Mobile Phone Technology

5G in UK - the mobile operators EE, O2, Three and Vodafone each bought frequencies to enable them to run a 5G network. This required the construction of an entirely new network, encompassing both the radio and core components. The introduction of 5G coincided with various financial constraints, such as the impact of the pandemic and the requirement to remove Huawei from the core network. Consequently, the operators all planned to introduce 5G in two stages.

5G NR = 5G New Radio. [sometimes called 5G NSA - Not Stand Alone] The simplest way to implement 5G and demonstrate results was to build the 5G radio network on 4G masts and use the 4G backhaul to transfer data to and from the core. This effectively added capacity to the 4G radio network with many new, non-conflicting nodes. This is what the operators did to introduce 5G at lower cost. This also explains why many people complained that 5G was not significantly faster than 4G. While this was 5G, it is not 'real' 5G.

5G SA = 5G Stand Alone. In order to achieve the expected speeds, latency and desirable features of 5G, changes to the core network were needed. The latest 5G SA network has a core network that is completely separate from the 4G core. This speeds up transmission and improves latency. As part of the process, some core features have been moved to the edge, further improving the network.

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