3 ms·

I'm not sure what the "SA" part means but my phone says it's on 5g right now and has done most of the time for a couple of years now.

deleted 20d ago
[deleted]
BlackRabbit1 20d ago
Just because your phone shows 5G doesn't mean it's connected to a 5G station. It also can only be a signaled flag from a 4G station.
wolvoleo 20d ago
SA means standalone meaning real 5G. NSA is non stand alone meaning basically 4G with some 5G backwards compatible improvements.
eightysixfour 20d ago
The 5G standard is a bit of a mess. In the US we heavily rolled out 5G NSA, which means you still have a 4G network core with both 4G and 5G radios at the edge. You get a chunk of the performance benefits without having to replace the network core first. This usually has similar (in practice) performance characteristics to LTE Advanced. 5G SA is an actual, end to end 5G network. The two biggest wins here for an end user are reduced latency (a big focus in 5G) and reduced power usage (the phone doesn’t need a simultaneous 4G connection).
- porridgeraisin 20d ago
  Yeah. In india jio was SA from the start. Airtel began NSA then I think now they have mostly moved to SA.
- majormajor 20d ago
  Hah, I was aware of 5G vs 5G mm-wave, didn't realize there was another way in which most 5G was "kinda fake" too.
  - porridgeraisin 19d ago
    26ghz mm wave was a bungle as well. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49675724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49675724
numpad0 20d ago
5G SA means real 5G. 5G NSA means 4G over 5G NR. They created an option to use just the 5G radio modem parts with 4G tower equipment to run them in the "Non-StandAlone" mode, so that telcos can start deploying 5G before even it matures. And the modem parts and their specs are called "5G New Radio", which is one of names of all time.

3 ms·

I'm not sure what the "SA" part means but my phone says it's on 5g right now and has done most of the time for a couple of years now.

by esperent 20d ago

deleted 20d ago
[deleted]
BlackRabbit1 20d ago
Just because your phone shows 5G doesn't mean it's connected to a 5G station. It also can only be a signaled flag from a 4G station.
wolvoleo 20d ago
SA means standalone meaning real 5G. NSA is non stand alone meaning basically 4G with some 5G backwards compatible improvements.
eightysixfour 20d ago
The 5G standard is a bit of a mess. In the US we heavily rolled out 5G NSA, which means you still have a 4G network core with both 4G and 5G radios at the edge. You get a chunk of the performance benefits without having to replace the network core first. This usually has similar (in practice) performance characteristics to LTE Advanced. 5G SA is an actual, end to end 5G network. The two biggest wins here for an end user are reduced latency (a big focus in 5G) and reduced power usage (the phone doesn’t need a simultaneous 4G connection).
- porridgeraisin 20d ago
  Yeah. In india jio was SA from the start. Airtel began NSA then I think now they have mostly moved to SA.
- majormajor 20d ago
  Hah, I was aware of 5G vs 5G mm-wave, didn't realize there was another way in which most 5G was "kinda fake" too.
  - porridgeraisin 19d ago
    26ghz mm wave was a bungle as well. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49675724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49675724
numpad0 20d ago
5G SA means real 5G. 5G NSA means 4G over 5G NR. They created an option to use just the 5G radio modem parts with 4G tower equipment to run them in the "Non-StandAlone" mode, so that telcos can start deploying 5G before even it matures. And the modem parts and their specs are called "5G New Radio", which is one of names of all time.