British telco giant BT expects to launch 5G standalone — or 'true' 5G — later this year

BARCELONA — British telecommunications giant BT says it expects to launch its first so-called "standalone 5G" network in 2024.

Howard Watson, BT's chief technology officer, told CNBC that the telco group plans to switch on its standalone 5G network, which is often referred to in the industry as "true" 5G, later this year.

"Others are talking about it. They're talking about it. But we are working to get the right ecosystem in place, which means the right set of devices," Watson said in an interview with CNBC at the Mobile World Congress tech trade show in Barcelona.

That comes after a trial the company conducted with Swedish telco infrastructure firm Ericsson and chipmaking giant Qualcomm demonstrating network "slicing." Network slicing is a configuration that allows multiple networks to be created on the same common physical network infrastructure.

"We've already been ensuring that the SIM cards that our customers have in their current 5G devices can do 5G standalone," Watson added. "And so once we think there's enough critical mass to have a real proposition, with some slicing behind it as well, we will launch that, and that will be later this year."

So far, rival U.K. carriers Vodafone and Virgin Media O2 have already both switched on 5G standalone solutions, with BT's EE, the U.K.'s largest mobile network, yet to launch its own standalone network. It's waiting to see if Apple's new iPhone 16 supports 5G standalone in Europe when it launches this autumn.

5G standalone would give you a slice of the network, or a specific amount of bandwidth with certain latency commitment. Each network slice is effectively an isolated part of the network that's designed to fulfil the requirements requested by a certain application.

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