China Unicom makes first HD call on 5G SA network

2019 is the first year of 5G commercial deployment. Since the second half of this year, a number of 5G mobile phones have been launched on the market, including Huawei Mate 20 X (5G), iQOO Pro 5G, ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G, etc. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's inquiry on telecommunications equipment access management, as of now, 13 5G mobile phones in China have obtained network access licenses, which means that 13 5G mobile phones have reached commercial level and can be launched on the market.

Of course, it cannot be ignored that the industry is still in the early stages of 5G commercial deployment, and 5G infrastructure construction is still very imperfect. For 5G mobile phones to work properly, in addition to equipment support, they also need the support of operators' 5G networks. At present, operators are also actively promoting the development of 5G. On September 20, China Unicom Shaanxi Branch made important progress in 5G SA technology innovation. They took the lead in making a China Unicom 5G SA high-definition call.

It is understood that this solution is based on Huawei 5GC and virtualized vEPC, and verifies the EPS Fallback voice solution in the early stage of SA. Specifically, in the process of promoting 5G SA construction, they set up a joint innovation working group, focusing on technical innovation in 5G core network, and took the lead in completing the upgrade of 5GC, vEPC, IMS and base stations, as well as 4G/5G interoperability verification based on N26 interface.

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▲Image source: c114 Communications Network

5G SA refers to 5G independent networking, as opposed to NSA, which is non-independent networking. 5G independent networking (SA) refers to the construction of a new 5G network, including new base stations, backhaul links and core networks. While SA introduces new network elements and interfaces, it will also adopt new technologies such as network virtualization and software-defined networks on a large scale and combine them with 5GNR. At the same time, the technical challenges faced by its protocol development, network planning and deployment, and interoperability will exceed those of 3G and 4G systems. 5G non-independent networking (NSA) refers to the deployment of 5G networks using existing 4G infrastructure. 5G carriers based on the NSA architecture only carry user data, and their control signaling is still transmitted through the 4G network.