The Promise of Enterprise Wireless Delivered

In the past few weeks, an incredibly diverse set of vendors have set their sights on the burgeoning market for private cellular wireless, a market that is set to explode to $8.3 billion by 2026. Mobile network operators (MNOs) like Verizon and NTT, hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft, and even legacy behemoths like Cisco are all jockeying for market share with a wide range of solutions that help companies embrace private wireless.?

But why now? It’s all about timing.

During the past decade, deterministic wireless connectivity has become a must-have for new network-reliant business applications, user devices, and specialized IoT systems. Companies are willing to pay big bucks for it now.

Recognizing?this market’s potential?back in 2019, Norwest co-led the Series A round of financing for?Celona, a unique pure play and first mover in the private cellular market. Today, we are pleased to double down on this investment with the close of Celona’s Series C round.

Having now partnered with Verizon, NTT, and Aruba/HPE, Celona stands alone in the market. The company is?widely credited?with innovating and delivering the industry’s first 5G LAN solution, a system purpose-built for enterprises that are ready to own and operate their own private mobile networks.

5G LANs Ready for Takeoff with CBRS Release

The FCC’s recent release of the Citizens Broadband Radio Spectrum (CBRS) band for unlicensed use set the stage for a?new era in enterprise networking. CBRS marks the first time since the arrival of Wi-Fi that a new interference-free wireless spectrum has been made available to businesses everywhere. CBRS serves as a foundation for new applications and use cases. The popularity of new unlicensed cellular technology has even spawned a growing ecosystem of CBRS support from the world’s most popular devices such as Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.?

For enterprises, the availability of CBRS dovetails perfectly with 5G. Not only does 5G deliver incredibly reliable and low-latency wireless connectivity in almost any environment, indoors or out, it also brings a new cloud-native, software-defined architecture that maps well to advanced IT mobile edge compute environments. Enterprises are embracing these environments for their services and applications to bring network services closer to the users, applications, and devices that need them most.?

5G LAN Use Cases Abound

5G LANs solve a host of immediate needs across a wide variety of industries. Whether it’s IoT robots on a manufacturing floor, automated guided vehicles in a warehouse, or clinical voice communications in a hospital, 5G LANs eliminate the mobility, coverage and connectivity challenges that have long plagued the wireless industry.?

Looking forward, 5G LANs will become the centerpiece for neutral host networking, a more modern approach to antiquated distributed antenna systems (DAS). DAS use small cells to extend MNO public cellular services throughout a building or venue over the existing enterprise LAN infrastructure. With 5G LANs, enterprises can achieve this at a fraction of the cost and complexity of conventional DAS.

Tying this back to Celona, it is the only private wireless company that has designed its system to speak the language of IT within a familiar WLAN framework that deploys in hours, not days or weeks. In early deployments, customers have touted this as one of the biggest benefits of Celona 5G LAN technology.

With this latest infusion of capital to scale and innovate, Celona has taken a pole position in the market for enterprise private wireless. And we couldn’t be prouder.

Congrats to Celona and its talented team.