T-Mobile is ahead of expectations on the 5G-Advanced rollout
The rollout will be a network software update
The carrier's nationwide pure 5G standalone (5G SA) network gives it an advantage
T-Mobile plans to deliver its first 5G-Advanced based service by the end of this year, Ulf Ewaldsson, the operator’s president of technology, told Fierce at the Mobile World Congress show last week.
5G-Advanced will be a software update to a 5G standalone (5G SA) network. The upgrade, enabled by the 3GPP Release 18 5G-Advanced specification, will start to come online by the end of the year, T-Mobile said. The service will offer features such as improved spectral efficiency and enhanced positioning.
T-Mobile can get ahead on 5G-Advanced because it has deployed a nationwide pure 5G standalone (5G SA) network, rather than running a 5G radio access network (RAN) on a 4G LTE core. AT&T started to deploy standalone in late 2022 and Verizon has now launched standalone in several states in the United States, but neither operator has a nationwide footprint in the U.S. yet.
T-Mobile first launched its nationwide 600MHz 5G SA network in August 2020, and now says that swathes of its mid-band 2.5 GHz network support standalone. So the operator is starting to launch features such as voice-over-New Radio (VoNR), network slicing and will soon launch Reduced Capability 5G Internet of Things devices, as well as its first 5G-Advanced service.
“[It’ll be at] the end of year,” Ewaldsson said. “We’re going to be introducing a technology called L4S,” he said, L4S stands for Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable throughput. “It’s a video priority technology that creates a better video experience for different applications,” Ewaldsson said. During conditions of network congestion, “there is signaling going from the network to the app that tells it to slow down the bit-rates to adapt to the conditions, so you always get optimal rates through for whatever video you’re watching,” the executive said.
T-Mobile’s video advance
Retcon Analytics analyst Daryl Schoolar said that the L4S technology is a good way to improve video streaming on 5G networks (which usually isn't bad anyway).
“It is pretty interesting in terms of adding to low-latency communications,” the analyst said. He said this technology will enable better critical communications, improved gaming and video streaming.