VMO2 extends 5G standalone to business customersVMO2 extends 5G standalone to business customers

It's not obvious from the announcement why VMO2 waited a year, but presumably it wanted to extend coverage and iron out any kinks before making it available to discerning business users.

So, from a day-one launch in 14 cities, VMO2's 5G SA network is now available in 500 towns and cities – a considerably larger footprint.

When it comes to ironing out the kinks, in November, VMO2 completed the switch over to a Converged Interconnect Network, which routes both fixed and mobile traffic over IP networks further towards the edge of the network, enabling more services to coexist. After having a few months to bed in, it's presumably now ready for prime time.

As for those discerning customers, a few years ago VMO2 somewhat grandiloquently declared it was evolving the humble service level agreement (SLA) into the 'success agreement'.

It's an altogether more consultative process whereby large enterprise and public sector customers work closely with VMO2 to specify the precise objectives they hope to achieve during the course of their relationship. It's dripping with the kind of blue-sky, out-of-the-box thinking that's typically the reserve of people who spend far too much time pontificating on LinkedIn. You know who you are.

VMO2 needs its 5G SA network to work as advertised if it's going to be bending over backwards to keep those more lucrative contracts ticking over.

The new network also paves the way for innovative new use cases, including autonomous transport solutions, remote healthcare and fully robotic factories.

Incidentally, these are the exact same use cases, copy-pasted from VMO2's 5G SA launch last February. Do they still count as innovative if they're the same, warmed-over examples?

The 5G SA network also supports network slicing, of course, which after a long wait is finally beginning to make some commercial headway around the world. VMO2 said its corporate customers will be able to configure slices to support applications like augmented reality, gaming, advanced robotics – whatever they can dream up.

There's no mention of what this deployment means for VMO2's plug-and-play private 5G SA network solution.

Launched commercially in August 2023, it's a portable solution that enables companies to activate their very own 5G standalone network at the flick of a switch, without necessitating the use of engineers. Innovative, but perhaps a bit niche, and its appeal might be limited as VMO2's public 5G SA network becomes more widely available.

After all, VMO2 says it is on track to cover every populated corner of the UK with 5G SA by 2030.

Jo Bertram, VMO2's managing director of business and wholesale, said: "The switch on of our next-generation 5G standalone network will make reliable, fast, on-demand connectivity a reality for our business customers. For the UK to capitalise on the benefits AI and the latest tech developments bring, high-quality network infrastructure is essential. Our 5G Standalone network provides a foundation for new services like private networks and network slicing, meeting the connectivity needs of businesses today and in the future."