The first phase of 5G build-out is now well underway in major markets around the world. Increasingly, the big mobile service providers and some new entrants, as well, are in the midst of their first 5G deployments or will begin them this year. Mobile operators say their industry has made rapid progress toward 5G deployment over the past 12 months, especially in major markets. And while the initial implementations are non-standalone 5G, which takes advantage of existing 4G core networks, fully virtualized/cloud-native or standalone 5G is already on the drawing board.
