Who’s Winning the Wireless Private Network Race?

Kitty Weldon – Research Director

Summary Bullets:

  • There has been a small but meaningful trickle of news on private wireless (cellular) network deployments over the last couple of years from a cast of characters ranging from CSPs to equipment vendors, SIs, and enterprises themselves. The latest CBRS auction has also uncovered likely new entrants, including companies that lack their own cellular networks or want to own and manage their own deployments.
  • Interest in providing private wireless networks is not new; after all, this is essentially what WiFi has been providing all along. But using 4G LTE and 5G (over licensed, unlicensed, or ‘lightly regulated’ spectrum) for these networks is creating excitement from a wide swath of the telecom market. Will companies buy it?

GlobalData has been tracking the private wireless network market for several years because it is potentially a major disruptive technology. It promises to partially displace WiFi and wireline connectivity – at least for those use cases that need more consistent signal strength, security, higher speeds, and lower latency, with support for in-building, campus, and hybrid environments such as manufacturing facilities, warehouses, sports stadiums, mines, oil and gas fields, ports, airports, and other transportation hubs. Continue reading “Who’s Winning the Wireless Private Network Race?”

COVID-19: Delay in 5G Standards Will Mean Delay in 5G Innovation

John Byrne, Service Director

Summary Bullets:

  • The 3GPP announced that it is likely to see a significant delay in completing Release 17 standards governing 5G technology.
  • The delay – likely to be a minimum of six months and possibly longer – will put a damper on dozens of work items designed to enable transformative 5G services.

The body responsible for developing the standards governing 5G technology has signaled that its inability to meet in person is causing a slowdown in developing new technical standards.

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) announced September 21 that it is expecting a delay in 5G standards of a minimum six months – and potentially longer. That in turn is likely to delay the deployment of many of the innovative use cases envisioned for 5G. Continue reading “COVID-19: Delay in 5G Standards Will Mean Delay in 5G Innovation”

Next-Gen Transport and Routing: Key for 5G Success

Emir Halilovic, Principal Analyst

Summary Bullets:

  • 5G transport needs to provide enough capacity, but it also needs to cater to vertical 5G use cases with high-precision and low-latency connections, provided on intelligent infrastructure.
  • Another key issue that operators will need to tackle is 5G transport diversity and complexity; as 5G radio site types diversify, operators will need to build more diverse transport networks to cover all types of sites in their network.

In the first wave of 5G deployments, operators and other players in the telecommunications ecosystem have focused primarily on innovation in radio access, allowing for key improvements next-gen radio brings to existing services like mobile broadband. But as operators start to focus on truly game-changing 5G functionality that will enable IIoT and other advanced use cases, the importance of rebuilding and rethinking transport networks for 5G becomes very clear. Continue reading “Next-Gen Transport and Routing: Key for 5G Success”

Telefonica Germany-AWS Affiliation Points to a Much Greater Role for Public Cloud in 5G Mobile Core

Glen Hunt, Principal Analyst

Summary Bullets:

• Telefonica Germany / O2 plans to build its 5G core network in the AWS public cloud, along with a host of 5G network functions to support Industrial Internet applications, beginning in 2021.

• The announcement raises intriguing questions about the future role that AWS and other public cloud platforms may be carving out in telecommunications infrastructure, and who will ultimately succeed in helping operators manage – and profit from – 5G network deployments.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on September 2 that Telefonica Germany / O2 would become the first German network operator to build a 5G core network in the public cloud, along with a host of 5G network functions to support Industrial Internet applications. Telefónica Germany / O2 will put its cloud-based, Ericsson-supplied 5G core network into commercial use in 2021. Continue reading “Telefonica Germany-AWS Affiliation Points to a Much Greater Role for Public Cloud in 5G Mobile Core”