Telstra claims first domestic end-to-end 5G standalone call

Telstra has announced that it has successfully accomplished what it claims is the first end-to-end 5G standalone call in Australia.

The test, which was done in partnership with Ericsson, took place at Telstra’s 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast and was made using the 3.6 GHz spectrum and a forthcoming commercial chipset.

In a blog post, Channa Seneviratne, Telstra’s Executive, Network Engineering, explained that early commercial 5G developments can be deployed in a non-standalone (NSA) mode, which uses extant 4G technologies to signal between the 5G device and the base station.

“The 5G devices enjoy the next-generation speeds in 5G coverage areas utilising the 4G/LTE infrastructure,” he said.

A ‘standalone’, or SA deployment, on the other hand, uses 5G technology including new 5G signalling between the 5G device, the base station and new standalone network architecture in the core network.

“The 5G standalone call — as demonstrated at our 5G Innovation Centre last week — is the first step in moving towards a 5G core, which will bring flexible network architecture and even lower latency,” said Seneviratne.

“These enhancements will open up more use cases and opportunities in the future, such as industrial automation and control, and provide the enablement of new services and applications that we haven’t even thought of yet.”

So far, Telstra has launched 5G sites in 10 metro areas across Australia. This is expected to increase to at least 35 cities over the next year, including “CBD locations and selected regional centres that over 4 million people live, work or pass through every day”, said Seneviratne.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/iaremenko

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