China Unicom recently opened its first 5G SA independent networking base stations based on IPv6 intelligent metro network architecture in Qiyi Road shopping district of Xuchang, Henan Province.
After field testing, the network has a download speed of 1.236 Gbps and an upload speed of 304 Mbps.
This marks the opening of China Unicom's first 5G SA end-to-end commercial network at the site and lays a solid foundation for the next batch of 5G base stations to enter the network.
NSA stands for Non-Standard Alone, SA stands for Standard Alone.
The former is based on the NSA, a 5G networking method based on the upgrade of 4G base stations, while the other is a completely independent end-to-end 5G networking method called SA.
Due to the cost and deployment efficiency advantages of NSA, the majority of operators around the world have adopted the "NSA first, then SA" 5G network rollout strategy.
In the past year, there has been a lot of popular science about NSA and SA networking methods.
NSA is a non-independent network with a mature technology that can cover a large area, while SA is an independent network that takes time to achieve basic coverage.
However, SA is obviously the ultimate choice for 5G, which is technically superior and requires more investment from operators.
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