Enterprise-ready private 5G joins Wi-Fi in prime time

In most industries, a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48%^[1] is simply unheard of.

But that’s what we are seeing with the global private 5G market.

The rollout of 5G has advanced mobile networks around the world, and in a dozen countries so far, governments have now assigned 5G spectrum to be used by enterprises. This is what is referred to as private 5G. And it is predicted to grow 1400% – from 4,000 private cellular networks in 2022 to more than 60,000 networks in 2028.

We believe private 5G and Wi-Fi will exist side-by-side, enabling new customer use cases where outdoor coverage and latency are important such as ports, defense applications, mining operations, and sporting events. And we’re not the only ones. Many enterprise IT departments are looking at what enterprise-ready private 5G solutions are on the market and how they can deploy complementary networks to optimize their connectivity.

Streamlined, unified solutions

Historically, complexity and cost have been hurdles to private cellular adoption. Private 5G was deemed too difficult and resource-intensive for enterprises to deploy and maintain. Integrating and managing the multiple components of such a network required specialized telecommunications expertise beyond that of most IT network managers and engineers.

Fortunately, recent advances in private cellular technologies and vendor offerings have smoothed the way for enterprise use and adoption.

Leading providers of enterprise networking are developing solutions that streamline private cellular and integrate it with Wi-Fi, enabling enterprise IT staff to use a single interface for provisioning and deploying private 5G. This brings together security, visibility, and management in one place, enabling IT departments to apply and manage policies uniformly across the combined private cellular and Wi-Fi networks – whether in the cloud, on-prem, or hybrid.

This unification of Wi-Fi and private 5G will allow networking teams to deploy private cellular in a similar manner as other networking products, like switches and access points, significantly decreasing the need for specialized cellular expertise. IT departments will be able to more easily trial private 5G in their own environments, giving them a better understanding of where and how to implement it.

In addition, for those enterprises working with communications service providers (CSPs), choosing a private cellular vendor who maintains a comprehensive partner ecosystem can help ensure a smooth deployment.

Case in point: 2023 Ryder Cup

A real-world example of how early adopters are pairing Wi-Fi with private cellular came at the 2023 Ryder Cup. There, event organizers sought to gain ultra-secure capabilities, greatly expand coverage, and enhance fan and staff experiences during the premier golf competition.

By partnering with HPE Aruba Networking, Ryder Cup organizers deployed an integrated private 5G and Wi-Fi 6e network that provided always-on connectivity to 250,000 spectators while also delivering a secure, private network for the operations staff, across the 350+ acres that made up the venue.

Delivering this kind of connectivity, enabled by the HPE acquisition of Athonet’s cloud-native private cellular solution, at the Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in the Roman countryside, was no small feat:  existing connectivity was limited and challenging, the archeological importance of the venue limited the amount of temporary event cabling that could be run and there were numerous environmental factors including wind, rain – and even rodents!

Providing high-capacity Wi-Fi connectivity to hundreds of thousands of spectators during the event enabled fans to use devices to enjoy new app-powered insights, such as a player locator that not only provided an interactive map but also permitted clicking through for individual scores, as well as match predictions, every shot commentary, and visual shot tracking.

Private 5G simultaneously provided extended wide-area coverage to more remote parts of the golf course, as well as a secure network for operations staff. Unaffected by the crowd’s high demand for high-bandwidth apps, event organizers had full-course operational coverage for critical services like security, stewarding, ticketing, and scoring. 

In addition, the solution enabled data collection for everything from weather sensors, that collected 15 different measurements every three seconds, to locating players on the course and feeding that data to the fan app.

Opening the door to innovation

The Ryder Cup is a great example of the possibilities for private 5G, as this one event includes several of the primary situations where it is advantageous to pair Wi-Fi and private 5G connectivity. 

Across various enterprise applications, we’re seeing strong interest from our customers in five such primary situations:

1. Challenging radio environments. Where continuous communications are critical across massive shop floors with hard-to-reach pockets of airspace, like manufacturing, deploying private cellular networks in conjunction with Wi-Fi can eliminate coverage gaps.

2. Rapidly moving client devices. Private cellular was designed to operate at the pace of people walking. Therefore, in environments where wireless IoT and Industrial IoT (IIoT) devices move fast while requiring continuous exchanges of telemetry and control data, such as robotics in healthcare, warehousing, and industrial settings, private cellular is a good option.

3. Large coverage areas, particularly outdoors. Whether a municipality, an airfield, or a transportation complex, private cellular overcomes the challenges related to effectively cabling expansive areas for Wi-Fi and enables smart cities, seaports, energy generation, and utility distribution.

4. Secure back-office communication at enterprises with significant public access. Enterprises that simultaneously provide public guest wireless access and require high-security or latency-sensitive connectivity can use private cellular to segregate public-facing traffic from back-office operations.

5. Filling public cellular coverage gaps. Many enterprises not only experience significant gaps in coverage from the public cellular networks but also have determined that traditional solutions, like Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), are not economically feasible. In collaboration with public network operators and assuming certain architectural challenges can be addressed, private cellular networks could, in the future, be leveraged to fill these gaps.

Start the journey now

With the private cellular adoption expected to be strong and fast, enterprises are already mapping out their evaluation and deployment strategies to ensure they can gain innovation advantages. From making cities smarter to improving surgical outcomes, enterprises are only beginning to scratch the surface of what they can accomplish by integrating Wi-Fi with private 5G.

For more on how to get started on our private cellular journey, check out An introductory guide to enterprise private 5G.

[1] Enterprises will spend USD9 billion on private networks by 2028 but the market will not have reached its potential, Analysys Mason, January 22, 2024