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During its Annual General Meeting, Reliance announced it will be deploying Stand-alone 5G in the country. With the service launching sometime in October this year, many are wondering what Standalone 5G (SA 5G) is and if it offers any significant advantage over other Non-Standalone 5G (NSA 5G). With that in mind, let us take a look at the difference between the two. But before we do that, it should be noted that a network comprises four components, namely, a mobile network, a base station, a radio antenna and a smartphone or tablet.
SA 5G is an end-to-end 5G network. This means that the base station and radio antenna are built from scratch keeping 5G specifications in mind. Both data and voice are carried over 5G radios. In addition to superior voice quality, deploying a Standalone 5G network offers significantly more speed compared to Non-Standalone 5G. Another thing to keep in mind is that building a Standalone 5G network will cost more since everything has to be built from scratch.
Coming to NSA 5G, the technology can make use of an existing 4G-based radio station on top of a 5G radio antenna to deliver a 5G experience. But compared to Standalone 5G, the speed is slower and the latency higher since the radio station is based on 4G. The overall voice quality will be a bit on the lower end as well.
However, it should be noted that NSA 5G networks can be converted into SA 5G networks using EPC virtualisation or vEPC. It is a software upgrade that can make a 4G radio station compatible with the updated 5G architecture.
Also, not all phones will have support for SA 5G. In some cases, manufacturers could push out an OTA update as well to turn on support for SA 5G. And even if they do, the availability of high-speed SA 5G will depend on your location and network provider. The majority of smartphones sold in India support a lot of the 5G bands auctioned. Several mid-range devices like Redmi K50i and flagship devices like iPhone 13 support both NSA and SA 5G. We recommend checking if the device you are buying supports both. You can read more about whether your smartphone is good enough for 5G or not here.
“At Xiaomi India, we have launched over 20 5G enabled smartphones in India, and with the 5G roll-out process currently in full motion, we are working to ensure 5G readiness across our product portfolio in India. While most of our smartphones are NSA-ready, we have planned OTA update rollouts in a phased manner to ensure SA support. To guarantee an unhindered experience, most smartphones in our portfolio will be functional with SA mode compatibility very soon owing to timely updates. We are consistently working closely with telcos to ensure that our users across the country have a seamless transition to 5G,” a Xiaomi spokesperson said in a statement when contacted by indianexpress.com.
Nonetheless, Reliance Jio’s move to deploy SA 5G might mean faster speeds and voice over 5G and could give it an edge over other networks.
