The cornerstone of global mobile communications over the next five years will be 5G Standalone (SA) networks.
Yet while research from connectivity intelligence firm Ookla has said that Europe has set the most ambitious 5G infrastructure targets of any advanced liberal economy, it is warning that Europe also features the poorest outcomes in terms of 5G SA performance among comparable major regions. European operators need to adapt their business models and cater to new verticals to capture the full monetisation potential of the technology.
Developed in collaboration with Omdia, the report A global evaluation of Europe’s digital competitiveness in 5G SA focuses on Europe’s competitiveness in the technology, progress in monetising the 5G core for consumer and enterprise use cases, and successful government policies.
Fundamentally, Ookla acknowledges that the global roll-out of 5G standalone (SA) networks is gaining momentum after a slower-than-expected start, driven in part by its technical complexity and significant capital requirements in a challenging business environment.
It added that for governments, being at the frontier of the next phase of the 5G cycle is a key differentiator, with the low-latency and high-reliability capabilities of 5G SA pitched as critical to enabling new industrial applications, strengthening digital competitiveness and attracting inward investment. Mobile networks, Ookla emphasised, are now a core pillar of strategic national infrastructure.
The study observed that the European Commission’s commitment to high-performing mobile network infrastructure has been a hallmark of its Digital Decade programme in recent years. This is further strengthened by the recent launch of the Competitiveness Compass initiative, which aims to enhance Europe’s competitiveness in critical industries through a new pro-growth industrial strategy, prioritising 5G SA investments as a central driver of the programme.
The European Commission has positioned 5G SA at the centre of its emerging pro-growth industrial strategy to boost competitiveness. Yet, despite setting the most ambitious 5G infrastructure targets of any advanced liberal economy, the report plainly stated that Europe trails the US and Asia in deployment progress. Across Europe, significant disparities in 5G SA roll-out progress among countries have undermined the bloc’s competitiveness in the technology, widening the gap with leaders such as the US and China.
In Q4 2024, China (80%), India (52%) and the US (24%) led the world in 5G SA availability based on Ookla Speedtest sample share, markedly ahead of Europe (2%). The region also lagged behind its peers on other key metrics, with the median European consumer experiencing 5G SA download speeds of 221.17 Mbps – lower than those in the Americas (384.42 Mbps), and both Developed (237.04 Mbps) and Emerging (259.73 Mbps) Asia Pacific.
Ookla attributed the drive of roll-outs at a faster pace in regions outside Europe to the interplay of earlier deployments, a more diversified multi-band spectrum strategy, and greater operator willingness to invest in the 5G core to monetise new use cases.
While European 5G SA roll-out progress remains highly varied, the best outcomes have been observed in countries that have actively mobilised policies to incentivise 5G SA deployment. Germany, the UK and Spain – all four-player markets benefiting from targeted 5G SA-specific fiscal stimuli or coverage obligations says the research – lead Europe in terms of 5G SA roll-out across multiple operators.
At the same time, Southern and Central European countries have supplanted the Nordics at the forefront of this phase of the 5G cycle, with Greece (547.52 Mbps) leading on median download speed in Q4 2024 thanks to its 3.5 GHz usage, and Spain and Austria said to be “excelling” in rural 5G SA coverage on the back of intensive deployment of the 700 MHz band.
That said, Ookla warned that 5G SA’s full potential remains largely untapped in Europe. Advanced uplink capabilities unlocked by the technology – such as higher-order MIMO and carrier aggregation – to date remain limited to a few operators in leading markets such as the US, highlighting what it said the still nascent profile of the device and equipment ecosystems for 5G SA.
On a more optimistic note, Ookla said that European operators at the forefront of business model evolution with 5G SA – such as BT’s EE in the UK, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, Elisa in Finland and 3 in Austria – were already using the advantages of the platform to consolidate their positions at the premium end of the market and stimulate average revenue per user (ARPU) growth.
It particularly cited EE as having executed one of the most comprehensive 5G SA deployments in Europe by aggregating multiple carriers across low- and mid-band spectrum, adopting a highly diversified spectrum strategy in the UK, allocating as much as five or six spectrum carriers to its 5G SA deployments across large parts of major cities.
