T-Mobile US claims several new world firsts for SA 5G

T-Mobile US recently unveiled its plans to activate its new standalone (SA) 5G network later on this year, after a successful set of tests in anticipation of that goal, T-Mobile US had recently finalized its merger with Sprint, and has designed an SA 5G network with assistance from multiple vendors such as Ericsson, Cisco, Nokia, MediaTek, and Qualcomm.

The world is anticipating the first SA 5G networks that are expected to launch this year. Their unique architecture removes all legacy gear, including the 4G LTE core from its components, thus delivering a complete 5G network across all areas.

The fast development of SA 5G infrastructure will also allow operators to deliver increased speeds, lower latency, and a better more widespread connectivity. Current 5G networks today are effectively piggybacking on 4G LTE, but T-Mobile US have plans of changing that framework soon. 

T-Mobile US has claimed that it has achieved several world firsts in recent weeks, such as the first SA 5G data session between commercial modems from two providers on a production network with assistance from Ericsson, Cisco, Nokia, MediaTek, and Qualcomm.

Other noteworthy achievements from T-Mobile US include a low-band SA 5G voice calling feature using the Evolved Packet System (EPS) Fallback to Voice-over-LTE also known as VoLTE. The first low-band Voice over New Radio (VoNR) call on a production network, and in addition to this, the first Video over New Radio (ViNR) call on a production network. What is most significant about these achievements is that T-Mobile US achieved them with a commercial smartphone.

Other operators worldwide are all rushing to reach milestones on 5G, some of their claims are more nuanced then other. For examples South Korea’s SK Telecom has previously claimed that they had initiated the world’s first SA 5G data session on a multivendor commercial 5G network back in January.