Private networks are coming. Businesses are not ready.
Yes, it was just two weeks ago that I wrote about factories not yet deploying 5G networks. And that’s still true. But in the meantime, as companies investigate 5G, they are also assessing the validity of private networks — networks that don’t share traffic with the traditional cellular networks in the area.
Such private networks would only be used by their machines and/or their employees’ devices, and the companies themselves would set the rules. These efforts will accelerate in the next three years as those building chips for the 5G standard incorporate new features from the latest releases of the standard.
All of this is going to lead to some new and very interesting partnerships between telcos and traditional IT vendors and systems integrators. For example, Qualcomm has signed a deal with Capgemini to build out a pre-tested private network option for enterprise customers, and conglomerate ArcelorMittal has inked a deal with Ericsson to build out private 5G networks for its factories.
Because 5G is so complex, building and managing 5G networks will require software and automation that’s deeply integrated, and a lot of it. Telecommunications providers have been moving closer to a more IT-like infrastructure for almost a decade, and with 5G the infrastructure requires that level of deep integration, while the use cases associated with 5G reward it.
