5G Standalone

June 2022

Global Status Update

Operators are increasingly experimenting with and deploying The technology is expected to enable customisation and open
5G standalone (SA) networks. With a totally new, cloud-based, up new service and revenue opportunities tailored to enterprise,
virtualised, microservices-based core infrastructure, anticipated industrial and government customers.
benefits of 5G SA technologies include faster connection
GSA is tracking the emergence of the 5G SA system, including the
times (lower latency), support for massive numbers of devices,
availability of chipsets and devices for customers, plus the testing
programmable systems enabling faster and more-agile creation of
and deployment of 5G SA networks by public mobile network
services and network slices, with improved support for management
operators as well as private network operators.
of service-level agreements within those slices, and the advent of
voice over New Radio (VoNR) technology. This report is the latest in an ongoing series summarising market
trends, drawing on data collected in GSA’s various databases
The introduction of 5G SA is expected to facilitate simplification of
covering chipsets, devices, spectrum and networks.
architectures, improve security and reduce costs.

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Investment in 5G SA by Public and Private Network Operators
5G SA networks can be deployed in a Figure 1. Number of operators investing in 5G SA for public networks and number
variety of scenarios: as an overlay for a investing in any 3GPP 5G network

public 5G non-SA network, as a greenfield

5G deployment for a public network 5G 5G SA
491
operator without a separate LTE network, 464
481
453
or as a private network deployment for an 428
402 412
381 388
enterprise, utility, education, government
348
or any other organisation requiring its own 328

private campus network.

235
GSA has identified 110 operators in 52 201
182
154
countries/territories worldwide that have 134
99 110
been investing in public 5G SA networks 82 89
61 68
52
in the form of trials, planned or actual
deployments (see Figure 1). This equates
to 22.4% of the 491 operators known 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q
18 18 18 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 21 22
to be investing in 5G licences, trials or
deployments of any type.
Figure 2. Countries/territories with operators identified as investing in public 5G SA
At least 27 operators in eight countries/
networks
territories are now understood to have
launched public 5G SA networks (see Figure
2). A further five have deployed 5G SA
technology but not yet launched services or
have only soft-launched them. In addition
to these, at least 31 operators have been
catalogued as deploying or piloting 5G SA
for public networks, and 33 as planning
to deploy the technology, so the launches
catalogued by GSA so far will be the first of
many. GSA has also recorded 22 operators
as being involved in evaluations, tests or
trials of 5G SA.

In addition to the investment in 5G SA for

public mobile networks mentioned above,
a number of organisations are testing,
piloting or deploying 5G SA technologies deployment of a private LTE or 5G network commercial research institutes, construction,
for private networks. GSA has developed a so far. Of those, 296 are known to be using communications/IT services, rail and aviation
database that tracks private mobile network 5G networks (excluding those labelled organisations.
licences, trials and deployments. As of April as 5G-ready) for private mobile network
The private mobile networks database is
2022, it had collated information about 794 pilots or deployments. Of those, 25 (slightly
available to GSA Members and Associates.
organisations known to be deploying LTE more than 8% of them) are known to be
or 5G private mobile networks, or known to working with 5G SA already. They include
have been granted a licence suitable for the manufacturers, academic organisations,

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5G Devices Figure 3. Announced and commercially available 5G devices with stated 5G SA support

GSA tracks the availability of 5G devices for All announced 5G devices Announced 5G SA devices Commercial 5G SA devices
end users in its GAMBoD database. With 5G 1,400

SA networks just beginning to be launched, 1,200

it is already aware of 842 announced devices
1,000
with claimed support for 5G SA, up 202%
from 278 at the end of 2020. Of those, 655 800
devices are already commercially available,
600
up 272% from 176 (see Figure 3).
400
The number of 5G SA devices as a
percentage of all 5G devices announced has 200
been steadily climbing. They formed 35.6%
0
of 5G devices in December 2019, 49.7% in
Mar Jun Sep Dec Mar Jun Sep Dec Mar Jun Sep Dec May
December 2020, 54.6% in December 2021 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 21 21
and 61.3% in May 2022. Figure 4. Announced 5G devices with stated 5G SA support, by form factor
Software upgrades are often needed to
enable 5G SA capability for existing 5G Module
Fixed wireless access CPE
16%
devices. 16%

There is a range of form factors to cater

Industrial router/
for different users, including modules for gateway/modem
5%
equipment manufacturers and vendors;
Battery-operated hot
customer premises equipment, routers
spot
and gateways for enterprise or industrial 2%
customers or their systems integrators;
Phone Other
customer premises equipment for home and 4%
57%
business broadband; phones; and battery-
operated hot spots for portable services.
This is showin in Figure 4.

Phones make up just over half (56.5%) of Figure 5. Commercially available 5G devices with stated 5G SA support, by form factor
the announced 5G devices with stated
5G SA support (476 phones), followed by Other
fixed wireless access customer premises 3%
Battery-operated
equipment (138) and modules (137). hot spot
1%
Looking solely at those devices that are now
Phone
commercially available (see Figure 5), phones Industrial CPE/router/ 68%
account for an even larger proportion, at gateway/modem
4%
68.2% (447 phones), again followed by fixed
Module
wireless access equipment (86 devices) and
11%
modules (70 devices).

A total of 102 vendors have commercial 5G

Fixed wireless access CPE
devices for SA networks and another 37 have 13%
announced devices.

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Chipset and Device Figure 6. Sub-6 GHz support by band, announced 5G SA devices, most-supported bands
Vendors
n78 630
The device ecosystem is supported by 63 n41 603
announced modems or mobile processors/ n1 521
n77 501
platform chipsets stated to support 5G
n3 443
SA, from five vendors. All 63 of those are n28 428
understood to be commercially available, n79 385
including 13 discrete modems and 49 mobile n5 327
n8 307
processors/platforms. (Note: GSA only
n7 299
counts chipsets available for purchase by n38 269
third parties and does not count in-house n20 261
developed chipsets not offered for external n40 224
n66 213
sale.)
n2 195
GSA has identified 30 chipsets announced n12 167
n71 164
as supporting 5G carrier aggregation of
n25 139
some sort and 44 chipsets announced n48 94
as supporting VoNR. These features will
be important in encouraging widespread
adoption of 5G SA services.

Spectrum Support in Support for millimetre wave is not yet an option for deployment of private 5G
Devices common. Chipsets are being developed to networks by regulators in various countries,
support this capability — GSA has currently as well as being promoted as capacity bands
Selected sub-6 GHz frequencies are
only catalogued two chipsets specifically for high-traffic locations in public networks.
increasingly well supported in 5G SA devices.
supporting 5G SA in millimetre-wave
The pattern of most-supported bands in
spectrum (one modem and one mobile
sub-6 GHz 5G SA devices largely matches the
processor/platform).
pattern for most-supported bands across all
5G devices, with C-band, 2.6 GHz, 2 GHz, 1.8 We can expect support for spectrum bands
GHz and 700 MHz known to be catered for above 6 GHz to increase in the future,
by most devices. This is shown in Figure 6. as these bands are being promoted as

Summary
The market is seeing the emergence of a strong 5G SA ecosystem with chipsets, devices of many types, and both public and private
network users. We can expect to see the market go from strength to strength. As it does, GSA will continue to track its evolution and
we will be looking out for important new trends as they emerge.

Topics likely to become more important in the coming year in this context include 5G carrier aggregation in SA networks, ultrareliable
low-latency communications capabilities to support machine-to-machine connections in 5G SA systems, increasing support for
millimetre-wave connections, network slicing in 5G networks and the introduction of VoNR in 5G SA networks.

©Copyright 2022 Global mobile Suppliers Association 5G Standalone: Global Status Update | June 2022 | 4
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