Chicago-based regional U.S. telecommunications provider UScellular and private 5G system provider Betacom are one-upping market heavyweights by launching what they claims is the first “private-public hybrid 5G network” option in the United States. The move follows a growing push by telecom operators and vendor partners into the private 5G market. It also comes under cloud of uncertainty for UScellular.

The deal has UScellular tapping into its regional telecommunications infrastructure and market experience tied to Betacom’s managed private 5G platform. From UScellular, this means access to the carrier’s owned mobile network assets, its nationwide roaming agreements and data backhaul between sites.

Betacom’s platform, like many others in the private network space, taps into the quasi-licensed Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum band. The company works with Google as its CBRS spectrum manager and that the vendor has so far seen ample spectrum support using the CBRS general authorized (GAA) licensing tier.

The services are tied together through a single SIM card that provides users with seamless mobility between UScellular’s cellular network and the Betacom CBRS-powered private network. This also allows for cellular failover onto UScellular’s network should there be any issues with the CBRS-powered private network.

Michael Davies, VP of business partner strategy and 5G-as-a-service at Betacom, explained in an interview that Betacom’s authentication system is the “secret sauce” to securing this seamlessness within an “island” environment.

“We have joined together to provide a single SIM that is authenticated within the static network and then is accepted, secured and maintained throughout the mobile network into the next static environment of the island,” Davies said.

David Allen, director of emerging technologies at UScellular, added that this approach also is key to how the operator segments the private network service.

“We treat that private cellular network as a peer of ours, and so when we see that SIM in the public cellular domain, whether it's on our native network or it's on one of our roaming partners network, we will authenticate against that private [home subscriber server], that private cellular network, get the corresponding authentication, accept or deny and then that device can proceed with the policy controls that that private network has put in place for it,” Allen said.

Both Davies and Allen pointed to this SIM angle as the platform’s unique differentiator in an increasingly saturated private network market.

“You may see other people claim hybridization,” Allen said. “We've been early in that messaging of hybridization of networks, the public-private hybrid networks. Others have started saying that as well, but it's really when you peel back the layers it's typically a two-SIM solution. That's for the most part, historically, the way that solution’s gone. We’re working together to drive toward that single-SIM solution so that we're authenticating a private SIM and a private device that happens to be in the public network against that private network.”

Betacom’s growing private network ecosystem

Betacom earlier this year expanded the ecosystem around its platform with more than a dozen partners. This included mobile edge compute work with Google Cloud, Ingram Micro and Intel; application work with ADB SAFEGATE Americas, Evolon, Ingram Micro and Solis Energy; industrial IoT devices from Axis Communications, Ingram Micro, Qualcomm Technologies, SVT Robotics and Vecna Robotics; 5G work with Airspan, Druid Software, FibroLAN and Qualcomm; and system integration work with CDW, Ingram Micro and QuayChain.

The vendor at that time said the expanded ecosystem alleviates ongoing concerns by enterprise IT departments that they will need to manage a disparate combination of equipment, services and connectivity to deploy a private network. This should be beneficial to those enterprise IT staffs that have so far eschewed potential network complexity by going with a private network platform.

“An enterprise IT group doesn’t have to think about what part goes with where and what’s the right piece to put here,” Davies explained at that time. “We come with this total package solution that says this is the latest and greatest, it works today, it’s futureproofed because these are the right people we bring to the table. So the technology works, but also that it is economically palatable to the enterprise.”

Allen added that UScellular’s deal with Betacom expands that ecosystem opportunity for enterprise customers.

“What was nice about their ecosystem is that it lacked a cellular service provider as part of that Ecosystem Partner Exchange, so we fulfill that role,” Allen said.

UScellular expanding 5G efforts, but what about its future?

The Betacom launch also follows a handful of recent similar moves by UScellular.

The carrier last month launched a private wireless network offering with Ericsson that links the vendor’s Private 5G network portfolio with the carrier’s connectivity services. This is being targeted at so-called “Industry 4.0” verticals like manufacturing, logistics, distribution and warehouse use cases; and expanding into hospitals, industrial IoT, ports, utilities and airports.

Allen noted that the Ericsson deal will be available alongside other private network offerings in UScellular’s “toolbox.”

“The way the ecosystem was built, there's a lot of OEM and hardware equipment in the background,” Allen said. “You have Nokia in the background, you have Ericsson in the background, you have Airspan, you have Druid; you have all of this hardware in the background. Most of the time the customer doesn't really care what hardware has been put forth. They want to know what the go-to-market is. Are you doing a hosted solution? Do you have a private network and do you have a hybrid ability to get off the private network? That's kind of what we've been hearing for the mobility aspect. We haven't heard anyone come in and say that they really want that Druid thing or that Ericsson thing. So the more tools we have in our toolbox, the more stronger and powerful we become.”

The launch also coincides with UScellular’s announced expansion of its 5G network. This is tied to the carrier finally receiving full access to the C-band spectrum assets it acquired as part of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction in early 2021. UScellular said it plans to upgrade more than 440 cell sites to beam out the mid-band spectrum.

UScellular’s larger rivals have made similar C-band proclamations over the past several weeks.

UScellular’s network expansion also comes at a time when parent company Telephone and Data Systems (TDS) has stated plans for exploring “strategic alternatives” for its wireless operations.

Rumors had initially linked a possible deal with Dish Network, which itself is looking to expand into the private 5G business.

“They have towers, they have spectrum and they operate in geographies that we haven’t fully built out so it’d be something that we’d be interested in looking at,” Tom Cullen, EVP of corporate development at Dish Network, said during a Dish Network presentation last month.