP and Network CTO Yigal Elbaz said. “The architecture is different. It is cloud-native, like it or not. We are bringing AI into the wireless architecture, and it’s software-based. … I want to be able to progress our network with a software push.”
Coming back to the benefits of SA 5G for AT&T users, streaming, gaming, video-conferencing, etc., will now be super smooth if they were not already. Even if the improvement is not felt, as NSA 5G is also good enough for multiple users, the network’s efficiency and reliability take a huge leap up. Besides the regular web stuff, the advanced 5G also helps materialize self-driving vehicles, remote surgeries, telemedicine, and many enterprise applications.
AT&T’s move joins it in the ranks with T-Mobile for SA 5G. It’s more interesting that T-Mobile has planned to shut down 4G by 2028, so AT&T could also follow suit and give priority to 5G services only.
“We put the customer first. Our priority is to provide the best network experience, regardless of the technology. We focus on ensuring every innovation we introduce meets our high standards for quality and reliability instead of rushing something that might not be ready.”
-AT&T
Regarding its SA 5G rollout, AT&T said, “This growth is powered by an open and virtualized network, which enables us to scale efficiently and foster collaboration within an open ecosystem of partners. By embracing this open and virtualized network architecture, we are not only modernizing our infrastructure but also unlocking significant advantages for our customers and partners,” the operator said.
The telco says that it already has millions of customers on SA 5G, and more will join in with more device support and provisioning.