How do you scale private 5G networks? Well, it depends…

Private 5G networks are billed as a sort of silver bullet for business problems in a wide range of vertical markets. That said, adoption has been slower than expected, there’s huge regional variations largely based on spectrum availability, and there remains some sticking points to scale—think a global enterprise with sites in multiple countries trying to achieve unified management of multiple private 5G networks. So what’s the path forward and is there a solution to the scale issue that will catalyze the market? We convened a panel of experts during the recent Industrial 5G Forum (available on demand here) to parse the relevant questions in pursuit of an answer to this lingering issue of scale—worth noting that a major benefit of private 5G is customization for specific industries, specific businesses and specific applications, so back to the age-old tension between customization and replicability. 

Verizon has a deal with the NFL to provide private cellular for NFL coaches to talk to one another on the field. This deal covers all 30 NFL stadiums and has been extended to international sites where the NFL hosts games. The last time RCR Wireless News talked coach-to-coach comms with Verizon at a lab opening in San Francisco, the networks in play, so to speak, where LTE; but, to be fair, the lessons learned around scaling up are applicable to 5G. Verizon’s VP of Device Technology and 5G Sports Innovation Brian Mecum said he’s observing “significant growth” in venue deployments based on “the need for the leagues to have consistent connectivity to run their game operations from site to site.” Specific to the tech provided to the NFL, Mecum said, “It’s a self-contained private network that takes a communications unit built to work on a cellular network, so being wireless allows the coaches to walk around the sidelines without resistance.” 

Mecum also called out interest from various professional motorsports leagues, collegiate athletics and other potential customers. “There’s just so much private network interest and it has to be scalable, obviously. But we’re going across multiple sites.” He mentioned a variety of buyer models, including lease arrangements and outright purchasing. “It’s taking off just about everywhere,” he said.

(In 3GPP parlance) Are we talking a SNPN or a PNI-NPN? 

Thierry Berisot, who leads a 3GPP working ground and is a board member of EUWENA, an organization dedicated to helping enterprises better work with operators and other stakeholders on private cellular, made an important distinction around 3GPP nomenclature. The standards body divvies the private 5G space into two big buckets—a Standalone Non-Public Network (SNPN) is a purely private network that doesn’t directly touch an operator’s network. A Public Network Integrated Non-Public Network (PNI-NPN) would tap into some elements of an operator’s public network, such as the evolved packet core or cloud-native 5G core. “Both have advantages and drawbacks,” Berisot said. 

Throughout his commentary, Berisot kept reiterating the need for strong standards to support scaling either flavor of private 5G, and envisioned a future where seamless roaming enables a user to access both types of private 5G networks, public networks, satellite networks, etc…As for the distinction between SNPN and PNI-NPN, he suggested the former is often the result of a business needing network support for a very specific use case whereas the latter is more “technology-driven” as marked by a hypothetical enterprise buyer decided, “I want to deploy 5G.” Bottomline, he said, integrated private networks are less scalable than standalone private networks because they hinge on an operator relationship that may be bounded by geography or other gating factors. 

In terms of gating factors, “Spectrum availability, this is the main issue,” Berisot said. He noted that some geographies, the United Kingdom and Germany for instance, have made available dedicated spectrum for private enterprise networks. But this isn’t uniform throughout Europe; and in the cases of countries that have opted to provide spectrum for enterprises, there’s no cross-border harmonization as to what frequencies are available. “If you don’t have spectrum, you cannot deploy the private network,” he said. “You are still relying on a solution that is purely MNO-driven…That’s an issue.” And in Europe, “There is absolutely no harmonized spectrum. Each country is allocating or offering for private different spectrum…Without harmonized spectrum, you cannot scale,” he said. 

More on private 5G and roaming

Berisot made the point that standalone private networks interworking with public networks, eg a non-MNO-driven scenario, makes roaming from the SPN onto a public network more difficult because why would the operator, who isn’t financially involved, prioritize that? “It’s more a question of interworking between different networks, between public and private,” he said. “It’s a question of network selection…Some solutions exist but they are proprietary.” Zooming out, or perhaps more aptly scaling up, Berisot said, “It’s not only a question of roaming and interconnect between private and public, it’s also between two or several private networks…We need to effectively address this topic.”

Francesco Militano works in Ericsson’s dedicated networks business but in this session was largely wearing his other hat as part of the MulteFire Alliance (MFA). The MFA has long advocated for the deployment of private cellular networks in unlicensed spectrum; it’s a great idea, everyone says it’s a great idea, but outside of Japan where there was already a swatch of available spectrum and compatible devices, not necessarily a scaled technology. Militano, to the roaming point, highlighted MFA’s work around its global PLM (check on this) ID program. This assigns “a unique network identifier” which “is critical to ensuring the right device is connecting.” 

In the context of scaling private 5G and ensuring appropriate roaming/interconnect mechanisms and unified management, Militano gave an example: “When you think about enterprises that have deployments in different countries, different sites…so no matter which site the device is, the global enterprise will see it as one network…For me it’s important to think that the SIM cards and the devices work seamlessly at each site. No matter where the device ends up, they need to be able to connect seamlessly in the whole global footprint.” 

Back to Mecum providing the carrier perspective on all of this: He acknowledged technical challenges around simplification of private 5G, maintaining quality of service, a standalone private network vs. a more operator-dependent solution, and the spectrum of it all. “Spectrum is growing challenging just because you have more and more consumption, and more and more interest, more and more people dialing in and wanting to have their own private network.” On the enterprise scale up question, Mecum rightly pointed out that all of the challenges mentioned can indeed be solved for, but “It depends on how much [enterprises] want to invest.” Big picture, eh said, “I think that we can overcome them all and it’s pretty simple. You just have to pick what you want to go after then go work with a company or a carrier that has that ability to deliver.”