Complete 5G: The Future of Connectivity Unveiled at MWC25

Barbara Pareglio and Henry Calvert outline how 5G tech will advance on multiple fronts during 2025

One of the big talking points of MWC25 Barcelona will be how to generate more value from 5G. To provide a clear direction of travel towards that goal, the GSMA is advocating mobile operators embrace a concept we call “Complete 5G”.

What is Complete 5G? The term is shorthand for the combination of programmable 5G standalone (SA) networks and other operator capabilities required to deliver advanced connectivity solutions that can transform businesses and society. In other words, Complete 5G brings together both technological advances and business model innovation, as explained in the new GSMA report – Destination Growth: The Journey to Complete 5G . Based on interviews with leading mobile operators and equipment vendors, this report explains how an accelerated rollout of 5G SA, open APIs, and advanced network products and solutions will drive substantial economic growth over the next five years. For mobile operators, this business transformation could deliver significant revenue growth, initially from enterprise markets, through the provision of more valuable, highly differentiated services tailored to specific needs.

Complete 5G boosts mobile operators’ flexibility by taking advantage of 5G SA’s support for DevOps, artificial intelligence (AI) for networks, disaggregation and delayering, and other advanced technologies and techniques.

First, let’s explore the technological aspect of Complete 5G. With a cloud-native, service-based architecture, 5G SA networks are efficient, flexible and future-ready.  5G SA is a fundamental building block for the roll out of network slicing, and 5G-Advanced technologies, such as non-terrestrial networks (NTN), high-speed uplinks and 5G RedCap – a low cost version of 5G. However, most 5G operators are not yet benefitting from this architecture – of the 326 5G live networks, only 61 of these are 5G SA networks, with another 89 5G SA networks planned by 2026, according to GSMA Intelligence .

What’s been holding 5G SA back? Primarily it’s uncertainty around the business case. Complete 5G looks to address that issue by enabling mobile operators to better customise their propositions for enterprises. In particular, 5G connectivity can become highly programmable through the provision of open application programming interfaces (APIs), which support quality-on-demand, mobile identity services, location verification and other valuable capabilities.

Working together, 5G SA and open APIs will drive a virtuous circle for the industry: As the deployment of open APIs strengthens the business case for 5G SA, operators will roll out more cloud-native networks that can support a wider range of APIs.

For operators who have deployed 5G access networks already, we estimate adding the 5G core and taking the additional steps needed for Complete 5G is unlikely to exceed 20% of overall network investment spend from the past five years.

The discussions at MWC25 will also encompass the other challenges 5G SA faces, beyond the business case. In some markets, these challenges include a lack of low band spectrum, which is essential for broad coverage, the availability of 5G SA-compatible handsets and other equipment, and the need for interoperability between different kinds of networks. The availability of compatible devices is progressing quickly. In November 2024, the GSA said that 2,112 announced devices claimed support for 5G SA, up almost 40% from 1,511 at the end of September 2023.

Early deployments of 5G-Advanced

Another big theme at MWC25 will be the initial rollouts of 5G-Advanced technologies, such as 5G RedCap, which is designed to bring low-cost connectivity to a wide range of devices, including wearables and Internet of Things end points, particularly cameras.  Another key aspect of 5G-Advanced is the integration of non-terrestrial networks (NTN), such as those supported by satellites, with terrestrial cellular networks. In 2025, pioneering mobile operators are set to deploy 5G RedCap and NTN services based on 3GPP Releases 17 and 18.

At the same time, network operators will begin harnessing 5G-Advanced technologies to upgrade uplink capacity for fixed wireless access services, and to provide customers with a better experience at events, tourist hotspots and other locations where people are looking to upload high resolution photos and videos. 5G-Advanced also introduces technologies that enables mobile networks to be used for sensing use cases, such as mapping a location and detecting changes in environmental conditions. Working in tandem with these technologies, artificial intelligence will be extensively deployed to automate 5G networks and enable them to become more responsive to changes in customer demand and resilient.

Indeed, network resilience is set to be a major talking point at MWC25, given the growing frequency of wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather events. When terrestrial base stations are damaged, 5G-Advanced NTN services will increasingly step in to provide the impacted communities and emergency workers with the basic communications they need to coordinate rescues and aid.

Over time, NTN and other 5G-Advanced technologies will help mobile operators deliver Complete 5G, creating new value for both themselves and their customers, while driving broader economic growth.