Four industry partners are set to launch the first commercial 5G standalone (SA) network in Europe across three German cities, Düsseldorf, Münster, and Leipzig. The initiative is made possible by a collaboration between Vodafone Germany, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Ericsson, and Oppo, reported Mobile World Live.
According to the partners, who have been testing the network since November 2020, the move marks a milestone in the development of technology in Europe. They added that SA 5G is a more “complete form” of the next-generation technology.
“5G standalone brings fast speeds, greater efficiency, new levels of performance and scalability to 5G,” said Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president and president, Qualcomm Europe/MEA, Qualcomm Europe, Inc.
The partners each contributed different elements to make the SA 5G network possible. Vodafone upgraded 1,000 sites to SA 5G, covering 170 cities and municipalities on 3.5GHz spectrum. Ericsson supplied its cloud-native 5G core infrastructure. The network was tested on the Oppo Find X3 Pro smartphones, powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 5G mobile platform.
Vodafone Germany CTO Gerhard Mack explained the first sites offered latency between 10 milliseconds and 15 milliseconds, “as fast as the human nervous system.”
Salvatori added, “This is a significant milestone not only for Germany but for Europe. 5G standalone is a key step in the 5G evolution and will bring new benefits to consumers and businesses alike.”
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