The private 4G LTE and 5G network spaces continue to show extended growth potential; however, persistent economic and industry challenges continue to drag on that opportunity, according to a recent report from IDC.

The research group predicts the market will surge from $1.9 billion in revenues last year to $5.2 billion in revenues by the end of 2027, growing at a robust 21% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over that term. However, that end figure is short of the $8.3 billion in worldwide private LTE/5G wireless infrastructure revenues IDC had previously predicted would be generated by 2026.

Patrick Filkins, research manager for IoT and telecom network infrastructure at IDC, noted “the private cellular networks market continues to show promise, as both LTE and 5G are being rolled out to address enterprise and industrial challenges.”

IDC’s latest numbers are also now lower than what others are predicting.

Analysys Mason predicts the private 5G market will grow at a 65% CAGR between 2021 and 2027, hitting 39,000 deployments at the end of that timeframe. That growth will be on the back of investments it predicts will grow from $1.5 billion in 2022 to $7.7 billion by 2027.

Despite IDC's reticence, operators remain enthusiastic about private network opportunities.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen bombastically claimed the private network business could be worth anywhere from $30 billion to $100 billion, and that “it’s unquestionable that there’s really only four companies that can participate in a large degree in the private network business" that has access to licensed spectrum.

Sowmyanarayan Sampath, EVP and CEO for Verizon consumer group, recently told an investor conference that the carrier’s private networks are “doing well,” noting the carrier went from just a single installation mid-2022, to now having “tens of installations, new installations every single quarter, that business is growing very fast.”

ABI Research recently stated that more than 1,000 private networks have been deployed worldwide, but added that the number of announced networks has slowed, which is “a good sign for the private networks market.”

“Enterprises are beginning to see the deployment of private cellular connectivity as a competitive advantage and therefore do not want to talk about it too openly. Which is important as the market moves from the experimental phase toward commercializing private network deployments,” Leo Gergs, ABI Research senior analyst, recently wrote to SDxCentral, adding “the telco industry urgently needs to deliver on promises made to the enterprise community now. Otherwise, enterprise 5G will enter the history books as the technology that always overpromised and underdelivered.”

IDC’s Filkins added that 4G LTE “remains a key contributor across both the utilities and mining sectors to provide mobile coverage over large grids,” with 5G “starting to see more traction within the manufacturing, warehousing and logistics vertical, where we expect the bulk of growth to occur over the forecast period.”

Others have noted a similar technology optionality.

Michael Davies, VP of business partner strategy and 5G-as-a-service at Betacom, recently told SDxCentral that while the vendor is offering a 5G-based private wireless product to enterprises, most of their deployments have used 4G LTE radios.

“We’ll begin seeing traction in the second half of this year, probably into 2024,” Davies explained, though he did add that 5G won’t be the dominant private network transmission technology until 2030. “It’s certainly going to be an LTE story for the rest of the decade.”

Matt Addicks, who heads up private cellular marketing and strategy for Ericsson’s Cradlepoint division, recently explained to SDxCentral in an interview that 5G connectivity remains an outside option for current private network deployments.

“It really is use-case dependent,” Addicks said. “A lot of folks see the marketing and the hype around 5G — and there’s a great opportunity there — but every use case doesn’t require it. I see typically a mix of interest across 4G LTE and 5G in certain areas of an environment based on the requirements purely from a use case perspective.”

That migration to 5G will be important for enterprises if they want to take advantage of what the technology can offer. This includes network slicing capabilities and more granular control over network and equipment resources.

“That’s the beauty of 5G is that you truly can have that network slicing right down to the device and functional component and so then that becomes truly powerful,” Davies said, though he did add that Betacom has a live 5G-based private network with digital manufacturing and cybersecurity institute MxD in Chicago.