Vodafone has announced it is the first UK mobile operator to switch on its 5G Standalone (5G SA) network and is offering it to select customers on a trial basis. 5G Standalone is a totally separate network, independent of the 4G network that the current 5G is built on. So, in future, users will benefit from much higher speeds, lower latency (buffering), and increased reliability and security.
Selected customers in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Bath, Glasgow, and Birmingham and who have Oppo Find X3/X5 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21/S22 handsets on Unlimited Max plans will be contacted by SMS to take part in the trial. It will enable many more “things” – anything from autonomous vehicles to building monitoring sensors, from smartphones to smart traffic lights – to be connected simultaneously. And because it is ‘cloud-native’, it can be updated and managed much more easily.
Vodafone has called on Government and regulatory support to enable the roll-out of 5G Standalone across the UK, as well as big cities The network says 5G Standalone could boost the economy by £150 billion. Eligible customers who opt into the trial are promised more reliability, improved battery life and improved coverage. The trial comes at no extra cost to participating customers and they can opt out whenever they wish.
The usual 5G network uses 5G radios, with the Core network continuing to use 4G technology. 5G Standalone uses upgraded technology.
Vodafone says its 5G Standalone network will bring benefits such as:
- Improved smartphone battery life.
- Smoother online gaming and video streaming experiences with minimised lag and buffering due to 5G Standalone’s low latency.
- Enhanced coverage – the 5G Standalone trial goes further than what is being delivered by 5G networks today; the increase is the equivalent to the area over a million customers live in.
- Significantly better 5G coverage indoors, thanks to the use of lower frequency radio waves.
- Greater responsiveness and reliability in busy areas, as 5G Standalone is built to connect significantly more devices simultaneously.
- Improved security due to more advanced end-to-end encryption and next-generation security software.
- Another benefit of 5G Standalone is ‘network slicing’ which can create parts of the network, customised for different customers. So a slice could be reserved for the emergency services, prioritising reliability over everything else. In March 2022, Vodafone and Ericsson completed lab trials for network slicing.
Vodafone will also trial network steering that allows the network to direct a device towards the right connectivity depending on the services being used.
