An EE mobile phone store, operated by BT Group, in Reading, U.K. in 2020.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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.”
What ‘5G standalone’ means
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.
So, for example, if you’re a gamer and you need super-low latency to play a game competitively online, you could use 5G standalone to get latency of nine to 10 milliseconds, close to what you get from an HTTP connection to your home.
Latency is important for gamers as it measures response delays. The higher the latency, the more lag you get when you’re playing a game. This means less smooth gameplay.
“You may not want that 24 hours, seven days a week,” Watson said. “So we might have a really flexible pricing mechanism that says you can have that from 6pm to 8pm.”
“So bringing it to life in propositions for customers is how we will market it rather than with, come and buy some ‘standalone.'”
Milind Kulkarni, vice president and head of InterDigital’s wireless labs, said that network slicing is one step in a number of technological upgrades that will lead to so-called “5G Advanced,” an evolution of the 5G network.
“5G offers a fantastic platform with a lot of capability to support many use cases, and we have to continue our focus in enabling more vertical markets and increasing its capabilities as we march through 5G Advanced,” Kulkarni told CNBC.
5G standalone is different from 5G Advanced, though. 5G standalone refers to the development of a 5G network that isn’t being built on top of 4G cores. Whereas 5G Advanced is a complete evolution of the network.
BT and other network operators are looking to 5G standalone as a way to make more money from the next-generation networks they first started deploying around five years ago.
Future of 5G
Naturally, 5G plans are more expensive than 4G.
But consumers have been struggling to understand the value of 5G — which is often only incrementally faster than 4G — when many regions of the U.K. and developed countries still lack 5G connectivity.
To get 5G standalone networks off the ground, network operators first need smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung to ensure their devices have standalone capabilities.
Apple hasn’t done that in Europe, Watson said, and he’s holding out to see what happens with the next iPhone to see if the tech giant will make its smartphones 5G standalone-ready.
BT’s consumer business had a major rebrand in 2023, which focused on the launch of a full suite of services, an area that telco companies have had less success scaling than digital giants such as Meta, Google, Apple and Amazon.
BT is the U.K.’s leading telecom company, operating fixed and wireless networks across the country. BT’s consumer division has roughly 30% market share in broadband and mobile services.
Its enterprise segment works with larger business customers.
It has been operating the EE mobile network since acquiring it for £12.5 billion in 2016.
A government intervention in struggling chipmaker Intel is “essential” for the sake of national security, analyst Gil Luria said Friday, following a report that the Trump administration is weighing taking a stake in the company.
“We’re all capitalists,” Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We don’t want government to intervene and own private enterprise, but this is national security.”
Bloomberg reported Thursday that the Trump administration is considering having the U.S. government take a stake in Intel. The news sent Intel shares higher, and the stock climbed again Friday.
Intel previously declined to comment on the report.
Luria said such a deal is needed to revive Intel and reduce the country’s reliance on companies like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor to manufacture chips. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high-end technology to be made in the U.S.
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How the White House could structure such an intervention is still in question. Bloomberg reported Friday that the administration has discussed using funds from the CHIPS Act.
Intel received $7.9 billion from the Department of Commerce through the CHIPS Act, and it was awarded roughly $3 billion under the CHIPS Act for the Pentagon’s Secure Enclave program.
“Intel has had many opportunities over decades to get it right, and it hasn’t. So we need to intervene,” Luria said. “The government’s going to come in and it’s going to give Intel unfair advantages, and if it’s going to do that, it wants a piece of the business.”
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with Trump at the White House on Monday after the president called for his resignation based on allegations that he has ties to China.
Luria pointed to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments that the rise of superintelligent AI could be “the next wave of nuclear proliferation,” as evidence that direct intervention by the government is needed.
“We can’t rely on somebody else making shell casings for our nuclear arsenal,” Luria said. “We have to get it right.”
Applied Materials shares sank more than 10% in extended trading Thursday as the semiconductor equipment company provided outlook for the current quarter that came in light.
Here’s how Applied Materials did in its third-quarter earnings results versus LSEG consensus estimates:
EPS: $2.48, adjusted, versus $2.36 estimated.
Revenue: $7.3 billion vs $7.22 billion estimated.
Applied Materials said it expects $2.11 per share in adjusted earnings in the current quarter, lower than LSEG estimates of $2.39 per share. The company said to expect $6.7 billion in revenue, versus $7.34 billion estimated.
CEO Gary Dickerson said that the current macroeconomic and policy environment is “creating increased uncertainty and lower visibility.” He said the company’s China business is particularly effected by the uncertainty.
The Trump administration’s tariffs could double the price of imported chips unless companies buying them commit to building in the U.S. Applied Materials makes tools for chip foundries to physically make chips, much of which currently happens in Asia.
Applied Materials said that it has a large backlog of pending export license applications with the U.S. government, but that it’s assuming none of them will be issued in the next quarter.
“We are expecting a decline in revenue in the fourth quarter driven by both digestion of capacity in China and non-linear demand from leading-edge customers given market concentration and fab timing,” the company’s finance chief said in a statement. He added that it expected lower China business to continue for several more quarters.
Applied Materials reported $1.78 billion in net income, or $2.22 per diluted share in the quarter, versus $1.71 billion or $2.05 in the year-ago period.
The company’s most important division, semiconductor systems, reported $5.43 billion in sales, topping estimates, and representing a 10% rise from last year.
Applied Materials was praised by President Donald Trump earlier this month after it was included in an Apple program to make more chips in the U.S.
Apple said it would partner with the chipmaker to produce more manufacturing equipment in Austin, Texas.
Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., departs following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
Alex Wroblewski | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Intel shares rose 7% on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is in talks with the chipmaker to have the U.S. government take a stake in the struggling company.
Intel is the only U.S. company with the capability to manufacture the fastest chips on U.S. shores, although rivals including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung also have U.S. factories. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high technology to be manufactured in the U.S.
The government’s stake would help fund factories that Intel is currently building in Ohio, according to the report.
Earlier this week, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan visited Trump in the White House, a meeting that took place after the president had called for Tan’s resignation based on allegations he has ties to China.
Intel said at the time that Tan is “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.” An Intel representative declined to comment about reports that the government is considering taking a stake in the company.
“We look forward to continuing our work with the Trump Administration to advance these shared priorities, but we are not going to comment on rumors or speculation,” the spokesperson said.
Tan took over Intel earlier this year after the chipmaker failed to gain significant share in artificial intelligence chips, while it was spending heavily to build its foundry business, which manufactures chips for other companies.
Intel’s foundry business has yet to secure a major customer, which would be a critical step in moving towards expansion and giving other potential customers the confidence to turn to Intel for manufacturing.
In July, Tan said that Intel was canceling plans for manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and would slow down development in Ohio, adding that spending at the chipmaker would be closely scrutinized.
Under Trump, the U.S. government has increasingly moved to put itself at the center of deals in major industries. Last week, it said it would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials.It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.
Intel shares are now up 19% this year after losing 60% of their value in 2024, the worst year on record for the chipmaker.