Ooredoo Qatar and technology partner Nokia have announced the Qatari operator’s first data call in 5G Standalone (SA) mode as part of ongoing 5G SA services trials, alongside the enabling of Voice over New Radio (VoNR)-capable 5G devices.

The eventual commercialisation of 5G SA will enable Ooredoo to partner enterprises and developers to deliver new use cases in domains such as Industry 4.0, massive IoT device connectivity, VR and Augmented Reality (AR), demanding faster throughput and lower latency, and will also open up the core network with open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) where third parties can co-create new services with customers and partners. Time to market for the launch of new services will be reduced, and 5G SA will also enable private secured virtual networks for enterprise customers, opening up additional revenue streams for Ooredoo via network slicing to ensure differentiated enterprise services.

Following the ‘national first’ enabling of VoNR devices, supported by Nokia 5G SA Core technology, Ooredoo’s customers will subsequently be able to make and receive ‘supreme quality’ voice and video calls over a ‘pure dedicated’ 5G SA network, the cellco declared. Nokia’s solution enables faster call setup, faster simultaneous data services and enhanced network reliability compared to Voice over LTE (VoLTE).