Oppo has announced plans to launch a dual-mode (SA + NSA) 5G smartphone by the end of this year. The announcement was made earlier this month by the company’s chief 5G Scientist, Henry Tang, at the Qualcomm 5G Summit 2019 in Barcelona. According to Tang, the new device will be powered by Qualcomm’s dual-mode 5G mobile platform and support both standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) networks.
Representing Oppo at the event earlier this month, Tang shared his insights on the current state of 5G and the future products, applications and cutting-edge experiences set to be enabled by the next-generation of connectivity. “The unrelenting efforts from OPPO and other industry peers have paved the way for the rapid adoption of 5G, with users in select countries and regions already becoming early adopters of OPPO’s 5G smartphones”, Tang said in a statement.
“We hope our next-generation dual-mode 5G offerings will deliver a superior experience to more consumers in more markets globally, making 5G readily available to a wider consumer base worldwide”, he added.
In a press release this week, the Chinese smartphone company claimed that as of September 2019, it had filed applications for more than 1,000 families of 5G Standard Essential Patents to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In addition, the company has submitted more than 3,000 5G standards-related documents to 3GPP, ranking among the top contributors to the international standards organization, it said.
It’s worth noting here that even as 5G is expected to start becoming more mainstream next year, it will likely remain MIA for the foreseeable future in India, with telecom companies trying to postpone the spectrum auctions citing high costs and low revenues. In fact, India is one of the few remaining major economies to have yet to start commercial 5G trials, with recent reports suggesting it might take another 5-6 years for 5G to be fully deployed in the country.
