5G Standalone comes of age and opens the doors for telcos to markets where ‘always on’ is non-negotiable

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Markus Persson, Global Industry Director, Telecom at IFS.

The new blueprint for delivering low-latency, high-speed 5G SA, no matter where you are

5G Standalone (SA) has the capability to reduce latency by 23% compared to 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks. But, while 5G SA has always excelled in rural locations and at one-off events, up to now, it has been a challenge to get the intelligence from these networks to optimise services.

The solution is for telco organizations to move digital infrastructure to be edge-native and AI-infused, argues Markus Persson, Global Industry Director, Telecom, IFS. This will not just enable 5G SA to provide end-users with the low-latency, reliable services they need, it will also open up whole new industrial markets for telecom providers to target where maximum network availability is non-negotiable.

Traditionally, networks have often struggled to provide stable, low-latency connections in rural and event locations due to the terrain, traffic spikes, high costs, and limited bandwidth. But the evolution of 5G SA has changed all this. The industry is now moving away from permanent, rigid infrastructure and towards a more flexible digital model that supports connectivity, even in the most demanding environments, and in industry settings where network downtime is not an option.

The rollout of 5G is progressing at pace, and by 2031, 4.1 billion 5G connections are projected to be 5G SA subscriptions.

The 5G evolution – it’s now taking its own path

The rise of 5G SA represents a huge architectural shift for the industry. Unlike 5G NSA, which is similar to 4G and 3G. 5G SA is a fully independent network architecture, with network switching and routing infrastructure being cloud native and run on hyperscale hardware. This allows telco organizations to unlock network slicing to tailor network performance and low-latency control loops in almost any location.

It also means that telco organizations can scale 5G SA quicker now. With Open Radio Access Network (ORAN), telecoms can use non-proprietary subcomponents from a variety of vendors. OpenRAN is also accelerating the adoption of 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap), cheaper enterprise IoT devices that supply 5G to less demanding devices such as smartwatches, sensors, and smart cameras, freeing bandwidth and energy for improved smartphone connections.

The result is we are seeing cloud-edge convergence, as telecoms are now able to place network infrastructure closer to users at the edge to deliver enhanced speeds and reliability.

The tech and partnerships empowering better network management

GSMA Intelligence projects 5.5 billion 5G connections by 2030, and with enterprise IoT connections also forecast to reach 38.5 billion, how will telco organizations meet this accelerating demand? Change will be required, and it’s already happening.

The partnership between telco organizations and hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure for Operators, Google’s Cloud DNA, and Amazon Web Services will be crucial to managing 5G SA networks. Hyperscalers are also accelerating AI adoption for telco organizations with platforms offering specialized cloud-native solutions that can encapsulate data planes and modernize real-time data processing. By leveraging hyperscaler technologies, telecoms can deploy private 5G SA and edge computing to allow for industrial use cases to manage these networks, such as implementing predictive maintenance or improving worker safety.

What started as a temporary fix turned into an industrial solution and opportunity

5G SA comes into its own at major events such as sporting events or concerts, which would traditionally be covered by 3G and 4G networks, and operators would begin putting in place network infrastructure at least one year in advance. However, with 5G SA unlocking network slicing, low-latency control loops, and its ability to run on hyperscale hardware, a hyperscale module can be placed at the edge of the event, for operators to install their cloud-native switching, routing capabilities, and digital infrastructure in a matter of hours.

This was quickly scaled up when organizations recognized the network benefits of these niche edge-use cases. Now permanent 5G SA digital installations are emerging at major commercial and industrial sites such as airports, ports, and even manufacturing sites.

These industrial networks open a new market opportunity for telco organizations to provide a reliable high-speed service to industries such as healthcare, mining, and high-tech manufacturing, where network downtime is not an option. 5G SA introduces mechanisms for boosting network reliability, making it suitable for mission-critical use cases. Features such as redundant communication channels, prioritization of essential traffic, and error correction contribute to near-continuous availability, even in challenging environments. This level of reliability is essential for services such as industrial automation, intelligent transportation, and emergency communications.

Industrial AI helps back-office systems become operational must-haves

By incorporating Industrial AI tools into operations, telco organizations can go where they couldn’t go before. This new digitized approach to 5G SA will need telco organizations to move into the operational and real-time world to be able to manage these networks in their isolated or industrial setting. That means they need to ensure their enterprise technology can support this shift, and it’s the perfect place for Industrial AI to support the move.

1. All 5G SA networks need a digital partner – they need digital twins

With 5G SA, telco organizations will not be able to manage the scale or the complexities of these distributed networks on their own, especially when you consider the deluge of data now provided with 5G RedCap devices. But it presents the perfect opportunity to leverage this data to design a digital twin of networks, where enterprise asset management software can utilize this data to give telecoms a complete digital picture of their networks.

With the mass amounts of data now being gathered through the digital twin, management will need Industrial AI to carry out the crucial task of orchestrating all data and sending it to where it needs to go. Organizations will be able to test network updates without affecting the actual network and manage change across a portfolio of assets all at once, instead of individually managing each asset.

Telecoms can now move from static maintenance windows for critical network assets to stateful asset management with a much more accurate probability to predict and mitigate failure windows

2. Always on – making network downtime a thing of the past

Consumers now want more than just an always-on network, they want low-latency, high-speed connections. With the network digital twin and with Industrial AI layered in, telecoms will be able to predictively maintain their stateful assets. Through processing large volumes of data, Industrial AI will create predictive feedback loops to alert telecoms when a failure may occur and run network tests to ensure all assets are running in an operational state and not in a quarantine state or a failure state.

Telecoms can now shift their focus to an outcome-based approach to asset uptime. So instead of just ensuring networks are always ‘on’, telecoms can guarantee their networks meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs) such as high speeds, low latency, and zero-impact connections.

3. Spot faults before they occur – always ready when they do

In today’s real-time world, maintenance disruptions must become a thing of the past for telco organizations. The combination of network digital twins and AI-powered predictive maintenance can help guarantee this, with faults now able to be identified before they occur.

Dispatch of technicians to then repair these faults can be managed with planning, scheduling, and optimization (PSO) software, to ensure the optimal scheduling of resources to repair faults as quickly as possible, with the right technician, skills, parts, and instructions to fix issues first time.

Time to say goodbye to connection problems – whenever and wherever you are

As the telecom industry enters its next era, powered by 5G SA, the industry’s focus must shift from just connectivity to high-performance and reliability in any location. Telco organizations that move their digital infrastructure closer to the end user and unlock the power of the proliferation of data with Industrial AI will ensure customers and industrial organizations are always connected to an ultra-low-latency and reliable network, wherever they are and whatever the mission-critical use case.

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