Stand Alone or New Radio
image ©iplook.com

5G Frequencies - when 5G was announced the UK Government introduced an auction for the frequencies allocated to 5G. These frequencies were allocated to the incumbents, EE, O2, 3UK and Vodafone. Initially the allocation was for 3.4-3.6GHz. Later OfCOM released the 700MHz frequencies that was purchased by the same operators for use in 5G. In addition some of the operators [O2 especially] were allowed to refactor some of their 4G frequencies for 5G. In the UK OfCOM have not allocated any of the higher frequency mmWaves at 26GHz or potentially 40GHz.

5G NR = 5G New Radio. [sometimes called 5G NSA - Not Stand Alone] The simplest way to get 5G up and running and showing some results was to use the allocated frequencies on the 4G network, and this is what the operators did. They added a new radio network for 5G but the backhaul and core infrastructure was the same as used. This effectively added to the capacity of 4G and at the same time improved the speed to those who were able to use the 5G network. However many would not call this true 5G.

5G SA = 5G Stand Alone. To achieve the expected speeds latency and desirable features of 5G changes were needed to the core network. The latest 5G network have a completely separate core network; separate to the 4G core. This has the effect of speeding up the transmission and improving the latency. As part of te process some the core features have moved to the edge which adds to the improvements of the network.