What makes Cisco’s Bob Everson the most excited about the future of private networking is when it’s no longer novel but an assumed part of the business toolkit.
That’s still a ways off, so for now, the uniqueness of private networks will be the subject of all kinds of discussions during Fierce’s Private Wireless Networks Summit next week. The free virtual event May 9-13 will include case studies about private network adoption, economics and ROI, security and strategies for the future.
Everson, senior director of 5G architecture at Cisco, will give a keynote on Monday, May 9, when the state of play for private networks will be front and center.
Given Cisco’s history in Wi-Fi, one might assume Everson is going to sing the praises of Wi-Fi over 5G, but not necessarily.
“High-speed wireless connectivity unleashes numerous new applications and adding 5G alongside Wi-Fi will support most any use case an enterprise can think of today or tomorrow. This will unleash tremendous innovation beyond what is possible now,” he told Fierce via email.
Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) certainly is part of the 5G era of private networking. It’s a relatively new spectrum allocation in the U.S. – at 3.5 GHz, it’s a popular spectrum band for 5G around the world – and it’s highly suitable for enterprises looking to control their own networks. The General Authorized Access (GAA) portion of the CBRS band is uniquely available for an enterprise to use on an unlicensed basis.
One of the great things about spectrum in the 5G era is many countries are allocating spectrum specifically for enterprise services, thus removing the contention about taking publicly allocated spectrum and assigning it to an enterprise, Everson noted.
“This results in 5G being much more capable and usable for enterprises than 4G,” he said.
In addition, applications are demanding greater wireless connectivity.
“The bulk of private wireless connections will be ‘things,’ devices large and small that need persistent connectivity to support the levels of automation and analytics that drive business results,” he said. “More attached devices feed better applications, which in turn drives improved operations; applications drive the business case for more devices with radios – it’s a virtuous cycle that is taking off in the 5G era.”
That said, there’s been a lot of focus on the radio link, and while radios are certainly essential, they are not enough for success, according to Everson.
“5G connections must integrate seamlessly into the enterprise operations, leveraging the same policy and security capabilities of any other access method. We are doing this from the start – integrating it in to provide a simple and consistent experience for the IT and OT teams, and ensuring it stays on pace with the rest of the network,” he said.
CBRS still 4G, but ‘5G ready’
In the U.S., private wireless networks are using CBRS and they’re 4G LTE, but soon, they ‘re going to 5G, said Senza Fili founder Monica Paolini.
Some enterprises might want to go to private 5G, “but you cannot do private 5G with CBRS today.”
The reason is the ecosystem just isn’t there to support it, she said.
To Everson’s point about the bulk of wireless connections being “things,” the 3.5 GHz band globally is used for 5G and it’s supported in a lot of phones. But for the kind of stuff that an enterprise would find useful – think cameras and sensors – it’s not there yet.
However, if an enterprise deploys 4G LTE private wireless, the equipment is pretty much 5G-ready, Paolini added, noting the issue is not the network gear but the devices, mainly for IoT.
It's kind of an odd situation when you think about it. If you have a security camera, it likely uses Wi-Fi, where the ecosystem is vast. That’s not quite the case with CBRS, as it’s still in development, she said.
And as soon as it becomes standard in all things, like Wi-Fi, it’s probably not going to be so novel anymore.