Global Assessment: Europe Lags Significantly Behind in 5G SA Field

A newly released industry report shows that Europe is facing severe challenges in the deployment and commercialization of 5G standalone networking (SA) technology, in the context of the European Commission’s strategy to build world-class mobile network infrastructure. The “A Global Evaluation of Europe’s Digital Competitiveness in 5G Standalone” jointly compiled by the international authoritative research institution Omdia and the network speed measurement platform Ookla points out that Europe not only lags behind major economies such as China and the United States, but also faces increasingly prominent imbalances in development among its internal member states.
The report analyzed global network data for the fourth quarter of 2024 and found that China ranked first in the world with 80% 5G SA network coverage, followed closely by India (52%) and the United States (24%), while Europe’s overall coverage was only 2%, ranking last among major economies. In terms of key performance indicators, the median download speed of 5G SA networks for European users is 221.17Mbps, significantly lower than the 384.42Mbps in the Americas, and also lagging behind developed economies in the Asia Pacific region (237.04Mbps) and emerging markets (259.73Mbps). (Note: The 5G SA network coverage referred to here refers to the proportion of 5G SA in the total 5G sample, as shown in the following figure)

The singularity of spectrum strategy and insufficient investment willingness of operators are the main reasons for Europe’s backwardness. “The chief analyst of the report pointed out that compared to other regions that adopt multi band collaborative deployment strategies, Europe overly relies on the 3.5GHz mid band and has made slow progress in the construction of 5G core networks. It is worth noting that the market performance of four coexisting operators, namely Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain, is outstanding. These countries have successfully promoted the coordinated deployment of multiple operators through tax incentive policies and coverage obligations. Greece leads Europe with a download speed of 547.52Mbps, while Spain and Austria have made breakthroughs in rural coverage by relying on the 700MHz frequency band.

The gap between technological advantages and actual benefits

Research shows that the performance improvement brought by 5G SA technology has begun to emerge. The latency of the European 5G SA network is reduced by nearly 20% compared to non standalone networks (NSA), and the download speed is increased by 57%. The improvement in the Chinese market is more significant, with latency and download speed optimized by 20% and 84% respectively. However, the report warns that the application of enhanced features such as MIMO multi antenna technology and carrier aggregation in Europe is still in its infancy, and the maturity of the device ecosystem is far less than that of leading markets such as the United States.

Breakthrough in Business Model Innovation

Faced with investment return pressure, leading global operators are exploring new profit channels through 5G core network reconstruction. American operators are focusing on developing enterprise level network slicing services, Japan has launched graded speed packages, and South Korea is experimenting with innovative applications such as water cloud gaming. Although there have been individual breakthrough cases in the European market, such as the launch of esports exclusive packages by EE in the UK, the development of industrial IoT solutions by Deutsche Telekom, and the implementation of dynamic billing systems by Elisa in Finland, the overall market is still dominated by traditional data packages, with a penetration rate of less than 15% in enterprise vertical fields.
Europe needs dual drivers of policy and market. The report suggests that regulatory agencies should optimize spectrum allocation mechanisms, establish cross industry technical standards, and encourage operators to develop quality grading services based on network slicing. As the 6G development cycle approaches, how to grasp the 5G SA technology window period will become a key battle that determines the competitiveness of Europe’s digital economy.