Private 5G remains an enticing market opportunity cursed by a myriad of challenges, but Ericsson continues to see potential that just needs refinement to reach.

Manish Tiwari, head of enterprise 5G at Ericsson, told SDxCentral that the private 5G market today has shown clear use cases, the potential for a return on investment, and that it has a place in the enterprise market, “so that part at this point is not questionable. It’s proven.”

However, that doesn’t mean work still needs to be done in order to perfect the answers. Tiwari explained that this includes work on platform interoperability and management that can serve what he noted were a trio of deployment models.

The first is an enterprise that wants to deploy a private 5G network in a specific country or region. This work usually falls to an in-country telecom operator that can lean on its public operations to support a private deployment.

This was highlighted by Ericsson’s recent work with Vodafone Portugal in deploying a private 5G network for cement and industrial materials producer Cimpor. Ericsson provided drones, video cameras for safety monitoring, and worker tablets to the project, while Vodafone Portugal worked with Cimpor to define the core network parameters and helped with the installation and configuration of the radio equipment.

Tiwari explained that the second deployment model is an enterprise with an international footprint that is looking for a provider versed in dealing with broader deployment challenges. Those biggest challenges include country specific regulatory and spectrum issues, with work typically handled by global systems integrators (SIs).

The third model is an organization that feels it can handle its own technical requirements but needs help in precuring the necessary equipment to power a private network deployment.

“These are enterprises that have the competence and say, ‘hey, we are willing to hire x-number of people in a department to make sure that we can manage this on our own, because this is how we have managed all other networks in their enterprise,’” Tiwari said. “’So the product needs to make that possible, that my folks can get full visibility, they have troubleshooting workflows, they can manage this on their own. It needs to integrate with the service now that I have, it needs to integrate with the Palo Alto firewalls that I have,’ and so on.”

There is also the need to support these three models as products and services evolve.

“We have been spending a lot of time over the last couple of years to make this possible, give the choice to the enterprise customer, not only in terms of where they buy the product from, but also in terms of how they want to manage it, and what kind of operational model makes sense for that customer,” Tiwari added.

Challenges remain

While that work has helped Ericsson become a significant player in the private network space, Tiwari did note that there are still hurdles to overcome before the market can claim firm footing.

“I think no one should be questioning the need for the technology and the efficacy of the use cases that this technology can support and whether those use cases are important for the enterprise, I think there is no question about that,” Tiwari said. “So then it is about why. What's the right way to think about where we are right now.”

One of the main hurdles had been a lack of enterprise foresight into just why they want a private network. Tiwari noted that this led to a lot of early customization toward nebulous use case goals that were never really nailed down prior to deployment.

“Even now, when we go talk to prospective customers, we say that, ‘hey, think really hard about what your first three to five use cases are and let's make sure we make you successful with those three to five use cases so that 12 months down the line when you look back at this investment you feel good about the ROI that you got, and that will help you, basically, put more use cases on the network, and expansion and things like that,” Tiwari said.

Another one of those challenges remains complexity. Analysts have for years pointed toward the over-complex nature of private network architectures, a complexity that quickly overwhelms enterprise IT departments that have grown accustomed to simpler Wi-Fi-based systems.

“Customers want a standardization and the products have to be mature enough so that the channel and the ecosystem can manage it on their own,” Tiwari said. “This cannot continue to be a heavy-handed approach from any vendor or integrator that takes a long time to go through the lifecycle of planning, deploying, making the use cases possible. So that's the phase that we are entering right now.”

Geoff Hollingworth, chief marketing officer at Rakuten Symphony, touched on this development in a recent blog post.

“Enterprises in manufacturing, logistics, mining, and energy increasingly seek low-latency, high-reliability networks tailored to their operational needs,” Hollingworth wrote. “The market has been slow but is now being unlocked beyond the specialized hard-to-deliver environments such as mines and ports. The secret to success is commoditization so the market offers Wi-Fi level operational simplicity with Wi-Fi level pricing.”

Tiwari did note that ongoing AI development is a growing avenue toward reducing this complexity, explaining that Ericsson is using AI as a way to help maintain network reliability, something that is very important for private 5G networks supporting mission-critical use cases.

“That's where we are spending a lot of time in how do we reduce this outage time or degradation time. How do we proactively use AI to make customers aware of any signals of degradation that might be happening anywhere, whatever the root cause,” Tiwari said.

This model is somewhat limited today by the needed closed nature of such AI models that limit broader interoperability goals, but Tiwari stated that open APIs can help alleviate this concern.

“If you're going and deploying at an enterprise, that enterprise already has a networking infrastructure, they already have a security infrastructure, they already have help-desk ticketing workflows, and so on, so you have to seamlessly fit into that. The private network cannot be a black box that does not integrate with all of those things,” Tiwari said. “So from that extent, the APIs have to be there. Some enterprises prefer to develop their own tools. Some [mobile service providers] prefer to have their own [network operating centers] and things like that, so this network has to seamlessly integrate into all of those tools that exist.”

Market dynamics and refinement

Ericsson’s private network optimism comes as market forces continue to churn.

Ericsson rival Nokia recently moved to shift investments away from what was often touted as a robust market position, admitting instead that the space has been plagued by slower-than-anticipated enterprise traction and that the vendor was perhaps not in the best position to drive further growth.

“The reality today is, more often than not we're competing with our customers versus partnering with our customers and telcos,” Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said during a press briefing on that move. “I've shared this sentiment with multiple customers as I've met with them since I started, my objective is not to compete with our customers. I want to partner with them. And the decision that we made … to move that business to portfolio companies so that we can focus on the enabling technology and allow our customers to then intervene, whether that's with consumer, which is obviously the largest portion of their business today, enterprise, we believe will be the biggest opportunity for them tomorrow.”

ABI Research in a recent report that touched on Nokia’s move, predicts that action could prove lucrative for the broader market.

“Consolidation will bring private cellular closer to the enterprises and vertical-specific solution providers capable of embedding connectivity within comprehensive, end-to-end digital transformation offerings,” the report noted. “These players will understand what enterprises are predominantly interested in: use cases, outcomes, and business impact. To that end, they will be able to integrate the private cellular infrastructure as the connectivity layer into their existing network of partnerships with vertical-specific application developers, and device manufacturers to create a more impactful and stronger value proposition for private cellular.”

Operators are taking that angle, something highlighted by Ericsson’s recent deal with Vodafone Portugal. Others are being more creative.

T-Mobile US, for instance, recently launched its Edge Control connectivity platform that takes advantage of the carrier’s 5G-Advanced network to support edge deployments. This includes local breakout for lower latency and to handle complex network data routing needs.

T-Mobile for Business Chief Marketing Officer Mo Katibeh explained to SDxCentral that the Edge Control product provides “private network-like performance minus the overhead, which think of that as really lower total cost of ownership for the enterprise.”

Specifically, the service moves the user plane functions (UPFs) from the core of the network out to the network edge. This allows the service to support network on- and off-ramps at those edge locations to more efficiently route local traffic and provide what Katibeh said is, “true data sovereignty anywhere on the T-Mobile 5G-Advanced network without traversing the public internet and VPN tunnels.”

T-Mobile US’ move shows a flexible mindset that could help counter broader private market challenges.

“While several industry voices adopt a fatalist view and foreshadow the end of private cellular, quite the contrary will be true,” ABI Research optimistically predicts. “Through integration into vertical-specific offerings, the private cellular value proposition will be a lot stronger than before.”