Option 4 as a 5G SA complement

- Option 4 for smooth 5G NSA-SA migration -

by NGMN Alliance
Version: 1.01
Date: February 04, 2021
Document Type: Final Deliverable (approved)
Confidentiality Class: P - Public
Project: 5G Architecture Option 4
Editor / Submitter: Deutsche Telekom: Raimund Walsdorf, Peter Stevens

Contributors: BT: Kevin Holley, Salva Diaz Sendra, John Whittington

China Mobile Research Institute: Xiong Yu, Tianming
Jiang
Hong Kong Telecom: Anthony Chan, KL Ho, Henry
Wong
SK Telecom: Dongwook Kim, Myeonghwan Lee,
Kumchan Lee
TIM: Giovanni Romano

Approved by / Date: NGMN Board 12th February 2021

© 2021 Next Generation Mobile Networks e.V. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from NGMN e.V.

The information contained in this document represents the current view held by NGMN e.V. on the issues discussed
as of the date of publication. This document is provided “as is” with no warranties whatsoever including any warranty
of merchantability, non-infringement, or fitness for any particular purpose. All liability (including liability for
infringement of any property rights) relating to the use of information in this document is disclaimed. No license,
express or implied, to any intellectual property rights are granted herein. This document is distributed for informational
purposes only and is subject to change without notice. Readers should not design products based on this document.

Address:
ngmn e. V.
Großer Hasenpfad 30 • 60598 Frankfurt • Germany
Phone +49 69/9 07 49 98-0 • Fax +49 69/9 07 49 98-41
Abstract: Short introduction and purpose of the document

MNOs started the commercial introduction of 5G by deploying New Radio (NR) technology in their networks based
on the so-called Non-Standalone NW architecture (NSA) which requires that LTE acts as the master technology,
while also using the existing 4G core network (EPC).

The next step in network migration is the introduction of the 5G core network (5GC) allowing for a 5G Standalone
NW architecture (SA) to realize the full set of 5G advantages. An Option 2 architecture, where customers’ devices
are supported exclusively by NR carriers, is proposed to support this migration.

However, the authors of this paper are convinced that the simple introduction of Option 2 risks the new 5G SA
customers in many networks experiencing data rate performance levels below the level of existing NSA customers
or even the “legacy” LTE customers. This may make the introduction of the 5GC unattractive for mainstream
consumer use for several years until NR capable devices are penetrated into the device base to allow for sufficient
spectrum to be refarmed.

To avoid this situation, this paper argues that SA network architecture should be complemented by the development
of the Option 4 as an extension to Option 2 in order that 5G can quickly realizes its full potential in all networks.

Address:
ngmn e. V.
Großer Hasenpfad 30 • 60598 Frankfurt • Germany
Phone +49 69/9 07 49 98-0 • Fax +49 69/9 07 49 98-41
 Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................. 4
2 Benefit of Standalone and New 5G Core.................................................................................................................. 5
3 Why Option 4 is needed for Competitive Standalone .............................................................................................. 6
4 Technology alternatives to Option 4 .......................................................................................................................... 7
4.1 Dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) .................................................................................................................. 8
4.2 On-demand NSA fallback .............................................................................................................................. 10
5 Implementation considerations for Option 4 ........................................................................................................... 10
5.1 Option 2 vs Option 4 ...................................................................................................................................... 11
5.2 Standardization in 3GPP ............................................................................................................................... 12
6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................ 12
7 Next steps ................................................................................................................................................................. 13

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 1 INTRODUCTION

The 5G New Radio (NR) radio interface brings significant improvements to mobile networks including improved
spectrum usage possibilities and lower latency support. Nonetheless, the 5G specifications were created from the
outset with LTE as an important 5G radio technology to be integrated alongside NR. Nowadays, bands below 3 GHz
are mainly used for LTE, and therefore NR standalone (SA) deployments will struggle to compete with the data rates
and/or coverage of LTE in many locations. In addition, operators have a high number of LTE customers with a really
high penetration of LTE devices. Consequently, it will take time to refarm LTE bands to NR. It is important to note
that the NR spectral efficiency performance in these low frequency bands is not significantly better than LTE, thus is
neither a sufficient motivation for refarming specifically when costly nor does it allow to compensate for a large
reduction in usable spectrum.

This integrated support of LTE as a 5G radio technology was seized upon to reduce the Time-to-Market of NR by
concentrating first on a non-standalone (NSA) mode called Option 3. This architecture option uses LTE as the primary
radio technology to provide an anchor carrier, with NR carriers deployed as extension carriers. This enabled a 5G
launch without full development of all the basic NR procedures that would have been required in the development of
a new standalone radio technology. To further ease the 5G NR introduction, this Option 3 NSA mode was designed
to use the 4G EPC core network rather than the new 5G Core (5GC) network.

The Option 3 NSA mode of operation effectively means that NR is only a “booster” technology, enhancing the basic
connectivity provided by LTE. Terminals camp on LTE, connect to LTE at initial access, access NR carriers based
upon RRC decisions in LTE, and are directed by LTE to handover to a new LTE primary neighbour cell when required.
This heavy dependency on the LTE technology to provide basic functionality was intended as a temporary option
rapidly complemented with more future-proof architecture options.

Figure 1: 5G evolution from NSA to NR SA with complement Option 4

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 Further 5G development is focussed on standalone Option 2, a major development step on top of NSA that connects
5G NR to the new 5GC, enabling an improved service evolution as shown in Figure 1. It also removes the
dependency on LTE for baseline anchor carrier connectivity by adding all the other functions needed for NR to be a
self-sufficient technology.

However, the authors of this document believe that Option 2 seems not in itself being sufficient to ensure a fast
migration from NSA to SA using the new 5GC. While Option 2 transfers the master role from LTE to NR, it fails to
make use of existing LTE assets as an added benefit to the NR connectivity.

3GPP has defined Option 4 to give the same benefits as Option 2, namely the connection to the 5GC and a transfer
of the master technology from LTE to NR but in addition, it supports use of LTE as a “booster” technology to assist
NR. This paper proposes a rapid development of Option 4 enabling an easier and faster NR SA migration from NSA.

Without Option 4, the 5GC with NR SA developments are at risk of near-term deployment due to the lack of sub 3
GHz NR spectrum for most operators, making NR SA uncompetitive compared to NSA in data rate performance in
many locations. Therefore, Option 4 should be considered as a standalone complement to facilitate a near-term
move towards NR SA deployments.

Note that in this paper, the usage of the term “Non-Standalone” is limited to Option 3.

2 BENEFIT OF STANDALONE AND NEW 5G CORE

The new 5G Core brings a number of benefits from a service and operational perspective:

• Cloud native design using a Service Based Architecture (SBA)

• Support for network slicing
• Improved security, including Integrity Protection on user plane data
• Fixed Mobile Convergence support using ATSSS
• Distributed UPF enabling local break-out for latency and capacity benefits

More details on the benefits and implementation of the 5GC can be found in [1].

5GC deployment is required in order to avoid the NSA dependence on LTE for the baseline connectivity. Avoiding a
dependency on a legacy core is important in order to realise the full benefit of the new radio interface (NR), especially
considering aspects relating to the master technology like the control plane latency. Without 5GC deployment, an
increasing number of restrictions are likely to arise over time from the basic dependence on the older technology.

The deployment of Standalone is obviously an important evolution step that no operator can ignore. Most operators
are expected to start with localized “campus” environments where there is no pre-existing LTE network to be
connected.

However, it should also be noted that coupling of NR Standalone to 5GC deployment introduces risks to the 5GC
development. The benefits arising from 5GC services for the wider consumer market are somewhat intangible and
are probably not sufficient to justify significant extra costs or lower performance within a RAN. Considering that the
RAN usually dominates the overall network cost, an operator that deploys Standalone on a wide area basis should
have the secure knowledge that it achieves an equivalent performance and efficiency level to the existing NSA
deployment. Otherwise, it risks that the investment is undermined by disadvantages that erode rather than enhance
the operator’s competitiveness and efficiency.

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 3 WHY OPTION 4 IS NEEDED FOR COMPETITIVE STANDALONE

Unfortunately, a degradation of data rate performance is exactly the prospect that many operators will face when
introducing Standalone without Option 4 support.

User data rates in mobile networks scale with the amount of spectrum that is aggregated together to support the
connection. An illustrative example is given in Figure 2, where NR has been deployed in 2.1 GHz spectrum refarmed
from 3G, in areas where 1.8 GHz and 2.6 GHz is already being used by LTE. In these scenarios, the use of
Standalone with Option 2 restricts the spectrum available for a 5G connection, making the 5G Standalone data rate
uncompetitive, not only compared to NSA which can aggregate the LTE and NR spectrum together, but also to LTE
where carrier aggregation across two bands is already providing higher data rates than what can be achieved with
5G SA.

Figure 2: Option 3x vs Option 2 vs Option 4

Option 4 needed to maintain competitive user data rates in 5G on level similar to today

Option 4 can restore the data rate competitiveness of the SA customer to match an NSA customer while keeping the
advantages of NR SA. With Option 4, NR becomes the master technology, so the benefits of SA are ensured, e.g.
for low latency bearers. NR controls the (de)activation of dual connectivity therefore, LTE is only used when
appropriate.

The data rates shown in Figure 2 above are somewhat simplistic as actual data rates depend not just upon the
amount of spectrum, but also on utilization. Highly utilised carriers offer fewer spare resources, and so initially the
data rate contribution from the more heavily utilised LTE bands, specifically in highly loaded cells and at peak times,
will be less than that of NR bands at the beginning. In less loaded scenarios or with increasing usage of NR the
superior performance of using the LTE bands will become obvious. So overall, LTE and NSA can claim higher peak
data rates in general in scenarios where the NR carrier only holds a minority of the overall spectrum.

For a similar throughput among NR and LTE, a similar amount of dedicated spectrum is required. Otherwise, NR is
not able to compete with existing LTE although it is more efficient than LTE. In current scenarios, most operators
have most of their sub-3 GHz spectrum dedicated to LTE with a high number of subscribers. In consequence, Option

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 4 is the only way for most operators to transition to NR SA deployment in a competitive way compared with LTE or
Option 3

If the industry cannot provide an Option 4 solution, operators have several alternatives but all of them have important
drawbacks that need to be carefully analysed. One obvious way is to aggressively refarm spectrum from LTE to NR,
but this has the unfortunate consequence of degrading the service to LTE-only customers, who are currently the
large majority of customers, and therefore aggressively refarming a large amount of spectrum is an unrealistic option.
A substantial refarming of spectrum could occur once the majority of terminals support NR SA, but this situation is
not anticipated at least until 2025.

One other possibility is to use higher frequency spectrum where there are wider bandwidths available and which
have typically not yet been used for LTE to overcome the spectrum shortfall with respect to LTE. Within the coverage
of such higher frequency bands the data rate competitiveness is no longer an issue. However, a NR deployment in
such spectrum bands to provide contiguous indoor coverage would become extremely costly. Therefore, NR
deployments in these frequency bands are only expected to address localized capacity or service needs in particular
locations. Wide area NR SA deployment will need to rely on low-to-mid bands for at least the next 5 years.

Overall, we conclude that most operators will face a considerable challenge in finding sufficient NR spectrum to
provide competitive data rates for wide area NR SA without Option 4 or some other technology-based alternative.

In addition to Option 4, 3GPP defines two additional architecture options known as Option 5 and Option 7 that enable
the use of LTE as well as NR with the 5GC. The development of all three options have been requested by operators,
with statement issued by both NGMN [2] and 3GPP [3].

Unfortunately, major network and terminal suppliers have been unwilling to develop any of these options as the
operators requested, and the lack of commonly agreed operator prioritization between the three options has hindered
the development of any of them.

All the three options have valid deployment scenarios that justify their developments determined by the extent of the
NR coverage in target networks:

• Option 5 is applicable in areas without any NR coverage but with LTE coverage.
• Option 7 is applicable in areas with limited NR coverage using higher frequency bands still requiring
LTE as an anchor layer.
• Option 4 is applicable in areas where NR provides wide coverage and is overlaid by LTE, enabling use
of NR as the master technology.

Option 4, Option 5 and Option 7 are complementary to Standalone Option 2 in supporting a faster adoption of the
5GC in a wider variety of deployments. Option 4 is the only one that makes NR the master technology and as NR
spreads more widely, more and more network areas become suitable for Option 4 deployments. Option 4 removes
the inherent NSA evolution constraint whereby NR is dependent on LTE to provide the anchor connection.
•

Option 4 therefore encourages wide area NR as well as 5GC deployment, enabling a flexible long-term migration
towards Option 2. For these reasons it is proposed to focus initially on Option 4 as the more strategic long-term option
that addresses the main impediments to SA Option 2 deployment.

4 TECHNOLOGY ALTERNATIVES TO OPTION 4

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 Two technology alternatives have been proposed to mitigate the reduction in user data rates arising from use of SA
without Option 4, Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) on all carriers and On-demand NSA fallback. Both alternatives
are illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Alternatives to Option 4

Dynamic Spectrum Sharing and on-demand Option 3 fallback

4.1 Dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS)

Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) allows the introduction of NR on already existing carriers while maintaining LTE
operation in a shared manner. DSS has been developed to enable faster, lower cost NR deployment through the
reuse of existing antennas, radio units and spectrum assets.

By applying DSS on multiple carriers, it might be expected the SA performance shortfall of Option 2 compared to
NSA could be eliminated as NR can then access all the LTE spectrum without denying the spectrum to LTE users.

However, the use of DSS typically requires new NR capable baseband resources, leading in many cases to the
deployment of new or additional baseband hardware on top of those being in use for LTE. Besides, licensing costs
are typically applied per technology which adds a substantial increase to the overall cost of an operator deploying
DSS.

Furthermore, DSS brings performance reduction that reduces network capacity and user data rates. Support of both
technologies on the same carrier requires a duplication of control channels and reference signals which increases
the overheads (Extra Overhead in figure 4) and leaves less radio resource for user traffic. In this respect, the high
fixed overhead from LTE CRS and PDCCH symbols is particularly detrimental for the NR performance. In more
detail, NR capacity will be reduced by no less than 20 – 30 % compared to a common NR network configuration
while the LTE capacity will be reduced by a minimum of 6 – 10 % due to the NR reference signals having been
optimized.
But in addition to this overhead effect, if NR SA devices aren’t able to eliminate the LTE CRS transmissions, those
will cause additional (inter-site/inter-cell) interference that reduces the SINR, and hence the achievable data rate per

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 resource block. The relative degradation in data rate arising from DSS use is particularly marked for NR users on
unloaded carriers where the CRS transmissions dominate the interference.

One of the motivations for deploying NR is the improvement in spectrum efficiency, largely arising from lower fixed
overheads. But the use of DSS as currently implemented reverses this benefit as Figure 4 illustrates.

Figure 4: Performance degradation in LTE and NR by DSS

For LTE, Figure 4 shows a first reduction caused by NR overheads. On top of that, the fact that LTE devices have
the required LTE CRS filters plus the control signal, the NR efficiency experiences further degradation. Note that the
interference effects depend upon network load.

Interestingly however, LTE CRS filters for interference cancellation implemented in LTE devices aren’t implemented
in NR devices. That fact causes the high interference levels in NR devices which is an undesirable effect to be added
to the overhead losses. Accordingly, the use of DSS even in unloaded networks will result in an unacceptable
performance for NR UEs. Until LTE CRS filters are supported in the vast majority of NR devices, DSS is not a realistic
option for operators to overcome the above shown performance shortfall..

Note that the relative performance between NR and LTE depends upon the network load and the relating contribution
of CRS transmissions in the overall interference. Also note that the effectiveness of the CRS interference mitigation
depends upon the number of interfering cells and the LTE synchronization.

DSS configuration limits the number of controls channel resources in LTE and in NR. That reduces the total number
of end users that can be supported in each technology.

In conclusion, while DSS can be used as a valuable enabler for more rapid NR deployment on a restricted basis, it
is not recommended as an alternative to Option 4 on a wider basis.

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 4.2 On-demand NSA fallback

The other alternative to Option 4 is to implement an On-demand fallback to NSA, using an inter-system handover
whenever the higher data rate offered by NSA would be useful.

The obvious drawback is the loss of the service benefits of the new 5GC when falling back to the EPC. The advanced
5GC security, network slicing, FMC and local breakout features offered by the 5GC are compromised. In addition,
the evolutionary case for deploying Standalone is compromised by the continued basic dependency on EPC/LTE
whenever high data rates are needed.

Additionally, the On-demand NSA fallback involves an inter-frequency inter-technology handover with substantial
delays also causing an interruption to the connectivity. For a 5G network aiming for high speed and low latency in
packetized transmission these seems highly undesirable for a procedure that needs to take place as a condition for
accessing higher data rates. In many instances the benefits of achieving a higher rate will never be realised due to
the delay - or even worse, outweighed by the gap in transmission occurring at the time of handover to the EPC.

In summary, on-demand NSA fallback undermines the reasons to deploy SA and is not considered a realistic
alternative to Option 4.

5 IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR OPTION 4

The complexity of implementing Option 4 is assumed to be similar to Option 3/3x, as though the development and
testing effort involved simply scales with the number of options supported. In practice, Option 4 is a comparatively
small extension to Option 2. Option 2 involves the development of all the idle mode and handover messaging and
procedures needed to remove the dependence on LTE and, in addition, the support of an interface to the new CN
(not considering the 5GC itself). Support of Option 4 on the other hand requires development of only a limited number
of procedures like Secondary Node Addition and Secondary Node Removal, which control the use of dual
connectivity which adds an LTE leg to that of NR.

Option 4 uses the same dual connectivity basis as NSA Option 3 and its variants, and therefore, the implementation
of this variant of dual connectivity will be straightforward. Some changes are needed for the LTE lower layer to support
QoS and network slicing on new NG-RAN bearers. But with a sensible mapping to existing QoS classes, it should
be possible to keep such changes small by not mapping any elaborated QoS handling to the LTE side but treating
LTE as an additional data pipe with simpler properties.

The LTE PDCP layer do not need to be adapted to provide an interface to the 5GC since it may reuse the ones
defined for NR SA. Note that Option 4a (see figure 5) allowing SeNB bearer from LTE is not seen to be very useful
and therefore is not targeted here.

From a device RF perspective, the implementation of a given EN-DC Option 3 band combination supporting NSA
should implicitly support NE-DC Option 4, although a formal approval of the required NE-DC band combinations
would be needed in 3GPP.

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 Figure 5: Option 4 vs. Option 4a

Option 4 should not add any hardware complexity in either the terminal or the base station. Implementation costs
mainly relate to software development and testing, and while these are not negligible, they do not seem comparable
to the costs arising from a widespread use of DSS as already outlined.

5.1 Option 2 vs Option 4

The following

Table 1 summarizes the pros and cons of Option 4 vs a future NR SA limited to Option 2 only.

Option 2 Option 4
Master Node NR NR
High data throughput Only with large amount of NR Supported
supporting spectrum
Coverage Based on NR bands Same as Option 2, as Option 4
reverts to Option 2 at coverage limits
Capacity Based on total NR spectrum Same as Option 2 plus LTE spectrum
Impact in legacy LTE customers High impact if aggressive No impact
refarming is required
Slicing Supported Supported
Low latency services Supported Supported
Enhanced security Supported Supported
Dual connectivity Not required Required
Enhanced UE power saving Supported Supported
Extra UE power consumption for Not required Required in short periods of time
DC while Dual Connectivity (DC) is
required. DC periods are shortened
due to higher throughputs.

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 Table 1: Comparison between Option 2 and Option 4
As elaborated in the previous chapters, Option 4 implementation would be a complement to Option 2. It allows for
Dual Connectivity (NE-DC) to add LTE spectrum resources for the latest 5G NR SA customers but only optional and
for short time periods when needed to achieve superior data rates. Without Option 4 and as long as significant
spectrum resources cannot be refarmed to NR since still needed for the high number of LTE customers in the
networks, the latest 5G NR SA customers will experience performance disadvantages.

5.2 Standardization in 3GPP

Option 4 is already standardized within the Release 15 core specifications. However the commercialization of Option
4 requires 3GPP to finalize work in two areas: test specifications and bands combinations.

3GPP RAN5 should complete its work to support all the required interoperability tests to validate Option 4 functionality
in order to ensure the inter-vendor operability.

As has already been mentioned in the previous section, 3GPP RAN4 will need to incorporate any needed band
combinations for NE-DC using the usual release independent process. It should be quite straightforward introducing
pre-existing EN-DC combinations as NE-DC combinations as the RF design should be the same.

6 CONCLUSION

Realizing the full benefit of 5G requires the implementation of 5G Standalone architecture. That introduces new 5G
technologies end-to-end, supporting new 5GC-based services and removing the dependency on the older LTE as
an underlaid master technology.

Most operators will soon deploy a 5GC and offer Standalone service using Option 2. Some operators with large
amounts of low frequency spectrum useable for NR might offer Standalone services on a wide area basis to all their
customers, but mass market use in many countries will by hindered by uncompetitive data rates. The unavailability
of new or free spectrum in high-coverage low-frequency bands limits the data rates which could be provided by NR
alone. So, SA Option 2 implementations in the short term are expected to be mostly localized ones for vertical
customers (“Campus”) rather than to become part of the public networks.

Option 4 eliminates performance shortfalls of NR SA, but unfortunately Option 4 is not yet being developed by most
network and terminal suppliers.

A commonly proposed technology alternative to Option 4 is an extensive use of DSS on multiple carriers to increase
the amount of NR usable spectrum or on-demand fallbacks of NR SA users to LTE and NSA. While DSS is a valuable
enabler for more rapid NR deployment, it has been demonstrated that DSS degrades spectrum efficiency and it is
costly to deploy. Recent measurements also show NR data rates on the same DSS carrier are worse than LTE due
to lacking interference cancellation technology in NR devices. This turn means that DSS cannot fully address the
competitiveness issue and therefore, an extensive use of DSS on multiple carriers is not recommended. With on-
demand fallbacks an operator loses the 5GC benefits and therefore service continuity cannot be guaranteed.

There is consequently an urgent need for suppliers of network and terminal equipment to progress on Option 4 to
enable a smooth path for Standalone introduction in all operators within the next few years. If the ecosystem
continues to focus exclusively on Option 2 and Option 3, a medium term deployment of the 5GC for the mass market
is likely to be delayed in many operators, probably until NR SA support is sufficiently well penetrated into the terminal

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 population that most of the LTE spectrum can be refarmed to NR, enabling a competitive 5G SA performance level.
Option 4 is needed so that the full NR SA ecosystem is not put at risk by denying NR technology the means to also
exploit existing LTE assets.

Option 4 should be treated as a complementary extension to Option 2. The SW development and testing costs
involved in developing Option 4 are significantly smaller than the investments made in NR SA and 5GC. No hardware
impact is anticipated in either the network or the devices.

Finally, in the long term, Option 4 continues to be of value after SA introduction by boosting 5G performance for as
long as there is spectrum dedicated to LTE. Option 4 also relaxes the pressure for LTE spectrum to be refarmed and
thereby enables better performance for LTE customers for longer.

7 NEXT STEPS

NGMN requests network and chipset manufacturers and OEM suppliers to focus on the development of Option 4
and bring this functionality to a commercially usable state to have it in live networks in 2023 at the latest.

This NGMN project plans the first trial of Option 4 early 2021 to confirm benefits and promote a development of
Option 4 within the ecosystem, assuming supporting suppliers can be found.

_______________________________________

References

[1] “5G Implementation Guidelines: SA Option 2”, GSMA, June 2020,

https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/5G-SA-Option-2-
ImplementationGuideline-v1.3.pdf

[2] https://www.ngmn.org/ngmn-news/press-release/ngmn-operators-joint-position-on-5g-core-connectivity-
options-2.html

[3] https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/wiki/operator-requirements-for-5g-core-connectivity-options/

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