People ask me why 5G Standalone (5G SA) is taking so long to be deployed. Some say that 5G could possibly be skipped and that it might be better to wait for 6G.
It is undeniable that the mobile telecommunications industry is at an inflection point, poised for big changes and a new direction. the traditional consumer-focused Mobile Network Operator business model of ‘build it and they will come’ is no longer sustainable in the long term, having nearly reached its maximum growth potential.
Future growth for Mobile Operators will most likely need to come from a combination of revenues from the consumer business and from solutions for the enterprise market.
To achieve this, deploying 5G Standalone is a must. It’s a big step and requires significant investment, a solid long-term business strategy and a huge technological shift towards a cloud-native, digital-first, software-oriented network architecture – in short, a complete digital transformation.
A ‘G’ per Decade – really?
Now is the time to realise that we perhaps do not need a new mobile network generation with every new decade. sure, 6G is already being designed, use cases created and specifications are being written with plans to launch the first versions in 2030, but any new features on the radio network, which will be deemed ‘6G’, will rely on 5G SA core networks anyway.
Traditional growth strategies need to be redefined. There are multiple revenue-generating opportunities with 5G SA, there are also cost-saving opportunities as well as operational efficiency gains to be made.
How can we address the concerns and doubts surrounding 5G SA?
In May 2025, at Comfone’s ‘ConneXion‘ event, we held a panel discussion titled ‘5G Standalone Roaming – exploring how to unlock its potential while navigating the real-world challenges of security, operational efficiency, and business viability’.
I was privileged to share the stage with 3 experts representing Mobile Network Operators, a mobile network security expert and a member of one of the largest enterprise cloud cybersecurity companies worldwide.
It was a great debate, both educational and entertaining. I would summarise the discussions and the wide range of topics as follows:
- Roaming Network Security Challenges
- Operational Efficiency
- 5G and Zero Trust for Maximum Security
- Investing in 5G SA – a leap of faith
Roaming Network Security Challenges
3GPP’s strict security architecture for 5G SA roaming was a direct response to past (and still existing) vulnerabilities in 2G, 3G, and 4G/LTE.
The 3GPP set out to build a more secure foundation for 5G SA roaming, introducing strict, end-to-end encryption and signalling integrity mechanisms intended to reduce reliance on intermediaries, such as IPX and Roaming Hubs. To read more about this, check out my previous blog post here.
But as we discussed on the panel, eliminating intermediaries in the roaming ecosystem is neither practical nor ultimately beneficial.
In fact, when these intermediary service providers comply with the rigorous security specifications and fully align with the GSMA 5G SA standards of 5G SA roaming – including SEPP enforcement, mutual authentication, encryption and relation policing – they can become critical enablers of a more secure, scalable, and trusted roaming environment – instead of being liabilities.
Ok, so we have established that it is probably better to secure the IPXes and Roaming Hubs rather than disintermediate them.
The real problem lies in the need to have multiple intermediaries between two operators in a roaming scenario. This is when both operators don’t use the same intermediary. So therefore, the two intermediaries rely on the peering relationship and connection that they have established. Having two intermediaries leads to having two hops in a hop-by-hop scenario, but the security purists believe that one intermediary is already more than enough, two is just asking for trouble. This is the problem that we need to solve as a community and ecosystem.
The GSMA has numerous guidelines and rules on how IPX and Roaming Hub providers should address peering and the cascading of responsibilities along the chain. It is imperative the IPXes and the Roaming Hub Service Providers adhere to these rules and guidelines to ensure that security can be guaranteed in all roaming scenarios, this is not something that the Mobile Network Operators should need to worry about.
Once this has been achieved, we can move on to the next point.
Operational Efficiency
Launching roaming relations is a hugely cumbersome and time-consuming exercise and the international roaming ecosystem has become good at optimising processes and creating operational efficiency in the past few decades for 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE and 5G NSA – the intermediaries play an essential role in providing this efficiency and optimisation.
If the existing processes can be re-used in the roll-out of 5G SA roaming, then operational efficiency can be achieved and maintained at the same level as it is today for the previous network ‘G’s’.
Without the IPXes and the Roaming Hub service providers, achieving operational efficiency for Mobile Operators will be very challenging and will slow the adoption down significantly.
5G and Zero Trust for Maximum Security
5G has a large attack surface and extends beyond the network and inter-network connections used for roaming.
New comprehensive security architectures need to be developed, implemented and maintained. architectures, which include the workloads that customers will use to communicate through a 5G network, especially the new preferred 5G attack surface, the Edge workloads.
The Path to 5G SA Roaming is a long one
Much work needs to be done by the Mobile Operators before they can start working on launching 5G SA Roaming relations though, to name a few:
- Deploying IMS and VoLTE Services
- Then subsequently launching VoLTE Roaming with roaming partners
- Most Mobile Operators will go for the intermediate step of launching a 5G RAN with a 4G/LTE Core- aka 5G NSA
- And then of course the launch of the domestic 5G SA network
- All this needs to happen before the roaming teams can start working on launching 5G SA roaming with their roaming partners
5G SA Roaming is ready for take-off
With 5G SA roaming, it’s not just humans moving between networks, it’s vehicles, sensors, robots and autonomous systems that will often depend on real-time responsiveness – the seamless trust, policy and QoS need to travel with them.
The 5G Trust Model ensures roaming security in a world of autonomous devices, whereby roaming must evolve from ‘connectivity’ to ‘intent-aware service experience’.
New revenue streams lie in open networks accessed via APIs for enterprise services, regional (local) breakout use-cases, segmented tailored retain and enterprise packages with slices of bandwidth and quality, managed enterprise roaming.
We firmly believe that the long-term benefits of 5G SA will outweigh the initial challenges.
Want to discuss further? Get in touch!
Email me at: Derek.Moser@comfone.com
