The new 3GPP 5G-Advanced specification promises a range of new features and functions. Operators and vendors are likely to start moving toward it in 2025 as telco spending looks set to resume.
There's a good chance that wireless network operators in the US and globally will begin moving toward the 5G-Advanced standard in 2025 and beyond.
But that doesn't mean the transition to the new networking specification will be smooth.
Operators face a variety of challenges in their efforts to bring services based on 5G-Advanced to consumers.
First, many of the technological specifications included in 5G-Advanced assume that network operators have already deployed the standalone (SA) version of 5G, which supports advanced features like network slicing. But SA has proven difficult for operators to deploy.
Most wireless operators around the globe first launched 5G using the non-standalone (NSA) flavor of the technology because it was easier to implement.
Further, an upgrade to 5G-Advanced will require at least some additional spending by wireless network operators. And they have proven decidedly opposed to that, when 5G deployment so far has not significantly boosted the bottom line.
Even so, competition remains intense among telecom network operators, specifically 5G operators, and there are growing indications that most will resume spending on their networks starting in 2025. Equipment and software for 5G-Advanced will likely be a part of that spending upswing.
What is 5G-Advanced?
The 3GPP standards association finished the bulk of its work on 5G Release 18 during the summer of 2024, and it's now available to 5G equipment vendors. That release officially introduces the "5G-Advanced" brand name to the wireless industry. 3GPP introduced its first batch of 5G specs (sans "Advanced") in Release 15 in 2017. Before that, the group employed a similar upgrade tactic in the 4G LTE era, introducing "LTE-Advanced" with its Release 10 batch of specifications in 2011.
Ericsson boasts about 5G-Advanced on its website: "With AI/ML as a key component, in addition to other technologies, 5G-Advanced systems will enable support for cutting-edge technologies such as extended reality (XR) and reduced capability (RedCap) devices, while enhancing network energy efficiency."
And Qualcomm early last year outlined a wide range of technologies it hopes will be available through 5G-Advanced, including improved MIMO and lowered energy consumption.
But it will be up to wireless network operators worldwide to decide when and how to implement Release 18. As with all 3GPP specs, each operator will be able to pick and choose the technologies within the specification that it wants to deploy.
Looking ahead
T-Mobile in the US plans to deliver its first 5G-Advanced services by the end of this year, company officials told Fierce Network in October.
That's not a surprise, given that T-Mobile has been working to remain on the cutting edge with 5G. It was the first operator to launch the SA flavor in the US, and more recently it has launched advanced 5G services like network slicing.
Concurrently, 5G-Advanced vendors such as Ericsson may look to the technology as a way to shift their business model.
"We will be selling more software in the future and the software content of our products will go up," Börje Ekholm, Ericsson's CEO, said during a recent investor event. "That will structurally help gross margins, but it may structurally hurt the top line a bit and we're in that transition. It is a bit hard to be specific now."
Already Ericsson has been showing off what it calls its "programmable" network, an idea the company has made central to its launch of 5G-Advanced.
In July, the vendor showed off an "interference sensing" feature as part of its 5G-Advanced portfolio. Piloted by Optus in Australia, it detects interference between cells and takes remedial action to boost performance. Optus measured the average increase in user throughput at 22%.
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