By: Miguel Carames

The global private 5G network market is expected to explode to $36.08 billion and a 47 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by 2030 as advanced 5G private network use cases roll out, and the full potential of 5G is realized.

Mobile network operators (MNOs) have driven worldwide wireless network adoption, with continuous improvements from 2G to 3G and then 4G/LTE. However, 5G will enable many new potential areas of growth—but also lower the barrier to entry for new competitors. How MNOs leverage this 5G opportunity while protecting and growing their mobile network market share remains to be determined as they explore this new frontier.

Benefits of 5G

Much of the conversation around mobile generation upgrades has focused on consumer mobile phone use and improvements in throughput—but 5G isn’t just a faster version of 4G/LTE. Instead, 5G technology delivers new capabilities such as network slicing, ultra-reliable low latency, and a service-based architecture that enables optimized solutions for businesses across all verticals including Industry 4.0. 

The high speed (100 times faster than 4G), low latency (for better real-time decision-making), and massive capacity (can connect up to 1,000,000 devices per square kilometer versus 2,000 for 4G) make this new technology the foundation for revolutionizing many industries.

The case for private 5G networks

A private 5G network is an enterprise network that provides dedicated bandwidth and capacity using 5G technology. Enterprises can choose from several delivery methods:

• Truly private with the entire 5G infrastructure (core and radio access network) deployed at the enterprise premises.

• Semi-private with a managed service option, hybrid with some workloads deployed on-premises (such as radio access network and user plane function), while others are deployed in a remote location (such as control plane deployed in a centralized location on a private or public cloud).

• Fully managed from an operator using a network slicing model or partial integration with their public network.

Private mobile networks that started to emerge under 4G are now seeing significant expansion to 5G.  New use cases involving advanced technologies such as video (virtual reality, augmented reality, digital twins, immersive gaming, and video surveillance), process automation (robotics, autonomous vehicles, and connected machines), and decision-making (artificial intelligence, machine learning, and edge computing) are under development. They target sectors such as ports, supply chain and warehousing, mining, healthcare, education, and manufacturing operations.

MNOs can partner with vendors and system integrators to implement these private networks, providing dedicated spectrum slices and their know-how to support new services with stringent service level expectations. MNOs may also work with the IT industry and hyperscalers like Amazon/AWS to offer turnkey private 5G solutions to fit other business verticals and use cases.

Enterprise customer benefits

Today, many businesses operate their office campuses utilizing a combination of hard-wired and Wi-Fi connection points and leverage public mobile networks for their employees’ and visitors’ mobile phones. MNOs can liberate their enterprise customers from the constraints of hard-wired connections and Wi-Fi distance, security, and stability limitations by overlaying a private 5G network. Following are some of the advantages a private 5G network provides:

Control: The enterprise can define, direct, and tailor their business processes, data processing, and data flow without the limitations of a public network.

Security: The organization can set and manage security policies and control access to services in a more flexible and customized way with 5G than with legacy technologies.

Connection: With the high speed, low latency, high capacity, and application support of 5G, millions of devices (unlike with Wi-Fi or 4G) can be connected, opening up opportunities in campus environments, ports, mining facilities, agriculture, and others—to connect indoor and outdoor spaces and the infrastructure that could not otherwise be linked effectively with a Wi-Fi only network, or where public mobile networks don’t support service KPIs) or customization at the network or device level.  

User experience: Mobile networks enable workers to move from location to location without dealing with disconnection and reconnection issues that often come with a Wi-Fi-only system. Indoor and outdoor environments become seamless, and workers (and