White Paper: 5G Core Operator Survey – 2025 Edition: Scaling 5G SA
Read the on-demand white paper on the 5G Core Operator Survey conducted by Heavy Reading, produced in collaboration with Mavenir and other key service providers. The white paper explores the services, infrastructure, and operating models driving the deployment and scaling of 5G SA (standalone) core networks.
You will learn the following key findings from the white paper, based on insights from approximately 55 different operators:
- 5G standalone (SA) is set to scale worldwide
- New or better services” scored highest as the primary driver for 5G core investment, according to 41% of respondents
- Network slicing―arguably the canonical new service capability enabled by SA―is a good indicator of the outlook for 5G SA services.
- 5G core is cloud native technology; telcos are ready and are leaning into cloud.
- Experience in 5G core is a major benefit for extending cloud native technology and operating models to the RAN.
- A large majority (79%) of respondents expect to separate the cloud stack from the 5G core network function (NF) layer, which is consistent with basic cloud principles.
- There is a strong supporting role for public cloud in 5G core.
- For scenarios ancillary to the main 5G core, the lead use cases for public cloud
- Operators must make hard trade-offs between subscriber/traffic density and server performance.
- There is consensus that 6G should be SA from “day 1,” even though there is not yet a clear view on what this means for the core network.
