From 5G standalone to network APIs and everything in between, here are 8 learnings from ITW 2025.

5G standalone is on the rise

The general consensus is that 5G has not quite reached its potential – there has been a lot of investment, but without consumer and business uptake quite justifying the outlay.

However, the ITW keynote session envisaged a larger role in the connectivity mix for the technology, with recent research forecasting a doubling in the number of standalone networks in the coming years.

“Despite the adoption of 5G SA being much slower than anticipated, progress is still being made,” said Orange Wholesale International’s Emmanuel Rochas during the session. 

“We're seeing the emergence of new use cases, particularly in high-mobility scenarios, roaming and applications exposed through APIs. The 5G APIs are already supported by SA deployments, which opens the door to substantial innovation.”