Philippine telco began SA 5G network testing in May following 2020 5G NSA rollout
Philippine telco Globe Telecom is conducting a Standalone 5G (SA) trial in the city of Makati, the company reports. Testing of the 5G SA trial began in May.
Globe Telecom first received the green light to launch commercial 5G in 2018, with a nod from the Metro Manila Development Authority to deploy hundreds of small cell sites across Manila. The company brought its Non-Standalone 5G (NSA) network online to 17 urban areas in 2020, providing coverage to more than 80% of the metro Manila area by the end of the year.
To learn more about the different modes of 5G, check out this article: Standalone 5G vs. Non-Standalone 5G.
Globe Telecom has invested significant resources in 2021 to develop 5G. Amdocs noted earlier this year that Globe Telecom had tapped it for NFV and cloud orchestration software. Infinera, makers of Auto-Lambda, announced a contract with Globe Telecom to upgrade existing 4G access and aggregation networks to pave the way to 5G. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Globe Telecom struck a deal in April for multi-access edge computing (MEC) technology to support Globe Telecom’s Standalone 5G plans.
In February, Nokia announced a three-year 5G contract with Globe Telecom, with Globe Telecom president and CEO Ernest Cu declaring at the time “full speed ahead” on the company’s 5G rollout.
In noting the SA network trial, Cu said that his company “is creating new possibilities with 5G SA. We are all set to leverage these enablers to make our 5G value proposition more compelling and competitive. 5G SA will allow us to do more services for multiple industries with new business models.”
Globe Telecom now counts more than 1,800 5G sites across the Philippines. In a report published in September, Opensignal gave Globe Telecom high marks for 5G gaming, indicating the carrier saw the biggest uplift from 4G of any global carrier surveyed.
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