Private Cellular Network Anyone?

Over the last year or so you may have started to hear the term “Enterprise Private 5G Networks” or “Enterprise Private Cellular”. Given the advances of Wi-Fi over the last two decades it’s not unreasonable to question why Enterprises should want to consider a different type of wireless infrastructure. So what is a private cellular network exactly and why should Enterprises care?

Where Would I Use Private Cellular and What’s Wrong with Wi-Fi?

Let’s make one thing very clear - private cellular networks have not been created with some Machiavellian intent to usurp Wi-Fi as the king of Enterprise wireless. Like any new technology, private cellular is a solution to an emerging and rapidly growing problem that Enterprises are experiencing, especially in what we consider the semi-industrial or uncarpeted Enterprise. Uncarpeted means exactly what it says – work locations where there are no carpets. Think warehouses, manufacturing facilities, mines, oil and gas works, healthcare, retail outlets, ports, airports and other transit facilities as well as venues and stadiums and so on. What is not on this list of course is the carpeted locations – which is basically the familiar office space where most of us go and work each day.

Now before we discuss the drivers that make private cellular a potential candidate for use in uncarpeted Enterprises, let’s first examine why Wi-Fi is not always the right solution.

If you were to ask anyone if they have ever experienced “bad” Wi-Fi there is probably a high percentage - verging on 100% I would wager – who would roll their eyes knowingly to the heavens and answer yes. Let’s face it, everyone has experienced bad Wi-Fi, both at home and at the office. In spite of that, we all love Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is awesome! It is simple and straight forward to deploy and manage, the cost is (fairly) reasonable and we all want to be permanently connected to the internet. Wi-Fi is the plumbing that allows us to do that without having to use a cable. Wi-Fi is convenient and ubiquitious, so what’s not to love? Well, imagine you were in hospital on a life-support system. Would you be ok with that being connected up over Wi-Fi? Maybe not so much, right?

The point here is that Wi-Fi is what can be best described as a very capable and “good enough” technology for carpeted environments. Nobody dies when the office Wi-Fi goes down. Likewise your manufacturing production lines historically did not stop operating when the Wi-Fi went down, because nothing critical was ever attached to it. And there’s the rub. Until recently manufacturing production lines have not relied heavily on wireless connectivity. However, the advent of what is described as the 4th Industrial Revolution (often shortened to the term Industry 4.0) has been accompanied by a wholesale change in connectivity requirements. This revolution has been replicated across every vertical of the semi-industrial world. Today - because of ever increasing automation - connectivity is required between a multitude of devices. Sensors, robots, scanners, tablets, video cameras, vehicles and many other smart devices that simply did not exist even just a few years ago, often rely exclusively on the wireless infrastructure to operate. So when the wireless network stops working - the modern production line stops working - and that runs straight to a business’s bottom line.

Should I Only Consider the Traditional Public Network Cellular Technology Vendors?

In a word – No!

Private Cellular networks can provide a step change upgrade to the reliability and predictability of a wireless infrastructure. Things that were simply not possible with Wi-Fi become eminently feasible with private cellular. This is not the forum to get into the technical weeds on the differences between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. It is on the other hand exactly the forum to understand that not all private cellular networks are built the same way.

Consider this analogy. I think we can all agree that the vehicle that your local waste management firm uses to come and empty your trash cans is not the same vehicle you would want to use to drive your kids to school. Same underlying principle – and yet two very different vehicles designed specifically for different use cases. The same is true for cellular networks. Designing and building a public or “macro” cellular infrastructure for millions of consumers is totally different from building a private cellular network for the Enterprise. The underlying cellular principles are of course the same, but the needs of a large national cellular service provider are very different to the needs of an Enterprise. And don’t be fooled by vendors who say they have adapted their macro cellular products for the Enterprise. Replacing the rear of a garbage truck with seating for passengers does not make a family car!

How Does the Traditional Macro Cellular World Impact the Private Cellular World?

The vast majority of vendors offering private cellular solutions today hark from the traditional macro world of cellular technology. Many of them actually only make one component of the multiple components needed to create an end-to-end cellular network. Because they come from the macro world, they assume that a cellular service provider will do the necessary complex integration which is required to have the various components work seamlessly together. Whilst that integration work may be fine for a cellular service provider to undertake, Enterprises large and small simply do not operate that way. Could you imagine a so-called Wi-Fi vendor rocking up to an Enterprise and offering only the Wi-Fi access points whilst also suggesting the enterprise customer look elsewhere to find a suitable WLAN Controller or a cloud management system? They would be shown the door immediately and rightly so. And yet that seemingly unlikely scenario is playing out today in many private cellular considerations globally.

Such is the haste of some large and well known network infrastructure vendors and cloud providers to get into the private cellular space, that they themselves have resorted to pulling together various components and fronting an “integrated” solution under their own brand. However, the only way they are able to do this with any level of service quality is by offering it “as a service”. This means that the Enterprise does not get to own and operate their own network as they would their Wi-Fi network. Now many Enterprises may welcome the “as a service” model but just as many prefer to own and operate their own networks – especially the larger ones. In addition - if things go wrong - who will own the problem? When there are multiple vendors pulled together to create a Frankenstein solution, the risk of finger pointing can leave the customer holding the metaphorical baby.

You Want to Build What?

Shockingly - because most private cellular solutions are based on macro technology – they are designed with an assumption that the infrastructure provided is for their exclusive use. Some vendors will actually recommend or even require that their solution is deployed on a completely new infrastructure (new cabling, switches, routers, firewalls etc.) with all the associated cost and complexity. Others may offer to “ride” on top of your existing infrastructure, although in reality they simply become a shadow network. Cellular connected devices in this second example get their IP addresses from the cellular “core” and not from the Enterprise network and they cannot be contacted (pinged, logged into etc.) from the Enterprise network. They are essentially taking advantage of the infrastructure but they are not integrated into the infrastructure and all its associated services and security protocols.

So What Should a Private Cellular Network Look Like?

Not surpisingly the optimal private cellular solution for the Enterprise is something which has been specifically designed for the enterprise. Something which provides all of the components, an end-to-end offering from one vendor who owns the intellectual property throughout and which can be delivered “as a service” or on a DIY basis per the preference of the customer. The solution should conform to Enterprise industry norms – these include providing a complete solution, being easy to install, fully integrating with the existing infrastructure, conforming with all existing security protocols and providing traditional enterprise agility in terms of ensuring quality of service for the critical applications the network is being deployed to support. An Enterprise does not need to be its own integrator, it does not need to compromise on security, ease of use and agility. In short, if you are looking for a family saloon, no-one should be trying to sell you a garbage truck.