BT CTO Howard Watson has stated that the telco could launch its 5G Standalone (5G SA) service later this year for its EE mobile network.
As reported by CNBC, Watson said the telco wants to create the right 5G infrastructure ahead of a launch later this year.
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“We have already been ensuring that the SIM cards that our customers have in their current 5G devices can do 5G stand-alone and once we think there is enough critical mass to have a real proposition, with some slicing behind it as well, we will launch that, and that will be later this year,” Watson told CNBC.
5G SA is not reliant on older mobile generations and solely uses a 5G core network, and is based on cloud.
5G Non-Standalone (5G-NSA) was the first implementation of 5G’s network architecture and designed to be deployed on top of an existing 4G LTE network. 5G SA has been hailed as the "real 5G" by many in the telecoms industry.
The service increases network capacity, cuts latency, and can connect to an increased amount of connected devices.
Vodafone became the first UK telco to launch the service when it launched 5G SA last year.
Last month, Virgin Media O2 launched its 5G SA network in 14 cities across the country.
