More industries seek performance benefits of private 5G networks

By Avnet Staff   |   April 10, 2022   |   Provided By Avnet Silica

Are you considering building a private 5G network?

We have waited 10 years for public 5G networks. While real-world implementations of private networks are in their infancy. Owning one means you don’t have to wait any longer. You also get exclusive access to the performance 5G offers.

With many new technologies, the excitement and hype precede reality. Search online for ”6G networks” and you’ll find nearly 100 million results, even though 6G network standards aren’t yet defined. The virtues of 5G have been extolled for around a decade. Today, one or more flavors of 5G technology have been rolled out globally.

Private 5G networks are funded and built by enterprises for their exclusive use. Private 5G is a relatively recent development. While generic use cases have been widely described, real-world implementations are in their infancy. We set out to find a few. First, read on for some background to put them into context.

How is 5G different from 4G?

Just as in previous cellular network upgrades, the move from 4G to 5G delivers greater bandwidth, faster transmission speeds and lower latency. If 4G is a country road, 5G is a 20-lane highway.

However, 5G is fundamentally different from its predecessors. Here are just two of the main reasons:

• Multiple bands, extending into the mmWave region: 5G operates in three groups of frequency bands. 5G low bands (up to 1GHz), mid bands (from 1GHz to 6GHz) and high bands (from 24GHz-52.6GHz). 5G high bands are mmWave and will reach 71GHz (known as FR2.2 band). 4G frequencies topped out at 2.6GHz. Operating 5G in any of its designated bands offers speed and latency improvements compared with 4G, the differences becoming greater as the frequency of operation increases.

  The downside is that mmWave signals are particularly susceptible to attenuation by every physical encounter, from raindrops to solid walls and everything in between. To overcome the attenuation problem, mmWave 5G uses beam-forming techniques and Massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antennas. These focus the signals tightly toward individual user equipment.

  This article describes these technologies in more detail but it’s fundamentally about using phase-shift techniques for signals delivered to multiple antennas to create narrow, electronically steerable beams. This increases the effective radiated power from 5G transmitters and improves the signal-to-noise ratio of received signals at the base station. Narrow beams also minimize interference from unwanted signals.

• Software-enabled flexibility: Of course, there is a lot of software in earlier generations of cellular networks, but 5G takes it to another level. 5G networks would not be possible without software-defined radios. And software-driven networks can be adapted on-the-fly to optimize both the performance of the networks themselves and, consequently, of the applications and services to which they’re connected. Network slicing, which comes into its own with 5G, enables multiple virtualized networks to be run over a common hardware infrastructure, each optimized for the use case.

The benefits of 5G NR networks

With 5G NR (new radio) running at mmWave frequencies, latency over 4G networks is improved by several orders of magnitude and can be less than 1ms. Data throughput is up to 20 times faster, and connection density over a given area is up to 500 times greater. Higher reliability is also promised. Consumers are only likely to notice the difference between 5G NR and 4G performance in a limited number of circumstances. The mobile phone experience will be much the same, although downloading big files – like operating system updates and video – will be much quicker. Otherwise, the user experience of apps will not change significantly, except perhaps for gamers. The diagram below summarizes the typical key performance figures for a 5G network.

It’s in smart cities, smart buildings, smart factories, smart agriculture, smart transportation, smart healthcare and smart everything else that the benefits will come to the fore. In other words, machines will notice, and there are tens of billions of connected machines already connected to data networks. Fast, reliable networks of IoT sensors will be coupled to AI applications in the cloud. This will provide real-time data analysis, leading to new applications. 5G NR customers will reap the benefits of higher operating efficiency and new revenue opportunities. Public network operators earn more, too. What’s not to like?

Why build a private 5G network rather than use a public network?

• Time: Traditional network operators follow the money. They build their networks where they can generate the most revenue, which means that most investment will go into areas of high population density. If you’re a farmer in the U.S. Midwest, you may have to wait a long time before a handy 5G NR network becomes available, particularly a mmWave radio access network requiring a base station every few hundred meters.

• Security: Those responsible for operational technology (OT) in industrial plants have been rightly cautious about the security implications of opening their network to the outside world to reap the promised benefits of embracing the IoT. There’s a lot of Ethernet wiring still used because of concerns about WiFi hacking. Owning a private 5G network may provide real or perceived security advantages although, depending on the chosen network architecture, the core network may still be in the hands of a traditional network operator. The short range of highly focused mmWave transmissions will also provide enhanced security in some use cases. The guaranteed bandwidth of a completely private 5G network may also be a consideration in some circumstances.

• Cost: The cost of building a 5G NR network is falling all the time. Enterprises may not even have to pay for the spectrum they use because some of it is unlicensed. Also, Open radio access network (RAN) is a potentially significant contributor to falling hardware costs. It’s an open interface architecture that breaks down the various parts of a 5G NR network into its individual elements, each of which is interoperable. Open RAN is opening the market so that suppliers of each network element compete, both in terms of innovation and price. There is also healthy competition to build private 5G NR networks, and hardware companies have been partnering with network operators to offer that service. Some will build a private network for customers and then recoup the capital costs by charging for it as a managed service.

Advocates of private 5G NR networks cite reduced cost and complexity compared with WiFi networks. They also site lower operating power, which is another cost savings and environmental benefit.

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