gNB: the 5G base station explained

Meet the gNB

The gNB, or gNodeB, is the 5G New Radio base station that replaces LTE's eNodeB. In a Standalone architecture the gNB connects directly to the 5G Core through the NG interface, using N2 for control-plane signaling toward the AMF and N3 for user-plane data toward the UPF. Between neighboring gNBs the Xn interface supports handover preparation and dual-connectivity coordination. Unlike the monolithic eNB, the gNB was designed from day one for disaggregation into CU, DU, and RU components, enabling cloud-native deployments where each functional unit scales independently.