Hard Talk recap: The private 5G network surprise
Industry leaders came together to discuss the triggers for the recent upsurge in migration to private 5G networks from players outside the telecommunications industry,
27 Jan 2021
Hard Talk recap: The private 5G network surprise
The last year alone has seen a wave of interest in private 5G networks. Indeed, in September, Germany's telecommunications regulator BNetzA announced it had awarded 74 licences to applicants for deploying private 5G networks over the year.
And yet, this surge of interest took the communications industry by surprise: “I’d like to think we’re all very clever in this industry at spotting trends, but we didn't really see the mobile private network opportunity coming our way,” said Mark Newman, Chief Analyst, TM Forum during a recent Hard Talk session focused on the topic. (Watch: The role of telecoms operators in private 5G networks.)
Newman was joined by Fotis Karonis CTIO of BT Enterprise at BT, Dr. Claudius Noack, IT Consultant for Lufthansa Industry Solutions, and Nigel Stephenson, Director of Market Development EMEA, Telco and Edge Cloud BU at VMware. The group sat down virtually to gauge the potential size of the 5G private network opportunity and the roles of different technology and service providers in delivering and operating the networks.
In discussing the triggers for this migration to private 5G networks from players outside the telecommunications industry, Karonis attributed the necessity for businesses to have predictability when carrying out mission critical operations with the help of IoT, low latency and an emphasis on quality of service.
Lufthansa gained its own 5G private licenses spectrum in early 2020 and has been working to take full advantage of its reliability since, with Noack proclaiming: “The network that we set up in January, [has] had not one minute of failure since we set it up.”
Noack explained the path Lufthansa Industry Solutions took when it went from being an IT solutions provider with little to no first hand involvement in connectivity solutions, to putting its own standalone 5G private “campus” network into operation at the Lufthansa Technik Hamburg for use in its engineering efforts, including using augmented reality powered by 5G to upgrade jets.
Miss this talk? Or simply want to see it again? Sign up for our Hard Talk sessions for a chance to see the full session, and watch the group go in depth into the private network proliferation and opportunity.
And yet, this surge of interest took the communications industry by surprise: “I’d like to think we’re all very clever in this industry at spotting trends, but we didn't really see the mobile private network opportunity coming our way,” said Mark Newman, Chief Analyst, TM Forum during a recent Hard Talk session focused on the topic. (Watch: The role of telecoms operators in private 5G networks.)
Newman was joined by Fotis Karonis CTIO of BT Enterprise at BT, Dr. Claudius Noack, IT Consultant for Lufthansa Industry Solutions, and Nigel Stephenson, Director of Market Development EMEA, Telco and Edge Cloud BU at VMware. The group sat down virtually to gauge the potential size of the 5G private network opportunity and the roles of different technology and service providers in delivering and operating the networks.
In discussing the triggers for this migration to private 5G networks from players outside the telecommunications industry, Karonis attributed the necessity for businesses to have predictability when carrying out mission critical operations with the help of IoT, low latency and an emphasis on quality of service.
Stephenson stated that the idea, concept and even examples of private 5G networks had been around for a few years, but what had developed more recently, in addition to private license spectrums finally being issued, was the maturity: “There's been a lot of momentum, so I think the reason, perhaps, we're talking now about private 5G, as opposed to Wi-Fi 6 or something else, [is] maybe because of the volume of focus and effort that's gone into the technologies,” he said.
Lufthansa gained its own 5G private licenses spectrum in early 2020 and has been working to take full advantage of its reliability since, with Noack proclaiming: “The network that we set up in January, [has] had not one minute of failure since we set it up.”
Noack explained the path Lufthansa Industry Solutions took when it went from being an IT solutions provider with little to no first hand involvement in connectivity solutions, to putting its own standalone 5G private “campus” network into operation at the Lufthansa Technik Hamburg for use in its engineering efforts, including using augmented reality powered by 5G to upgrade jets.
Miss this talk? Or simply want to see it again? Sign up for our Hard Talk sessions for a chance to see the full session, and watch the group go in depth into the private network proliferation and opportunity.
