5G network upgrade: SA construction exceeded expectations, and a small number of NSA single-mode mobile phone users were affected.

Author | Zhang Yating

Edit | Jin Yang

"Now if you switch the mobile phone's 5G network mode to NSA mode, you won't be able to connect to 5G, but it was ok last year." Zhang Lin (pseudonym), a telecom user from Hefei, Anhui Province, described to Sohu Technology the local changes brought by the 5G network.

Under the wave of accelerated construction of 5G SA, some users recently found that they could no longer connect to 5GSA network, and the debate about 5GSA and SA networking mode came back again. 20 19 Some experts said that NSA single-mode 5G mobile phones can be used normally in the next decade.

Many questions have surfaced-does the operator have a situation of shutting down the NSA network? Will operators dismantle NSA base stations and upgrade SA? Is the first generation of 5G users who bought single-mode 5G mobile phones being "played with monkeys"?

A wireless communication engineer from a base station equipment manufacturer told Sohu Technology that there are two main ways to upgrade NSA to SA. "One is' open dual mode', which opens SA on the basis of the original NSA, and the NSA network can still be used; The other is that NSA is directly changed to SA, which will cause single-mode mobile phone users to be unable to connect to 5G networks. "

"Upgrading the NSA to SA does not mean dismantling the NSA base station, and it is not accurate to close the base station." The source stressed that on the basis of building a 5G core network, the upgrade of NSA is mainly reflected in the software level. SA can be released by changing the data configuration of the base station side, and the hardware is basically unchanged.

Are NSA single-mode mobile phone users affected?

65438+ 10 15, Anhui Telecom and Anhui Unicom jointly announced that they became the first province in China to switch to SA network. This may be the main reason why Zhang Lin can no longer connect with 5G NSA.

Coincidentally, a telecom user from Ziyang, Sichuan reported to the media that Xiaomi 9 Pro 5G mobile phone which only supports NSA could not use 5G network from the beginning of this year. Local operators responded that from 65438+February 25, 2020, Sichuan Province began to switch from NSA network to SA network. For users who cannot use the 5G network due to base station upgrade, they can only buy the latest SA network 5G mobile phones.

The voice of the operator NSA withdrawing from the station is endless. Recently, a document "Notice on the Deployment of SA Networks for 5G Services" by China Unicom was circulated on the Internet. According to the document, in order to speed up the progress of building a 5G SA network with China Telecom, all branches are required to complete the dismantling of NSA base stations before June 30th. China Unicom said the document was "totally a rumor".

TMT analyst Fu Liang told Sohu Technology that operators are indeed closing NSA gradually now, because SA is very mature. "The 5G mobile phone bought on 20 19 mainly promoted NSA, mainly because the industry's expectations for SA were not so fast at that time. After all, the mobile phone replacement cycle was over 20 months. " China Telecom and China Mobile have indicated to Sohu Technology that they will not respond to the topic that operators shut down the NSA network.

On July 20 19, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that in principle, 1 should support both independent networking and non-independent networking (SA and NSA) for 5G terminals that applied for network access from June to October 2020. This may also imply that NSA single-mode mobile phones are not destined to stay on the historical stage for too long.

"The impact of related events is relatively small, and autonomous networking is the basis of our national 5G planning." Zhang Chi, a communication expert, told Sohu Technology. But in the communication industry, this issue is indeed controversial. "Is it unfair to users who only have NSA? Don't need 5G in such a fast time? "

It can be seen that the SA upgrade methods adopted by Sichuan, Anhui and other provinces are not mixed networking, and NSA networks are not reserved, which means that single-mode mobile phone users will be greatly affected. Of course, as mentioned above, on the basis of building the 5G core network, the NSA upgrade SA is mainly reflected in the operation at the software level on the base station side, and the rumor that "the operator dismantled the NSA base station" is self-defeating.

5G enters SA era

"In 2020, new 5G base stations across the country will basically default to SA." Insiders in the communications industry told Sohu Technology that "most of the NSA built in the early days of 20 19 were in provincial capitals, accounting for a very small proportion, estimated at around 20%. In 2020, there will be few NSA in the construction of counties and cities. "

Although NSA is not a fake 5G, there are also provinces that open dual-mode base stations to retain NSA users. According to the current speed of SA construction, users who use NSA single-mode mobile phones are likely to face the risk that it is difficult to connect to the 5G network.

In the early commercial stage of 5G, a few NSA single-mode mobile phone models listed mainly included ZTE AXON/KOOC-0/0PRO5G, vivo NEX 3 5G, iQOO Pro 5G, Xiaomi 9 Pro, Samsung W20 5G, Galaxy Note/KOOC-0/0+5G, Galaxy-A90 5G and so on.

Xiang Ligang, a famous communication observer, told Sohu Technology that the earliest NSA network was mainly built in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and there were only a few base stations in other provincial capitals, so there were not many so-called "earliest users" who had to stick to NSA.

In March last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document saying that it is required to speed up the construction and deployment of 5G networks, support basic telecommunications enterprises to take 5G independent networking (SA) as the goal, and control the construction scale of non-independent networking (NSA). Miao Wei, former Minister of Industry and Information Technology, also called for SA to further demonstrate the performance of 5G.

Not long ago, China Mobile officially announced that more than 400,000 5G base stations across the country have fully upgraded their SA capabilities. Therefore, it has become the key work of 202 1 to promote the matching of 5G end networks and fully migrate 5G users to SA networks.

"China Mobile will make efforts in two aspects: on the one hand, it will increase its stock, and at present it has upgraded and supported nearly 80 million SA terminals. All stock terminals with upgrade conditions will be upgraded in March; On the other hand, it has been expanded and supplemented. From March, 2002 1 year1day, the newly listed terminal turns on the SA function by default, and the SA switch is not allowed. "

China Telecom also announced the commercial scale of 5G SA covering 300+ cities in China in June last year165438+1October, and said that the world's largest 5G SA networking was officially put into use.

It is difficult for NSA to play the real specialty of 5 G.

SA is the inevitable trend of development. Many insiders told Sohu Technology that only SA can give full play to the true specialty of 5G.

Zhang Chi said, NSA just fiddled with the access network, and the core network was 4G, which was equivalent to half 5G. Although the Internet access rate of mobile phones has increased, the connection density and port delay can better reflect the value of 5G. "NSA can't reach the connection density of 1 10,000 per square kilometer, and the delay can't be as low as 1 millisecond of the delay of 5G ports. This means that the NSA cannot support 1 trillion devices to access the Internet, and it is difficult to complete remote operations that are extremely sensitive to time delay. "

Previously, in the debate between SA and n SA on 20 19, it was divided into two camps. The background of the controversy is that in 20 19, only Huawei Ba Long 5000 was a baseband chip supporting both SA and NSA, while Qualcomm X50 only supported NSA.

The camp represented by Huawei says that NSA will be eliminated soon, and SA is the real 5G. The Qualcomm camp, represented by Xiaomi and vivo, expressed opposition. Lei Jun once forwarded the rumor that "NSA and SA are both genuine 5G, and NSA phones can be used for a long time" to Weibo. Qin Fei, general manager of vivo Communication Research Institute, once said that NSA single-mode 5G mobile phones can also be used normally.

Looking back, NSA and SA are both set to "true 5G". "In the long run, independent networking is absolutely correct. Although the cost is higher, including the impact of NSA single-mode mobile phone users, it can be regarded as some costs in growth and progress, but' we are not wrong in the general direction'. " Zhang Chi said.