5G Standalone boosts coverage but not speed in low bands Deployments of 5G Standalone (SA) in low bands below 1 GHz reduce latency and extend coverage but do not increase speed compared with Non-Standalone (NSA), which relies on existing 4G cores. This finding has been reached by network analysis firm Opensignal from a study of T-Mobile’s 5G SA network in the USA, one of the largest SA deployments outside China. T-Mobile has deployed 5G in the low band primarily to boost coverage and so the finding that users’ time connected to 5G significantly increased after the SA network had been launched came as little surprise. But users might have hoped also for some increase in speed, given that SA is…