It is widely expected that 5G networks, especially in Industrial use cases (factory floors, warehouses, asset maintenance) will improve productivity in a tangible manner. 5G has productivity improvement proposition for myriads of use cases in other verticals and the technology could improve the competitiveness and GDP of countries in a manner that previous generations of wireless networking technology could not deliver. Qualcomm has said that 5G “will be bigger than electricity” anticipating $12T in new goods and services.
The key value proposition of 5G network that make the technology interesting are innovations such as software-defined networking, automated lifecycle management, network slicing and cloud-native/cloud-optimized distributed network applications. Leveraging such capabilities of 5G networks, two cellular IoT technologies: LTE-M (Machine Type Communication) and NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) will transform the industrial segment with low-cost and low-throughput connectivity for use cases such as smart metering, operational condition monitoring, and asset tracking. Both connectivity technologies are part of 5G standards already targeting different use cases. Both are low power wide area technologies that enable IoT use cases through lower device complexity with extended coverage, while allowing 10 years or more battery life.
IoT use cases span a broad spectrum of applications. Some applications need high bandwidth, as with real-time surveillance. For asset tracking applications, data throughput is small, but there are inevitably many handovers as objects move. Smart meters and many smart city applications require small data transfer once or twice a day in a batch mode. No one technology including 5G may fit the specific needs of an IoT solution/device. The following from Sequans and Sierra Wireless illustrate various applications needs and LTE-M and NB-IoT’s technology value propositions clear:
Despite cellular wireless technologies’ ease of integration, flexibility, and high performance, many industries have been cautious to adopt them for automating factory floors, supply chains, and other operational elements. We think there is a degree of concern among enterprises about a third-party managing business essential services enabled by cellular wireless technologies. This is where private 5G wireless network technology shines and holds enormous value proposition with its in-house control and management capabilities.
Basics of Private 5G Networks
Essentially a private 5G network is just that, a network that restricts access to only a set of closed groups with policies around quality of service, security, reliability, liability, and other factors that are tuned to the use cases. As examples, an automotive plant might require a set of connectivity features to streamline factory operations, increase productivity, and protect its workers. The plant would need massive IoT (mMTC) to connect swarms of industrial IoT sensors to its own enterprise cloud, enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) to deliver high-speed wireless connectivity across the plant, and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (uRLLC) to enable VR-based maintenance support tools and control industrial robots. In some cases, the automotive plant might need to provide additional value-added services such as extending services to automotive beyond the plant, to dealerships and to vehicles’ private owners, for any post-sale performance-monitoring. Private 5G network can enable all those capabilities needed by the plant.
Network Slicing and Need of Spectrum Management
5G enables the above three type of communication features with SW based network slicing, appropriate wireless spectrum with right frequency bands, right underlying infrastructure, and end device with appropriate capability. Broadband IoT (eMBB) require a broad portion of spectrum at either sub-6GHz or 24GHz and up (mmWave) to deliver high throughput needs. Massive IoT (mMTC) needs sub-2GHz frequency bands to deliver enhanced and wide coverage at low data rates. Critical IoT (uRLLC) connectivity needs a highly synchronized and low-latency transport network, quick enough to send data packets from one end device to another in under five milliseconds to address the critical nature of the use case. Network slicing uses a common underlying IT infrastructure to deliver different services in different spectrum bands without the need of building three different infrastructure.
Spectrum is a critical asset in 5G that needs proper management if all use cases to be addressed. Spectrum hoarding by a few large players could be an issue that could shut out smaller player from realizing the benefits of the 5G networks. Similarly offering fixed portion of 5G spectrum to industrial customers could also prove inefficient due to lack of economies scale that could be achieved if offered to the wireless network operators in a wholesale manner. As the 5G market evolves, spectrum allocation will be refined according to the market efficient forces. Some have suggested to allocate spectrum based on real-estate perimeters i.e. spectrum over specific premises can only be purchased by the landowner, while unused spectrum is given to communication service providers to help meet public demand leveraging scale and harmonizing spectrum across served territories.
Private 5G Network Deployment Approaches
5G network infrastructure can be deployed on enterprises’ own premises and operated by the enterprise or via a third party that manages the infrastructure for the enterprise. The deployment might need connection to the public network, to extend access beyond the served perimeter. This approach offers the three critical value propositions: privacy, control, and security; But requires that the enterprise has all the in-house technical expertise to build the network.
Enterprises can also choose to rely on the public mobile network by sharing just the access network through an isolated slice of the 5G radio access network yet maintaining full ownership of the control plane and their own non-public services.
Additionally, enterprises can delegate control plane functions to the public network or run the entire private network on a dedicated slice of the public wireless network, while maintaining a communication channel to the enterprise cloud.
Operating a private network as part of the public network can be accomplished with less ICT expertise, but outsourcing infrastructure comes with the risk around data security and service availability.
Path to Industry 4.0
As we mentioned earlier, private 5G network can improve efficiency and productivity in each sector, thereby giving a boost to the overall economy. There are myriad of use cases that can use 5G. Smart digital twins can integrate all sensor inputs through high-reliability and low-latency network into a computational model of a production facility. Similarly, robots can control in a factory line or move remote cranes, with a stringent one-millisecond latency and six-nines reliability requirements. AR/VR is another use case that could use 5G network’s high-throughput, low-latency.
Although there is a lot of excitement around consumer use cases of 5G, we believe that industrial use cases of 5G will be able to make the business case for wide scale 5G infrastructure deployments by bringing new classes of cellular network functionality for enterprise transformation. Adoption will likely be spearheaded by industrial vertical. 5G private networks offer a framework that regulators can build on to ensure the efficient spectrum allocation. Success in industrial sector will drive adoption in other sectors, including healthcare, education, and automotive.
/Service Ventures Team
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