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U.S. Among World Leaders in 5G Stand-Alone Deployments: Ookla

India, the U.S. and Southeast Asia lead the world in stand-alone (SA) 5G deployments, while Chinese operators and India’s Jio lead in active 5G SA users, Ookla said in a new report. Europe lags, “with operators still hesitant due to…

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the relatively low [return] on existing 5G investments and unclear business cases for 5G SA.” The United Arab Emirates and South Korea lead in performance -- with download speeds reaching 879.89 Mbps and 729.89 Mbps, respectively, Ookla said. Ookla recorded just 11 new 5G SA deployments in nine countries in 2023 but said growth is expected to accelerate this year. “5G SA uses a dedicated 5G core network, unlocking the full capabilities of 5G with better speed, latency, support for large numbers of devices, and more agile service creation,” Ookla said: It also allows new features including network slicing, but comes with increased infrastructure complexity, higher costs and requires more staff training.