Vodafone’s 5G standalone network comes to gaming

Gamers have been enjoying advances in cloud computing and 5G for some time now. With the latter offering smoother gameplay and faster download speeds, truly enhancing the gaming experience.

However, this experience is still largely restricted to desktops and consoles, as smartphones struggle to deliver more immersive content on today’s wireless connections.

Working with Ericsson, we’re looking at how a 5G Standalone network could help by creating a more personalised connection for mobile devices and customers.

A game-changing trial

Completing a live network trial at Coventry University, Vodafone and Ericsson asked gamers to play cloud-based games on smartphones under two connectivity scenarios.

Some were playing on the public network while others were using an isolated 5G Standalone network slice that was optimised for cloud gaming.

This means that the network uses a 5G core with no dependency on 4G legacy infrastructure, which has then been sliced to form a network within a network that is tailored and dedicated to a particular use case – in this case gaming.

Research conducted by Bryter, an independent gaming insights and consultancy agency, confirmed that 88% of the triallists ranked satisfaction above 8/10 when using the 5G Standalone network compared with only 13% ranking the same satisfaction levels on the public network.

Frustrations included longer loading times, non-synchronised sound, and visuals, and increased lag.

Using network slicing, Vodafone customised the connection resulting in a 270% increase in download performance, a 25% decrease in latency and 57% less jitter, as well as smoother graphics rendering.

This demonstrates the importance of 5G Standalone and network slicing to deliver new 5G use cases and experiences, beyond what would be possible on a legacy network.

The player has the power

A mobile network powered by 5G standalone technology can be tailored to the needs of the application or service. Using network slicing, it can also then be sliced into multiple virtual networks, each isolated from the other network traffic to give dedicated performance, with the features of the slice tailored further to the user’s requirements.

This is big news for business customers and application developers. Imagine the impact this type of network could have in a hospital scenario when receiving remote assistance for specialist operations or for businesses wanting to secure communications for remote workers.

Thanks to the quality, speed, latency and reliability of this technology, it not only offers the premium performance needed to satisfy the applications and services of today, but those yet to be realised in the future too.