"The second edition of the flagship report on the global state of the 5G standalone industry found that by the close of 2025, the "coverage gap" between major economic blocs had narrowed, but a more consequential "capability gap" has emerged, reflecting divergent spectrum strategies, investment depth and the extent to which operators have moved beyond baseline SA deployment towards end-to-end network optimisation."
"Globally, 5G SA availability - measured on Ookla Speedtest data - reached 17.6% in Q4 2025, inching up from 16.2% a year earlier, indicating that roughly one in six 5G speed tests worldwide now occur on a standalone network. The headline global median SA download speed of 269.51Mbps now represents a 52% premium over non-standalone networks. However, Ookla cautioned that this figure masks significant regional variation driven by spectrum allocation depth, carrier aggregation maturity and user-plane engineering."
"On a regional basis, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have established themselves as the global 5G SA performance leader, with the UAE setting the speed benchmark. In general, the GCC countries now deliver median download speeds five times those in Europe, while the US has completed its Tier-1 SA launches. Europe is accelerating, but from a low base, and the research warns that the gap compared with global leaders risks widening as 5G Advanced networks scale elsewhere"
By Q4 2025, global 5G standalone (SA) availability reached 17.6%, up from 16.2% a year earlier, indicating roughly one in six 5G speed tests occur on a standalone network. The global median SA download speed is 269.51 Mbps, representing a 52% premium over non-standalone networks, though regional variation is pronounced. A capability gap has emerged due to divergent spectrum strategies, investment depth, and the degree to which operators have moved beyond baseline SA deployments toward end-to-end network optimisation. Deployment of four-carrier aggregation, enhanced MIMO, and premium mid-band allocation demonstrates the performance ceiling of fully realised 5G SA. GCC countries, led by the UAE, deliver the highest median speeds, about five times those in Europe; the US has completed Tier-1 SA launches while Europe accelerates from a low base and risks falling further behind as 5G Advanced scales.
Read at ComputerWeekly.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]