Telecom Industry Sees Growing 'Appetite' for Private 5G Networks, but Challenges Remain

Leo Gergs, senior research analyst at ABI Research, sees a growing “appetite” for private networks. In the U.S., the citizens broadband radio service has been very popular with operators, neutral hosts and businesses, he said. There’s quite a healthy device system “as certified by the OnGo Alliance that supports CBRS spectrum,” he said.

Most industrial 5G private deployments at this point are in the R&D or trial stage, Gergs said. He also sees growing momentum for making spectrum available for private networks either through sharing in the U.S. or through a direct allocation like the 3.7 GHz band in Germany. The problem is the market is “very fragmented,” with different bands available in different countries, he said. Fragmentation “could make it potentially hard to reach scaling effect for private networks and enterprise connectivity,” he said. Companies need more “industrial-grade devices” compatible with the latest 5G standard and more harmonization of what bands are available, he said.

“If you look at 5G, and private cellular in general, in connection to different other connectivity technologies … it’s really the high critical use cases that will require 5G connectivity,” Gergs said: “Think about a factory where there are a lot of safety hazards for workers, or think about use cases like condition-based monitoring in the mine and in oil and gas fields. These kinds of deployments are just much more critical than increasing fan experience in the stadium.”

The tendency is to talk about industry as if all companies are the same, but there are “hundreds, if not thousands, of different types of businesses,” said Phil Skipper, Vodafone Business head-business development IoT. “Those businesses have very different operations” and vary broadly in scale, he said. “When you consider 5G for industry you really need to break it down,” he said.

At a mining operation, because of the typical remoteness of the site, a private network may be “the simplest way to get” 5G, Skipper said. With a 3D manufacturing plant, “the site complexity is a lot lower, but … they’re going to be consuming a lot more data,” he said: “They’re going to be moving manufacturing details between machines, they’re making different products on the same machine at different times.” There’s no “use case that applies to everything,” he said. “It’s increasingly no longer about the technology” but about operations, he said. “Once you understand the operation, it becomes a much clearer task to understand how you can really release the benefits” of 5G, he said.

The available spectrum differs globally, but most of the world allows unlicensed use in the 5 GHz range, said Asimakis Kokkos, Nokia Enterprise Solutions head-technology ecosystems. “This is a global thing, apart from very, very few areas in the world,” he said.

The new MulteFire Alliance (MFA) is working to fill gaps in 3rd Generation Partnership Project standards on the needs of businesses launching private networks, said Kokkos, who chairs the group’s technical specifications work. Coverage, connection, density of devices and latency are among the top priorities, he said. MFA plans a public release May 11, he said.

Schneider Electric’s focus is on connectivity and real-time data as it tests a private network, said Zach Nimboorkar, senior vice president-global IT infrastructure and operations. The U.K.’s NTT and Schneider recently said they're working together on Schneider’s first smart factory in the U.S.

“Future networks must be cost-effective -- that’s why we’re talking about private 5G here,” Nimboorkar said. They must “provide sufficient bandwidth and compute capabilities with reduced latency and high quality of services,” he said. Edge technology is a “buzzword, but we are definitely seeing increased traction in this area,” he said. “I definitely see the edge compute, edge network becoming more and more relevant in the industry,” he said.