5G Advanced: key features, industry trends and the role of GCF certification

• 04 Dec 2025
• Carlos Pedraz

Introduction

The mobile telecoms industry is built on innovation, with every year bringing new capabilities and features to networks and devices. While initial steps are being taken to prepare the industry for the next generation (6G), the next evolution of mobile technologies relies on the implementation of 5G-Advanced, which will take us beyond our current 5G networks. It initiates the path of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize network automation and management, and provides better coverage and higher capacity for users – as well as new features for satellite, automotive, railways and industrial applications.

In this article, we’ll look at the essential facts around 5G-Advanced: what it is, where it fits with other mobile technologies, and what benefits it brings. We’ll also review how GCF certification is adding support for 5G-Advanced, building on our 25 years of experience to facilitate reliable and secure communications with the latest technologies.

How did we get here?

5G-Advanced is a broad topic, encompassing the 3GPP standards for the 5G radio interface and core network, and specifically Release 18, Release 19 and Release 20 (see Figure 1).

3GPP Release 18 provides higher performance and more intelligent, adaptive networks than existing 5G. It introduces native AI, improves support for AR/VR, and adds advances in mobility, positioning and energy efficiency.

In Release 19, these advances are further developed, with improved support for 5G NR Light (5G RedCap) and non-terrestrial networks (NTN). Further ahead, Release 20 adds developments for industrial internet of things (IoT), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) and private networks – while also bridging to 6G, with Technical Studies for 6G are also starting in Release 20, prior to normative work scheduled for Release 21.

Figure 1: GCF Certification status for 3GPP technologies from Rel. 15 onwards

Many 5G networks to date have been built with a 5G NR radio connected to an existing core of 4G LTE technology, a configuration known as 5G Non-standalone (NSA). In contrast, 5G-Advanced requires a native 5G core (5G standalone, or SA).

While 5G adoption is starting to be ubiquitous, with more than 600 operators active or investing in 5G worldwide, the rollout of 5G Standalone is moving more slowly, with around 170 operators actively investing (source: GSA). Operators will still keep LTE cores for their 4G LTE networks and 5G NSA, and in fact, LTE, 5G NSA and 5G SA will coexist for years to come – and 5G-Advanced will be a key motivation for investment in 5G SA networks.

Benefits of 5G-Advanced

While it is an evolution from existing 5G, it’s no exaggeration to say that 5G-Advanced is a substantial jump forward in mobile network technology. It adds new and improved capabilities for users, while also improving energy efficiency and manageability for operators, with AI integrated into the network.

Let’s look at some of the most important improvements and benefits of 5G-Advanced (compared to existing 5G and earlier radio technologies), and who they affect most.

Firstly, the benefits to users – people and devices – include the following:

• Quicker, more reliable mobile broadband: spectral efficiency and uplink performance are better, so users get excellent connectivity even when they’re in crowded areas like sports stadiums and city centres. Downloads are faster, streaming is smoother, and apps perform better.
• More precise positioning, including indoors: this centimetre-level precision is a key enabler for applications such as autonomous vehicles and drone control, while improving asset tracking, and navigation for consumers.
• Better XR experiences: consistent low-latency performance and reliable high-speed data throughput, making AR and VR applications smoother and more immersive.

From a network operator perspective, the most important benefits of 5G-Advanced include:

• Smarter and more flexible networks: AI is an integral component of 5G-Advanced mobile networks. It will make them smarter and more flexible, automating traffic routing, fault detection, and capacity optimisation. Dynamic network slicing also enables operators to prioritize and target resources.
• Better energy efficiency: helped by the optimizations achieved by AI, and including improved sleep modes for components during low demand. As an estimated 80% or more of a mobile network’s energy consumption is from the RAN, these efficiencies are highly significant.
• Improved spectral efficiency and MIMO antennas: with 5G-Advanced supporting channels as narrow as 3 MHz (compared to 5 MHz or more for 5G). This improves usability for low-bandwidth uses such as IoT.

5G-Advanced’s features are essential across a huge range of mobile applications, including IoT, non-terrestrial networks (NTN) and automotive uses that go beyond conventional smartphones:

• Improvements for IoT and industrial applications, including 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap): enhancing both massive machine-type communications and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), allowing millions of devices to stay connected for control, monitoring and management of industrial systems.
• Evolved Non-Terrestrial Networks: NTN 5G NR enables satellite and high-altitude 5G connectivity, by addressing technical challenges such as Doppler effects from fast-moving devices and latency due to long distance links. This will bring 5G to 85% of the Earth’s surface not currently covered, including the oceans.
• Enhanced vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication: more reliable sidelink technology means that vehicles, drones and other devices can communicate directly with each other.
• Enhanced communications for Mission Critical and Railways: while MCX (Mission Critical Services), such as MC-PTT, MC-Data and MC-Video over 5G Networks were introduced in Rel. 17, they are further developed in Rel. 18 onwards, and extended to Non-Terrestrial networks in Rel. 19. FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) specifications are also being improved on every 3GPP Release, and extended to cover deployments with less than 5MHz of dedicated spectrum.

Figure 2: Benefits of 5G-Advanced

Evolution of 5G-Advanced at GCF

Mobile technologies are always evolving, and GCF’s certification program is constantly changing to keep pace. GCF is collaborating with operators and service providers, device and system on chip (SoC) manufacturers and the test industry to add 5G-Advanced certification to its portfolio.

In practical terms, this means that GCF members define priorities by introducing Work Item Proposals in a GCF Steering Group. These proposals must be supported by several companies and approved by the steering group. Then, technical experts from across the industry develop the certification criteria in GCF Agreement Groups (Conformance, Field Trials, IoT, Performance), to create a certification framework. These criteria are based on test specifications defined by SDOs (Standards Definition organisations) such as GSMA and 3GPP.

Conformance testing requires validated test cases equipment. Specifically, a reference commercial product supporting a certain technology (such as a smartphone) is required to validate and approve test equipment for conformance testing. As the first 5G-Advanced devices are only just starting to arrive on the market, it’s still early days for certification. The evolution to Release 18 is a priority at GCF. Work items are currently in development and will be added to the active GCF certification criteria soon.

Accelerating demand

Of course, there’s no point investing so much time and effort in developing certification programs if the demand isn’t there yet.  How do we know what’s happening in our industry?

One important data source is the GCF certifications themselves. Figure 3 shows data on the different technologies in certified devices, and reveals the continued growth of 5G and 5G SA: while the proportion of GCF-certified devices incorporating 5G is stable in 2025 compared to 2024, the proportion of 5G SA capable devices grew to 58.2% in 2025, up from 45.3% in 2024, and from 36.6% in 2023.

For the first year, in 2025, the number of 5G SA devices exceeds the 5G NSA ones, reflecting the growth of 5G-only devices in the market. Around 70% of all smartphones certified now incorporate 5G, and 5G Carrier Aggregation is also growing significantly.

Each year, GCF publishes its Device Technology Trends Report based on the certification data from the previous years, which provides insights into the trends of technology adoption for more than six hundred GCF-certified devices from nearly one hundred different device manufacturers.

Figure 3: growth of 5G in GCF certification (2025 figures are year-to-date, up to 31^st October)

The global benchmark for compliance

5G-Advanced brings some big changes – and dramatic improvements. But fundamentally it is ‘business as usual’ for GCF – moving with the fast pace technology innovations is just what we do.

GCF certification programmes ensure compliance with all relevant parts of global industry standards for connectivity and services. A GCF-certified device is the globally recognized benchmark for connectivity and interoperability, and working with GCF enables product vendors to reduce support costs and accelerate time to market.

With 6G networks targeted to start rollout in 2030, we can see that 5G-Advanced will be at the forefront of mobile communications over the coming years – and GCF will be there alongside it, to enable our industry and its consumers to share the benefits of this new technology.