According to a recent report, U.S. spending on private 4G/5G networks is expected to jump by 18 percent to $3.7 billion by 2027. As of the first half of 2024, research indicates that the manufacturing industry leads the growth in the deployment of private 5G networks.
Private 5G brings connectivity, reliability, and faster service experience to enterprises campuswide, provides efficiencies in operations and productivity, and enables privacy and control of network security.
Enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) can seize opportunities to work together to bring critical initiatives to the marketplace, such as network slicing, Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, and other promising service offerings. These emerging private 5G services can present new business advantages for enterprises, while at the same time creating vital revenue streams for CSPs.
Deployment Challenges
Private 5G deployments present an increased level of complexity because—unlike private 4G LTE networks—enterprises have a wider set of deployment options for 5G private networks, including:
- On-premises 5G radio only
- 5G radio access network (RAN) and partial core
- A full “5G in a box,” along with paired multi-access edge computing (MEC)
- Network slicing
Similarly, there is a range of options for the implementation and operation of private 5G networks and/or with multiple partners:
- In-house technical expertise (if it exists)
- Network equipment manufacturer (NEM)
- Partnering on spectrum usage with CSPs or cloud providers and systems integrators, or a combination thereof
The availability of various deployment options, combined with the use of multivendor solutions, intensifies the deployment complexity and increases the visibility challenges for private 5G network deployments.
Benefits for Enterprises
5G is to businesses what 4G or 3G mobile networks were to consumers. Enterprises will not likely replace Wi-Fi with 5G in “carpeted areas.” But where signal interference is an issue, or there is a need for broader coverage (more mobility, better security, and device density), private 5G is a complementary solution.
With private 5G, there are opportunities for enterprises to reinvent static business and refresh consumer experiences via the following emerging use cases, to list a few:
- Electric grids: Smart wireless sensors to protect electric grids, monitor customer demands, and guard against harsh weather conditions
- Augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR): Devices to enable remote diagnostics by field technicians in multiple industries
- Healthcare: Proactive patient care with critical healthcare applications, use of robots for patient care, and remote surgery opportunities
Relentless Visibility
Enterprises and CSPs will need end-through-end visibility across complex network domains and cloud environments to ensure performance and security meet service level agreements (SLAs) for quality end-user experience. Because the availability of many deployment options for private 5G increases the challenges with visibility across network domains and creates barriers to assuring services with real-time analytics, orchestration, and automation, enterprises and CSPs must plan and design visibility solutions from the onset to ensure 24/7 support. Such visibility solutions must be agnostic, open to any vendor solutions, and enabled with the high degree of automation required to meet business demands for continuous innovation.
The Right Solution for Private 5G Assurance
As more and more enterprises explore the advantages of private 5G, CSPs and enterprises alike will require the right solution to assure performance and security—one that offers end-through-end visibility for continuous delivery of timely and valuable insights across the RAN, edge, and core.
With decades of experience working with CSPs and enterprises, NETSCOUT provides a best-in-class scalable cloud-based platform that is vendor-agnostic and offers unparalleled visibility for highly effective monitoring of performance and cybersecurity, enabling end users to explore real-time scenarios, create key performance indicators (KPIs), and drive informed business decisions with Smart Data for private 5G networks.
Learn more about private 5G networks for the enterprise.