Wireless carriers and open radio access network (RAN) vendors are both chasing an increasingly narrow and unlikely opportunity to earn meaningful revenue from private networks, according to Strand Consult CEO John Strand.

Enterprises don’t care about private networks, 5G, or open RAN as much as they care about connectivity, he said during a panel organized by IEEE and the Santa Clara University School of Engineering.

Businesses rely on connectivity today and are unlikely to pay more for a different type of technology unless it creates significant additional value or solves a specific problem, Strand said. This puts wireless carriers and open RAN vendors on poor footing, for different reasons, he added. 

“If the open RAN providers cannot deliver a better, cheaper solution, and more value for money than classic RAN or WiFi, I don’t believe they have a chance,” Strand said.

Then there’s the carrier dilemma. “A lot of carriers have outsourced their IT to different companies,” he said. “So why should I as a company outsource my vital infrastructure to a company which has outsourced its vital infrastructure?”

Caroline Chan, VP at Intel’s Network and Edge Group, takes a more positive view and one that highlights the various paths Intel can take to win and maintain market share in network architecture. 

Enterprise networks and the various technologies they ride on are use case driven, and operators don’t make those decisions, she explained. IT leaders must make technology choices that meet business needs. 

“I will never say that connectivity is the answer. Connectivity is the enabler to solve a business problem. If you look at it that way, I think we collectively have a much better market space to go after,” Chan said. 

This is partially why it’s important to make distinctions about what enterprise networks are being used for, explained Jane Rygaard, head of dedicated wireless networks at Nokia.

“I don’t like to talk about private networks, but I talk about dedicated networks because private at least in part has an idea about who owns them, whereas dedicated you talk about what is the use case you want to fulfill with it,” she said. 

It’s important not to lump basic connectivity, IoT, industrial applications, and operational technology (OT) into the same bucket, according to Rygaard. Making these distinctions is key. 

WiFi can meet many requirements in certain enterprises and scenarios, but not others, and especially when it comes to OT, she said.

Indeed, a five-year forecast from Dell’Oro Group earlier this year indicated that private wireless RAN revenues are coming in slower than previously expected. While it still expects total private wireless RAN revenues to more than double between 2021 and 2026, private 5G will only account for a small market compared to enterprise WiFi.

RAN vendors and wireless carriers might tip the scales in their favor as more 5G standalone cores are deployed, according to Rygaard. A 5G standalone core allows carriers and enterprises to carve slices out for various applications and this will fuel one of the biggest differences in mixing and matching network architecture, she said. 

“By having a 5G standalone network, you have a better option of mixing and matching out different architecture in 5G,” Rygaard said. 

“If you start from an on-premise type of thinking as an enterprise, why do you want to deploy a 4G network if all you’re doing with it is basically waiting until you get 5G standalone?”