Federated Wireless is taking advantage of network and spectrum sensing technology to provide a more robust private network service that can handle mission-critical enterprise use cases and also help further differentiate the company in an increasingly competitive but still evolving private 5G space.

The new capabilities are part of Federated Wireless’ Premium Enterprise-Grade Spectrum (PEGS) offering. The system uses the company’s environmental sensing capabilities to help with monitoring of private network systems using the quasi-licensed Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.

Federated Wireless CEO Iyad Tarazi explained to SDxCentral in an interview that the PEGS offering sits as a higher service level tier on top of the company’s CBRS-powered private network service. The service uses advances in spectrum monitoring and utilization along with network probes to provide a higher-level of private network quality and has a hands-on team to support any issues that might crop up.

That support program promises a 15-minute initial response to service concerns with hourly updates and “priority issue escalation.” There is also tailored KPI-based monitoring, optimization advice for spectrum availability and a dedicated technical customer operations engineer dedicated to case management.

Tarazi said the service is basically improving the reliability of CBRS-powered private network services by using more probes in the network, more monitoring tools and predictive analytics to support use cases that require high performance and availability. This includes the growing use of automated vehicles within an enterprise environment or the use of robotics in a factory setting.

“The applications are getting more mission-critical, more operator implementations, more implementation across the board,” Tarazi said. “I don't see it slowing down, but I do think that we need to continue to improve the performance for our customers and provide them with applications of how to use it for the kind of applications they’re deploying, and that's what we're doing here.”

Tarazi said this optimization is also becoming increasingly important as a growing number of users are tapping into the CBRS spectrum band. CBRS spectrum is a swath of around 150 megahertz in the 3.5 GHz band that the federal government has set aside for licensed use. An organization can gain access to some of those bands for a limited geographic area using a licensing process managed by a couple of different programs.

Federated Wireless was one of the first to market with a platform allowing for management of the CBRS spectrum band’s complex licensing model where it acts as one of a handful of spectrum access system (SAS) administrators to that spectrum. Others include Google, CommScope, Amdocs and Sony.

Tarazi said the company’s SAS currently manages around 45% of the more than 400,000 CBRS-enabled devices in the market. He added that between 5% and 10% of Federated Wireless' more than 600 enterprise customers have selected the PEGS option, including internet service providers (ISPs) Resound Network and Open Broadband.

Finding differentiation in the private network space

The PEGS launch is also part of Federate Wireless’ plan to better differentiate itself in the market. Tarazi said the PEGS system can be used by anyone that is tapped into Federated Wireless’ SAS, “and it differentiates us from the other SAS providers.”

“A lot of the discussion we've had the last couple of years was how to make this carrier equivalent, and this is beginning to look like a good portion and a necessary portion of that solution,” Tarazi said. “Our competitors don't necessarily offer enterprise-type services, and we think it's really important as the adoption continues to grow.”

That differentiation also flows from Federated Wireless’ various private network offerings that include its Private Wireless-as-a-Service product it launched in late 2022, and a neutral host option it launched last year.

Analysts have noted that equipment-based vendors like Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei have so far found the most success in the private network space based on their more simplistic approach toward deployments.

However, Tarazi noted that those players along with larger telecommunication operators are using a more controlled ecosystem that has increased complexity and reduced choices for enterprise IT teams.

“That's how we differentiate from the equipment-based solutions or closed systems,” Tarazi said. “We've seen in the market that IT managers, directors, executives — they really want to have an open ecosystem. They don't want to depend on one piece of equipment or one supplier. They want an enterprise model that has a mix-and-match capability, so we're very focused on that.”

That focus is something that continues to elude the broader private network space. Analysts are predicting a $9 billion market opportunity by 2028, but momentum continues to be on a slow burn.

“There is still a lot of interest but it’s not as hot of a topic I think as last year,” Monica Paolini, founder and president of analyst and consulting firm Senza Fili, noted in a post-MWC Barcelona 2024 presentation and podcast. “I think that’s just because we’re going through the process of finally finding a way to get them to work. So, interest, but not as hot as it could be, or I think it should be.”

Tarazi agreed that the market has indeed failed to hit a critical mass, but that will come once providers can remove deployment and management complexity from their systems.

“The market is still in an enablement mode. There is no cookie cutter solution out there and that's the biggest enemy right now,” Tarazi said. “The market is like a scale. I can use up a lot of energy to get a really great customer to deploy with all the support, but you can't do that with every customer. You need to get to a point where you have automation in distribution, automation in adoption, and that is where the next phase of private wireless will come.”