Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a models have lost support for 5G standalone networks following the March update.
According to a Reddit subscriber with the handle „chisprice“ (via AndroidPolice) older Pixel models with 5G support such as the Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a, no longer have support for 5G standalone (SA) networks following the March update. It should be noted that those three models are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets and not the Google Tensor SoCs found in the Google 6 and Google 7 lines. Pixel units powered by the Tensor chips are apparently not affected (more on this later).
A 5G standalone (SA) network, simply put, uses infrastructure designed for 5G only. It offers the super-low latency that will help 5G power self-driving cars, remote surgery, and other things that require a quick response from the network. U.S. carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon initially used non-standalone 5G networks (NSA) because it allowed them, by using their LTE networks, to quickly launch 5G services on top of the 4G core.
Only Dish Wireless, which doesn’t have an LTE network of its own, is building a standalone 5G network right from the start. T-Mobile is currently the only U.S. carrier using 5G SA and at the start of this month, it reported on some improvements it is making, including four-carrier aggregation, to the network.
