A new white paper from the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance urges the industry to more fully develop multiple paths for operators to move from NonStandalone to Standalone 5G network architectures, particularly options that allow operators to avoid extensive use of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing.
Operators around the world initially deployed NonStandalone 5G that works in concert with an existing LTE core, essentially relying on 5G to be a “booster” technology (also referred to as an Option 3 architecture). Those early deployments helped the technology come to market faster than implementing a full, end-to-end 5G architecture with a 5G core from day one, but were always expected to be a midway point on the path to Standalone 5G.
