Etisalat by e& today announced the commercial deployment and service readiness of 5G Standalone for mobile users that will give consumers access to a reliable nationwide standalone network and allow seamless voice and data services across the country.

With this deployment, Etisalat by e& has moved to the next stage of 5G, where mobile users will be able to use a complete stand-alone 5G network providing access to higher uplink speeds, improved device battery life, faster connectivity to the network. These benefits can support new applications, including rich Voice over New Radio (VoNR) and Video over New Radio (ViNR) calling experience beyond an over-the-top (OTT) solution.

Speaking on the launch, Khalid Murshed, Chief Technology & Information Officer,  etisalat by e&, said: “We are thrilled to announce our successful implementation of 5G Standalone technology. This is a significant milestone as we look to deliver end-to-end 5G solutions in UAE, providing our customers with the latest in digital innovations, superior experience and laying the foundation for the next generation of technologies on the network. The 5G Standalone network will allow us to offer our customers the latest in high-speed and low-latency connectivity. We are proud to be leading the way in 5G technology and are committed to continue our efforts to provide the best services in industry.”

5G SA will speed up service delivery and innovation cycles due to its software-based service model as well as its agile continuous innovation and continuous deployment cycles. The low latency that can be achieved with 5G SA is significant as it will allow for low latency gaming, enhanced AR/VR applications, and improvements to myriad enterprise use cases, also enabling for multiple IoT applications, especially those that require massive, constant connections

Etisalat by e&  5G Stand Alone (SA) service will provide customers with ultra-high speed and low latency internet connection, enabling a much more enjoyable and efficient user experience. Another key advantage of 5G SA is that it can enable network slicing allowing 5G to address all kinds of use cases by utilising the same network infrastructure to serve different service types through virtual network slices within the overall mobile network. Further, 5G networks can support a wide range of use cases by fulfilling different types of network requirements, including varying levels of latencies, throughput, capacity, and reliability of the network.

The 5G SA core network will now include capability of edge computing, network slicing, 3GPP SA guided network orchestration and service based architecture. Evolution from 5G Stand-Alone Fixed Wireless Access (5G SA FWA) service, to 5G Stand-Alone for Mobile Users will open a new era of 5G SA commercial use cases, while enhancing QOE (Quality Of Experience)

The 5G Stand-Alone deployment is based on Service Based Architecture (SBA) and have the capability of network exposure, slicing, edge computing and orchestration based on latest 3GPP standards.

5G SA coupled with new technologies such as cloud, network slicing, edge computing and AI will open up multiple innovative applications and solutions for enterprise, and consumer subscribers, including different vertical industries (manufacturing, healthcare, real-time surveillance and others).