Mobile network operators continue to ply resources toward cultivating private 5G network opportunities to help monetize their 5G investments, efforts that for at least some are starting to see shoots of success.

Verizon has been one of the more vocal operators in touting progress in the private 5G space. This includes some significant recent deals and modest claims of ongoing market traction.

“We were doing a couple of private networks a month, we are doing a lot more than that,” Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO for Verizon’s Consumer Unit, recently told an audience at the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet and Communications Conference 2024.

This echoed comments from Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg who told investors during the carrier’s most recent earnings that progress was indeed at hand and helping to bolster other opportunities.

“On the 5G use cases, now we start talking more and more about private networks because the number of them are many, then the value of them are still fairly small,” Vestberg said. “But when we build that base of private network, managed spectrum for enterprises, that, over time, is going to be a great opportunity for our enterprise sales force to add in, do the mobile edge compute.”

Verizon’s private 5G progress has also included its ability to expand equipment options to target specific use cases. The most recent was the progress it’s made in certifying Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) platform to use the carrier’s licensed spectrum.

“That type of partnership … makes things much more efficient,” Olivier Blanchard, research director at The Futurum Group, explained during a recent podcast. “Verizon doesn’t have to carry a lot of extra weight they don’t want to really necessarily have to deal with; Nokia can come in and do what they do. So, to me, it makes sense from an operational standpoint, from an efficiency standpoint, from a joint technology standpoint. But also, it helps validate that this is serious, that this will work on both sides. … Nokia and Verizon working together is … like Batman and Robin, it’s better together.”

T-Mobile US is also enjoying some private 5G success.

Callie Field, president of T-Mobile US’ Business Group, noted during the carrier’s most recent earnings call that it was working with the U.S. Coast Guard “to build out a private network to deliver seamless, secure connectivity from ship-to-shore.” Field also pointed to deals with Delta Airlines at its Atlanta headquarters and works with Ericsson on networking slicing use cases.

T-Mobile US also has a unique advantage in the U.S. market in being one of the few to have a fully commercialized 5G standalone (SA) network core that allow the operator to support more advanced 5G-based services.

While Verizon and T-Mobile US’ recent successes have highlighted evolving opportunities, other operators have remained quiet on the topic or retrenched.

AT&T, for instance, has been relatively subdued on its private 5G progress.

Alicia Dietsch, SVP of business marketing for AT&T, told SDxCentral in an interview last year that it was still early days and work was still needed on deployment and management models.

“I’d squarely put it a little more in the continued experimentation, starting-to-scale space because I think it’s as much about making sure that there’s enough infrastructure deployed to be able to use it extensively,” Dietsch said.

AT&T’s management has also been very quiet on the topic, with private 5G opportunities being notably absent from recent remarks.

EchoStar, which has won deals with the Department of Defense (DoD) to provide private networks to a pair of U.S. bases, is currently more focused on righting its more mainstream Dish Network wireless businesses.

“Priority one right now this year is to get our basic prepaid and postpaid business significantly ramped up and brought on net,” CEO Hamid Akhavan said during the operator’s most recent earnings call.

Akhavan did add that EchoStar remains in “good contact” with government officials tied to the DoD deals.

“I think there’s five or six suppliers altogether that got selected for a DoD award of a 10-year program that they have and the total program is something like $2.7 billion,” Akhavan said. “We certainly expect to get a fair share of that, and to me personally a fair share is something that should be proportionate to our ability to deliver on 5G and [open radio access network] the way that’s envisioned and beneficial to the government and for their purposes. I'll leave it at that, but I think we have enough space in that area.”

Company management has repeatedly cited 5G private network opportunities as a driver behind merging EchoStar and Dish Network. This was based on the ability to combine Dish Network’s expanding 5G network and 5G SA core with the satellite and enterprise/government capabilities of EchoStar and Hughes.

“By integrating Dish spectrum with EchoStar’s technological capabilities, we will have the ability to amplify 5G private networks,” Chairman Charlie Ergen said as part of a conference call announcing that deal last year. “In other words, what we’re able to do is combine satellite communication and terrestrial communications all within the 5G cloud-native platform.”

That slow progress is not unexpected. Analysts noted the paucity of operator-focused private 5G news emanating from the recent MWC Barcelona 2024 event. However, that does not mean that opportunities are dwindling.

Peter Cappiello, CEO for systems provider Future Technologies Venture, during Rethink Research’s recent “Private 5G Networks – Hype or Reality?” webinar, said operators just need to find advantageous positions in the market.

“The [mobile network operators] have made billions of dollars of investments and they also have the customer support and capabilities to deal down to the consumer level to have the users actually take advantage of the internet,” Cappiello said of operators taking advantage of private 5G technologies to enhance broader user experiences. “It's not that it can't work, but I think there’s a tremendous amount of hype about it, there's even money thrown at it, but the operation, maintenance and user experience … it's great that you build networks, but if the people don't use it and they're not enabled what's the purpose of the network?”