5G : NSA/SA

5G comes in two flavours. NSA (Non-Standalone) bolts a 5G radio onto an existing 4G LTE core β€” fast to deploy, and the reason early β€œ5G” phones still lean on LTE for signalling. SA (Standalone) is a full 5G core (5GC), unlocking low latency, network slicing and massive IoT. New Radio (NR) uses flexible numerology and can run from sub-6 GHz up to millimetre-wave.

Key points:

  • NSA = 5G radio + 4G core (transitional); SA = end-to-end 5G

  • New Radio (NR): scalable subcarrier spacing, sub-6 GHz to mmWave

  • Peak rates in the Gbps range, latency down to a few ms

  • A known attack surface at the edge: NSA redirection back down to LTE/EDGE

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