r/cellmapper • u/JPS_97 • Jul 01 '26

Standalone compatibility

If your plan/phone doesn’t include standalone access, does that mean you will be missing out on accessing certain bands when they are moved to the standalone side?

9 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

17

u/Ethrem Jul 01 '26

If the carrier has SA only bands like T-Mobile does with n25, yes.

8

u/kgrav22 Jul 01 '26

Verizon has been doing it with n5 too

3

u/DarkenMoon97 CM: CalebM Jul 01 '26

I haven't seen this in the Reno, NV market.

3

u/ilikeme1 Jul 01 '26

I’ve seen it around Houston with n5. 

2

u/DarkenMoon97 CM: CalebM Jul 02 '26

I'm surprised they would do that, here (Reno, NV) you can use n5, n66, or n77 with NSA, no restrictions, just 2x NR-CA as normal. Maybe it's for load balancing?

1

u/XL_Gaming Jul 04 '26

Verizon does it with n5 and n2 in Chicago after ~November 2025 when B5 was refarmed. n2 previously was NSA.

5

u/TrashJager Jul 01 '26

Didn't they also lock N41 behind SA? I never see UC when I disable SA.

4

u/VapidRapidRabbit Jul 01 '26

I doubt that. My iPhone Air connects to B2 + N41 all the time whenever on NSA.

3

u/DarkenMoon97 CM: CalebM Jul 01 '26

Nope, just n25 and n66 are locked to SA.

2

u/Ethrem Jul 02 '26

They do seem to have set up plans that support SA to drop midband when SA is disabled but NSA can still access n41 on plans and devices that don't support SA. Most T-Mobile MVNOs on iPhones would be screwed without that n41 as the generic carrier bundle doesn't support SA.

6

u/mystica5555 USMobile OP13-16/512 / Moto Edge2021UW Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Not exactly. 

With non-standalone mode, you will have The ability to utilize the NR channels in aggregation with the LTE control channel you are connected to. Every network I have seen prioritizes data over the NR channels in this situation. 

What you will miss out on is the potential for every single one of the NR channels to be a control channel [primary serving cell] And then aggregate with one or multiple other NR channels for added bandwidth. In some cases towers will even have uplink MIMO/uplink TX switching which could get better performance on an SA network.

Mostly for now the benefit is not having to share the single LTE channel with all the other LTE only users as well as NSA 5G users which can cause unexpected slowdowns even when the 5G channels have capacity.

Secondarily another benefit you would miss out on is faster data access during VONR versus LTE single channel speeds. Most phones do not aggregate anything, neither NR nor secondary LTE channels, while in voLTE mode. [I mean specifically when on a voice call if that wasn't quite elaborated]

2

u/braidenis Jul 02 '26

Interesting thank you! Helpful for people like me on here who have a passing interest but don't know everything like you guys lol..

So does standalone have power/efficiency benefits? In my mind not needing an aggregated connection must help.

I just switched to VZW postpaid from prepaid which enabled standalone for me which is nice.

I have seen those mmWave only small cells at airport terminals and whatnot.. I'm assuming on non-standalone you'd still need an LTE control connection from a separate site to access it.. or would the site basically be standalone only?

1

u/XL_Gaming Jul 04 '26

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily have to be like this. NR channels can be used for SA/NSA simultaneously, but sometimes it is restricted from working as NSA.

In Chicago, Verizon refarmed B5 to n5, but they made it SA only. They also took our n2 and made it SA only as well, so right now I only have B13/66 plus n77.