Empirical Performance Analysis of 5G Standalone (SA) Infrastructure: Impact of Bandwidth, Network Slicing, and Hardware Configurations in Controlled and Tunnel Environments

This dataset and collection of research notes provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of 5G New Radio (NR) performance metrics under diverse operational conditions. The research was conducted by i46 s.r.o. and Rinicom Ltd. as part of the Horizon Europe FIDAL program (Grant Agreement No. 101096146). The studies utilize a software-defined radio (SDR) testbed—incorporating Open5GS, srsRAN, and USRP B200 mini hardware—to evaluate the practical relationship between allocated bandwidth (10 MHz to 60 MHz) and system throughput. Key research areas covered in this upload include: Bandwidth & Throughput: Validation of the Shannon-Hartley Theorem, demonstrating near-linear scaling in downlink throughput as bandwidth increases, alongside observations of uplink performance bottlenecks. LTE vs. 5G SA Comparison: A side-by-side performance analysis revealing instances where optimized 4G LTE configurations outperformed early-stage 5G SA implementations in specific SDR environments. Infrastructure & Antenna Systems: Comparative evaluations of external directional antennas versus leaky (radiating) cable systems, particularly for use in specialized environments like underground tunnels. Network Slicing (SST-1 & SST-3): Analysis of slice isolation and resilience, measuring how high-priority traffic on one slice impacts the performance of low-priority IoT slices. Hardware Signal Conditioning: Investigating the impact of duplexers, amplifiers, and filters on latency and connection stability in complex propagation scenarios. VPN Overhead: Quantification of the significant performance penalties (averaging a 95.1% reduction in downlink speeds) introduced by Virtual Private Networks on high-bandwidth 5G connections. This collection serves as a technical resource for network planners, researchers, and engineers focused on optimizing 5G Standalone deployments and understanding the trade-offs between raw capacity and system stability.