O2 Telefonica said its 5G services are currently being provided through NonStandalone (NSA) architecture

German operator O2 Telefonica announced the launch of its 5G Standalone (SA) network in the country under the 5G Plus brand, the telco said in a release.

The telco said that the new 5G SA offering will be effectively activated on October 10.

Mallik Rao, chief technology and information officer (CTIO) of O2 Telefónica, said: “5G Plus on the O2 network marks the beginning of a new technology era. We can sustainably connect our customers at high data rates and enable new digital applications. Now O2 Telefonica’s new 5G Plus network is available to more than 90% of the population in Germany. By the end of 2025, we will provide the whole of Germany with 5G Plus, giving digitization a massive boost.”

Up to now, the German telco said its 5G services had been provided through the NonStandalone (NSA) 5G architecture partly via its LTE/4G core network.

The telco noted that the new network will enable customers to have access to voice-over-new-radio (VoNR) technology, which enables them to make calls with even better voice quality over the 5G network.

O2 Telefónica said it has already been using the 5G SA technology in 5G campus networks for companies and public authorities since 2020. With this new launch, the company noted that more companies in different sectors such as industry, healthcare and the public sector will have access to improved connectivity.

The carrier’s 5G Plus uses frequencies in the 700 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands.

The European carrier activated nearly 1,000 new 5G sites nationwide during the first quarter of the year. The operator said it has been focusing on 5G network densification in both urban and rural areas of Germany.

O2 Telefónica and Ericsson had previously completed a proof of concept (PoC) with the aim of paving the way for the development of 5G cloud RAN technology in Europe.

The joint PoC deployment was carried out at O2 Telefónica’s Wayra innovation hub in Munich, where the partners showcased the capabilities of Ericsson’s first 5G cloud RAN installation in Europe. The PoC utilized a centralized control unit (CU) and used mmWave frequency to achieve an end-to-end speed of more than 4 Gbps, the vendor said.

Ericsson and O2 Telefonica noted that this collaboration “validates the feasibility” of cloud RAN for enterprise and industry-specific use cases as well as fixed wireless access (FWA) use cases.