In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the 5G ecosystem as a whole, we review new private 5G (P5G) ecosystem advances including Cisco’s collaboration with Augmentir, Nokia, and Logicalis to boost adoption of the Cisco Mobility Services Platform across enterprises, Tesla building its P5G network at its Berlin gigafactory, and Verizon completing the first phase of certifying Nokia’s DAC for the Verizon Business Private 5G Network portfolio.
Our analytical review spotlighted:
Cisco Private 5G Ecosystem Credentials Wax. At the recent Hanover Messe 2024 global trade fair, Cisco’s Next-Gen Workforce Collaboration with Cisco Private 5G proposition stood out. We address why focusing on how Cisco understands that ecosystem-wide collaboration is needed to advance private 5G implementations. Cisco is working with Augmentir, Nokia and Logicalis in bolstering the Cisco Mobility Services Platform’s deployment flexibility though increasing the value of mobile services by making them more accessible and programmable. The platform combines Augmentir, Cisco Webex Expert on Demand, and Cisco Private 5G to redefine automation and workforce efficiency in industrial operations. The platform also reinforces Cisco’s commitment to fulfill enterprise digital transformation objectives by delivering simple, unified solutions that provide secure connectivity and supporting value-added services for people, places, and things.
Tesla Jumps on the P5G Bandwagon. Tesla indicated it had constructed a private 5G network at its gigafactory in Berlin with plans to deploy the technology worldwide. The P5G network can work indoors and outdoors with the outdoor coverage enabling Tesla to update hundreds of cars outside avoiding the need to run and power to outdoor locations. We assess why Tesla’s ongoing plans to build out P5G provides a high-profile market bump for the technology.
Verizon Advances Nokia DAC Certification for P5G Offering. Verizon has completed the first phase of certification to add Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) to its list of supported offerings in private networks that use Verizon’s licensed spectrum. Upon addition to its portfolio, Nokia DAC would expand Verizon Business’ hardware and software options available to customers of Verizon Business’ Private 5G Network offering. The Nokia DAC platform will also be used to enhance indoor coverage for Verizon consumers and enterprise customers. We examine why Nokia’s DAC is well-suited to help spur adoption of private wireless connectivity and operational technology needs across industrial sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, ports, airports, utilities, mining, and agriculture.
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Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to The 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group, and I’m joined here today by my distinguished colleague, Olivier Blanchard, our Research Director focused on key areas such as devices and semiconductors, including 5G, naturally. And today we’ll be focusing on the major 5G ecosystem developments that have caught our eye, and that includes specifically, recent private 5G developments, especially as they relate to what we can describe as a market reality check. And so with that Olivier, welcome back to The 5G Factor, always great to see you. It’s my favorite part of the week for us to get on and talk about all things 5G. How have you been bearing up between episodes?
Olivier Blanchard: It’s just the weeks just fly by. It seems like I was just here yesterday.
Ron Westfall: Indeed, yes. I know we had a one-week hiatus, but we’re back. And also, I would be remiss not to say happy blighted birthday by one day only. I trust you had a decent birthday.
Olivier Blanchard: Thank you. Yeah, I did. It’s always fun, I survived another one, so we’re good.
Ron Westfall: Well, amen, I can certainly relate to that. And with that, I think we can dive right in.
As we saw that recently, the HANNOVER MESSE show occurred over at Hanover, and that’s basically the global trade fair for industry technology and innovation. And at this event, Cisco’s Next Gen workforce collaboration with Cisco Private 5G proposition stood out to us, and why? Well, first of all, Cisco understands fundamentally that for private 5G to advance ecosystem wide, collaboration is truly needed, and that I think fully aligns with our view. I think we’ve been talking about this for quite some time, that in order for not just 5G, but specifically private 5G as a standout use case, needs this ecosystem wide collaboration. However, it’s easier said than done.
So what is Cisco doing that is distinct and different about working with partners to make private 5G all the more widely available? Well first of all, it’s working with Augmentir, Nokia and Logicalis, and bolstering the Cisco Mobility Services platforms, well, deployment flexibility. And so the platform is designed to increase the value of mobile services by making them more accessible and programmable. And I think inherently that’s understood, but it’s going to require this type of collaboration to make it really take off, and this I think is going to be helpful to understand what is making up the platform itself. Well, it includes a combination of Augmentir, Cisco WebEx Expert on Demand and Cisco Private 5G, which are all combined together to redefine automation and workforce efficiency and industrial operations. So naturally, this is a fit for the HANNOVER show.
Now, Augmentir provides an AI-based connected worker platform that can enhance the capabilities of frontline workforces through personalized and adaptive guidance. And I think we understand this is very important for things like personal safety or workforce safety and things that are that important. Plus, Cisco WebEx Expert On-Demand delivers remote collaboration, enabling experts to guide and assist field workers in real time through immersive experiences. And this I think is the moment is really arriving. We’ve been hearing a great deal about, okay, 5G can enable these new capabilities that could be described as augmented reality, could be described as virtual reality and so forth. And strangely enough, a lot of it focused on the consumer side, but I think it’s actually on the enterprise side, certainly in industrial environments, that we can actually really see this technology make tangible progress. And to that end, what it’s doing is that it allows experts to do that assisting, but it’s really about the implementation of the Cisco Mobility Service platform. And here, this is where we see Nokia providing the RAN infrastructure necessary for the deployment of advanced connectivity, as well as Logicalis deploying the solution at the customer side itself, serving as a critical integration partner.
Now Masum Mir, the Senior Vice President, General Manager for Cisco Networking’s Provider Mobility business, observed in a recent blog that this integration of technology promises to elevate operational efficiency by enabling workers to receive instantaneous support and guidance. For example, remote specialists can use Cisco WebEx Expert on-Demand to connect with on-site employees, offering live interactive guidance using AR-powered visuals. So I built up like, yes, here we are seeing a tangible way for AR to actually make a difference and it’s relying on private 5G technology, fundamentally. And this I think reinforces my perspective that a true platform-based approach is going to be vital to modernizing mobile services, in terms of both the integration and delivery, certainly when it comes to private 5G. Now, this approach can enable rapid service development through flexible business models, as well as quite simply, democratizing IoT and connectivity while allowing all stakeholders to deliver, quite simply, value that is improving business outcomes organizations.
And to further reinforce this point, Bob Everson, the Senior Director of Mobile Architecture and Ecosystem at Cisco, advocates that the 5G ecosystem must begin with the end customer in mind, i.e., the enterprise, the organization. Now enterprises, I believe, clearly see digital transformation as their goal and not adopting a specific technology, and I think we’re hearing this a great deal. We’ve been on many conversations where you ask the typical employee, they might not know what the wi-fi spectrum is being used on that device. What type of 5G spectrum is being implemented to enable some of their smart device capabilities? It’s all about the experience, i.e., what is the problem that could be solved by using private 5G? And in that blog Bob notes that they need simple unified solutions that provides seamless secure connectivity while supporting value added services for people, places and things. And I concur that this is even more crucial in contemporary AI driven landscape, which requires more data from increasing number of devices and facilities as well as the development of countless applications, and IoT certainly comes to mind.
We, I think know that AI is going to play a critical role in all this, not only in terms of automation of these capabilities, but also quite simply using gen AI features allow say, the frontline workforces to be able to use information that again is immediate and can definitely aid them in terms of being in a more safe and efficient work environment. So I think that really tees it up, and with all that information in hand, Olivier, from your perspective, what do you see that really stands out about Cisco’s private 5G proposition, including the Cisco Mobility service platform?
Olivier Blanchard: Right. Well, I mean I guess first off, Cisco just putting their eggs in that basket is definitely a good signal to the market that there’s an actual model there. And honestly, I’ve been at a lot of meetings where that’s still been a question up until recently. So 5G, private 5G networks are great, but why not just use wifi? And in some instances it can be a little bit easier, some others not. For me, the low hanging fruit of the private 5G networks is security or enhanced security, rather. It’s more bandwidth, it’s more uptime, less lag. And so if you have a very automated, very connected facility, then the private 5G networks makes sense. There’s a point where wifi is great, but it’s not going to really deliver what you need it to. So I don’t think it’s necessarily the most universally well-adapted model, at least from a cost standpoint. So there’s still this tug-of-war between, should I use wifi, should I use private 5G network?
But I don’t know, I’m a little bit curious about the focus on AR honestly, and I’m all in with AR. And obviously industrial applications for augmented reality and mixed reality are obvious. We’ve seen really good developments and really good solutions come forward and we understand I think, what the value of that is. But I’m still kind of, I have questions. I was listening to you and I read the release before today’s episode, and to me it sounded a little bit like word soup. Right? It’s like, throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, let’s talk about AR, let’s talk about AI, let’s talk about services, but it’s still not super clear, to me anyways, what this actually looks like. And I don’t know if it’s just like, we can do anything you want. We have this investment, we have the solutions, so we’re going to throw all these keywords in there. And then the ones that resonate with you, the customer, those are the ones that we can talk about. Or, if there’s just something that I’m missing with this release, I don’t know. It seems a little vague and broad.
I’m sorry, I’m usually not contrarian on this, but.
Ron Westfall: No problem at all. In fact, that’s part of the value of the conversation. I think to help clarify, what are the use cases. And I think we certainly see that in huge industrial sites like large manufacturing facilities, mining, where there’s outdoor capabilities that are clearly required such as energy exploration also comes to mind. So to your point about wifi, that is not going to cut it, and so that’s why we’re seeing really, an increasing blending of wifi and private 5G that can clearly coexist. And I think that reinforces why private 5G and why the Cisco proposition, because clearly Cisco can address both needs. I know I’m seeing more orchestration and administration of both technologies. Now, it’ll be a while before they’re actually physically integrated on say, a common chip set or common devices, but that’s further down the line potentially, but in the meantime, this is solving that real problem.
I think it’s also helpful to look at the verticals. I touched on two of them, but certainly warehousing and logistics come to mind. And it goes back to that point about outdoor capabilities matching indoor capabilities, but also quite simply, mobility is going to be required and private 5G can certainly play a critical role there. But I think to the point about AR, I know it’s been over-hyped and there’s been some disappointment, and that I think applies to the overall 5G market being over-hyped a few years back. And so it’s been a bit of a casualty, but I think what I would like to reemphasize is that AR in industrial settings can have more real-world traction and benefit. And that ranges from things that are, for example, digital twin simulations or digital twin capabilities, I should say, as well as again, and reinforcing workforce safety. And I think that’s one that is going to resonate because there’s certainly governments that are prioritizing that, that’s common sense, but also, industrial organizations know that that’s simply a top priority. How can we make these environments quite simply, all the more safer, and thus avoid liability and also align more effectively with those regulations. So hopefully that addresses why this announcement or what is different about this proposition from Cisco.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, yeah, and again, Cisco coming in is, they’re going to come in with a complete solution, and it’s good to see them commit to this because it proves that there’s a business model there that is scalable and that addresses the enterprise. And I feel like, I guess especially with AI, since we’ve talked about AI, we always talk about AI because we have to. What else is there? With AI and smart automation, there’s an incredible amount of data being collected all the time. And I’m just thinking about whether it’s a logistics center, a distribution center, manufacturing, you’re following individual parts around the factory.
So it’s a crazy amount of data and so you need that bandwidth and you need that as little latency as possible. And I think that’s where, and you don’t need, with a private 5G network, you don’t have that many handshakes. You don’t have to have wifi repeaters everywhere, and so it makes sense with a large-scale operation. The larger the better that 5G would come in extremely, extremely handy. My question about all this, and it just occurred to me, I wonder if a private 5G network is more ecologically friendly, if it’s more energy efficient than a very extended wifi network in the same sort of use case. And I don’t know that, but I would assume that the private 5G network might be actually more power efficient.
Ron Westfall: Yes, I would say it does depend on the context and the environment. However, yes, the private 5G capabilities are controlled and as a result there’s more, I guess you can say, authority over how to implement it and more fully align it with energy efficiency mandates and so forth. But that’s not to say that wifi is also making progress. I think what we’re going to see again is that both of them coexisting and that they’ll be both counted as the overall energy footprint for that organization. In some cases, the private 5G implementation can come in better on a say, per bit basis on a watts aggregate basis, but I think it’s reinforcing to your point, that it’s really requiring a platform approach to really accommodate all these different factors. The security, the energy efficiency, the spectrum optimization., And that is actually going to be touched on in our next two segments.
And I think that you have an excellent point there, Olivier, about the mobile edge, that’s really going to be integral to any private 5G implementation about having the data process much closer to the source and thus, gaining all of these inherent efficiencies on the operational side, on the business side. And I think that definitely is going to help lift the private 5G use cases and we’ll see that, in terms of who is actually making some moves to make it happen. And with that in mind, let’s segue to, all right, who out there is looking at private 5G and is raising awareness across the ecosystem? Well, how about Tesla? For example, we saw them just constructing private 5G network at its factory in Berlin and that it plans to really, deploy the technology globally. So Berlin is the incubation, if you will, for proving out the private 5G implementation and let’s then distribute it to other Tesla facilities. Now, Tesla disclosed that officials at the company’s Gigafactory in Berlin are noting that the network there supports low latency connections and can work both indoors and outdoors. And we touched on that point, why private 5G? Again, the great outdoors aligning with the great indoors.
Now, the outdoor coverage is critical and according to Tesla, this is going to allow them to update hundreds of cars outside without having to run fiber and power to outdoor location. So what’s not to like? This is made to order for a private 5G implementation, quite simply. Now however, it’s important to note that the details of the deployment, such as the vendors that are supplying it, the actual spectrum being used and other details, that’d be interesting, like operational parameters are not available yet. But Tesla is really looking at ways to make this work for them, and I think this is going to again, raise private 5G’s profile as a result. Now from your perspective, Olivier, what about this Tesla, private 5G implementation that is going to stand out for you?
Olivier Blanchard: Well, I mean it’s, first of all, it hasn’t been confirmed, right? It’s low on details. So here we are in Tesla’s world with not necessarily having all the information that we need. But no, it just echoes the first part of this episode’s conversation about the digital transformation in manufacturing and in logistics. So it’s an operation like Gigafactory is extremely complex, just perhaps not like an Amazon distribution center, but I’m assuming it’s still fairly complex, and it just makes sense if you’re using top-end technology and collecting a lot of data, capturing a lot of data, automating a lot of your processes and having a lot of moving parts and inventory, hardware and software, it makes sense to just streamline the process in your technologies and eliminate the headaches where you can and be as efficient as possible. And one of the things about Tesla is, so on the one hand they like to move fast. So I think that a Private-Five-G network helps them do that, or at least that would be I guess, part of the ROI of switching to that model.
But the other one too is Tesla likes to be really streamlined when it comes to costs. And so there must be, I think, a cost-benefit analysis with this to see if a private 5G network really does not just make them move faster but also save money in the process, in terms of operational costs and operational efficiency. And my guess is we’ll have more details about what’s going on once Tesla has initial signs that they’re on their track with that choice. And then obviously if it’s a pilot, we could very well see that expand to all of their other factories for manufacturing facilities. Now on the updates of vehicles outside, unless it’s proprietary technology, I mean like OTA updates, over-the-air updates can happen with any 5G network and it can happen at the charging stations. So it’s not necessarily something that I would prioritize in my list of needs if I’m Tesla at the factory, to try to update software of vehicles sitting outside definitely doesn’t hurt, but I think there are other ways of doing that. I think it’s more about that efficiency inside, yeah.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, fair points. As we know, yeah, Tesla is going through the process of optimizing business operations, and so I think that the private 5G is being recruited to advance that initiative, is a clear side that it does have a role. And I think to the point about OTA, over-the-air updates and so forth, could very well be that there is a security issue here for when the vehicles are being built versus once they’re sold out in the wild, out in the public, and so stay tuned. I mean, it’s a legitimate point. The details are sparse, but we’re definitely going to be intrigued about how this progresses and how Tesla quite simply, communicates how they’re using it.
Olivier Blanchard: I’ll add one more thing, and Tesla is also a robotics company, and so thinking about how the robots might be used in the factory, I think this might be a testing ground. It’s more likely that you would need a robust private 5G network to coordinate the efforts of manufacturing robots, especially very advanced, very mobile manufacturing robots, especially if you’re testing different use cases. So I wouldn’t be surprised if, what is it, Optimus? Optimus Didn’t have some role to play in this, or at least the decision to put private 5G networks in the facility wouldn’t have something to do with the role that Optimus might play on the manufacturing floor or the assembly or in some process, some step in the manufacturing process.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, I think that’s a very valid point and I think it actually segues quite succinctly to our next topic and that is, how are the operators approaching private 5G? That we certainly have been focused on say the Cisco proposition and also how a specific enterprise such as Tesla is viewing private 5G. Well, welcome to the ecosystem. Certainly the operators have a very important stake in this, and as received, Verizon is focused on managing secure and high performing private networks that are tailored to the needs of their customers. So I think that’s going to be a constant theme. In order for these networks to be adopted, they have to truly be aligned to their specific needs. It’s not the same thing as building in a public network and then well, come as you are and hop on and so forth.
Now to that end, Verizon has completed the first phase of certifying the addition of Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud, or DAC, to its list of supported offerings in private networks. And that is using Verizon’s license spectrum. Now, when it’s added to the portfolio, and I’ll say that I believe it will be making the cut, the Nokia DAC would expand Verizon Business’s hardware and software options available to customers of Verizon Business’s private 5G network offering. Now the Nokia DAC platform can also be used to enhance indoor coverage for Verizon consumers and enterprise customers. So we’ve been focused heavily really on the enterprise side, but here we see there’s an impact on, for example, on the consumer side and let’s address why that could be. Now, Nokia’s DAC is again, designed to support private wireless connectivity and that includes manufacturing, logistics, ports, airports, mining, agriculture and energy, we’ve touched on a few of these segments already. Now, last year Nokia added its private 5G platform to its lab as a service, and this is allowing device vendors, enterprises to test the interconnectivity and interworking, on top of Nokia’s DAC and modular private wireless networks.
Now to date, Verizon’s use of Nokia’s DAC platform has been focused on dedicated and unlicensed spectrum implementations in the US as well as Europe. Now that makes sense, it’s Verizon. Now, this includes use of the quasi-licensed Citizens Broadband Radio Service spectrum or CBRS, and here in the US that’s really been the dominant form of implementing private 5G, quite simply. And so I think that’s important to note, that CBRS is going to be vital to how private 5G private networking really accelerates. Now Nokia is adding a new option for Verizon’s private network plans, which is basically relying on equipment services from Nokia, but now it’s actually I think introducing a new competitive dynamic, that is for quite some time Verizon’s been using Ericsson, and I think this is highlighted by the fact that before this specific announcement, Ericsson revealed that it’s providing its private network platform to Verizon as part of a neutral host in private 5G deal at Cummins engine plant in Lakewood, New York.
So here is another specific example. Who is implementing this? Why is this really gaining momentum? And I’d like to note that this deployment includes the first use of Verizon’s launched neutral host network platform, it just came out recently, and this will act really as a on-premises, centralized host that supports cellular connections Verizon and other cellular operators, as well as a Verizon private 5G network.
And this is again, using Verizon’s license spectrum to support really, those business critical applications. And again, that can include our friends, the mobile robots, as well as AR, VR. I know you’re skeptical about that, Olivier, but this is definitely part of the plan and I think I touched on why this is integral. Plus, there’s going to be sensor monitoring as well as on-site applications, typically proprietary. And I think this is quite simply demonstrating that the building out of the ecosystem base for private networks, specifically private 5G, including managed spectrum for enterprises, that the 5G market as a result will start providing opportunities for operator enterprise sales forces specifically, to add it to their list of why adopt our services, our managed services, alongside those mobile edge compute capabilities we touched on. That is, it’s really going to be a bundled sale for the major operators combining private 5G with again, those mobile edge compute requirements. And so from your view, Olivier, what is it about the Verizon process of onboarding Nokia that is intriguing?
Olivier Blanchard: Well, I mean you’ve got two giants, right? You have Verizon with the footprints and the infrastructure and you have Nokia with, what would the French say, “Et savoir-faire?” They have… it’s kind of like two really good pieces of the puzzle that work very well together. So that type of partnership just again, makes things much more efficient. Verizon doesn’t have to carry a lot of extra weight they don’t want to really necessarily have to deal with, Nokia can come in and do what they do. So to me, it makes sense from an operational standpoint, from an efficiency standpoint, from a joint technology standpoint. But also, it helps validate that this is serious, that this will work right on both sides, right? Nokia and Verizon working together is, I don’t know, it’s like Batman and Robin, it’s better together.
And also they could have picked somebody else, but obviously it’s a good fit there and it’s good for both companies. There’ll be more revenue coming both their ways. And I’m seeing a lot of this even just, which has nothing to do with networks, but in the automotive sector for instance, we’re seeing MediaTek, the chip company partnering with Nvidia, also a chip company, and so they’re finding ways of penetrating markets and scaling and delivering services to customers that individually they would be hard pressed to deliver or at least deliver as well. So I like that kind of thing. It brings, I think, some security also to not network security, although that’s also the case, but it brings some security, I think, to people who are interested in the revenue streams of these companies and who look pretty carefully at market share and big strategic moves in the industry. So yeah, it’s all upside for everybody, including customers.
Ron Westfall: Yes, and I think you touched on a couple of outstanding points. Nokia’s role, we already see that they are collaborating with Cisco certainly, and I think this is common sense. From my view, Nokia is the market leader in private networking and certainly private 5G comes to mind. And also, it reinforces that operators love flexibility and choice in their supplier arrangements, and it’s further intensifying the competition between the Scandinavian vendors. Now that Nokia is in the process of being certified by Verizon Business for managed private 5G services, this is demonstrating, yes, we like Ericsson, but we need Nokia and we want to quite simply, address our total… Expand, I should say, our total addressable market as a result, so let the competition intensify, quite simply.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, yeah, and the thing about the AR use case, it’s not that I’m skeptical. I’m very pro-AR and honestly, it’s one of the things that I’ve been concerned about in recent years. And I remember going to, I think it was 5G Americas maybe a year or two ago, and I was really curious about what the carriers were doing, the operators were doing to grease the skids to make augmented reality, ubiquitous augmented reality more of a thing to make it possible so that this dream we have of all of us walking around with glasses like this, or maybe some better looking ones that have a little bit of augmented reality that can basically just give you, connects you to businesses. You happen to be walking down the street, you’ve set your preferences to XYZ or an AI somewhere in the cloud. Your shopping assistant knows what you like and what you don’t like. And assuming that businesses are participating in this kind of software game, if somebody has a sale, if the algorithm realizes that you’re probably hungry because it’s lunchtime and it hasn’t sensed that you have eaten yet, it might show you as you’re walking down the street, two-for-one pizza slices or something else.
And that capability, that sort of capability of being able to shop, being able to navigate through streets, being able to answer emails, do things on the go, where instead of looking down at your screen, you’re wearing your screen on your face, requires changes and improvements and upgrades in the networks and upgrades that preferably are specifically geared towards those types of use cases at scale. And when I asked the carriers how they were planning for this, this big giant bubble, they were basically like, nope, no, we’re not planning to do anything like this yet. Maybe, I can’t remember what the release was. Basically, it was like maybe 6G, we’ll get there. And I think the timing of the technology itself and then that model probably will align better once the time comes. But so, seeing a different strategy or at least a different focus with the private 5G networks, we’re like, okay, it’s not really about scale, right? We’re not waiting for mass adoption. We don’t have to play cart before horse games of investing in something that may never happen. The fact that they’re essentially thinking about it in private 5G networks.
And my guess is that they’re working out the challenges and the kinks in private 5G networks to understand how to better address that use case. That market opportunity once augmented reality becomes a mainstream consumer use case, I think is really interesting. And so while I’m still a little bit skeptical about the number of companies basically accelerating their adoption of AR solutions, because it’s tricky, the developer ecosystem isn’t quite there yet, the applications really haven’t scaled yet, but it’s a good testing ground and it’s a good learning opportunity for networks to focus on these AR solutions in the enterprise. So anyway, I was just rambling, but that’s how I’m thinking about it and it made me think about that a little bit, that there’s more work being done through private 5G networks and that sales pitch to the enterprise than I realized a year ago, yeah, for sure.
Ron Westfall: Yes, and I think those are great points, Olivier. As you know, I fully appreciate those minority report scenarios where consumers, we touched on that, this is not exclusively an enterprise show when it comes to private 5G. It will have consumer applications, and I think that brings it out. And another thing about your comments that I think reminded me that this is a selling point to emphasize is that yes, 5G is still unfolding and for private 5G to work, it requires 5G standalone networks. And those are still being transitioned towards. The majority of the implementations, if I’m not mistaken, on the global basis are still at the non standalone phase, which is basically combining 4G LTE and 5G in order to enable the operators to kick off their adoption of 5G on the radio side.
But we’re seeing more and more implementation of 5G core. Again, Nokia working with AWS on the O2 Telephonica network, that I think brings out that this is really coming to reality, that this is the type of progress that we need. And stay tuned, I don’t know if we’re going to have to wait until 6G actually becomes something tangible because after the standalone implementations we have 5G advanced and we have talked extensively with suppliers such as Qualcomm as to why that will be an additional difference maker, in terms of making 5G a network that can actually enable things like AR, VR use cases where it’s actually monetized and actually is making a difference in business outcomes.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. We’ll get there.
Ron Westfall: Yes, we’ll keep commenting on this every week until they get tired of us commenting on it. It’s like, all right, we’re going to ahead and make this monetized.
Olivier Blanchard: I’m good with that, let’s nag them until it happens.
Ron Westfall: Right on, and I think that will be a good way to, I guess, further celebrate the birthday weekend, I guess we could say, and so-
Olivier Blanchard: Thank you, yeah.
Ron Westfall: Indeed. Thanks so much for joining today’s episode and naturally, we’ll be back later this month with more key takeaways on what’s going on in the 5G ecosystem. And also, I’d like to thank our viewing audience for joining in and also listening in. Naturally, don’t forget to bookmark 5G Factor. And so with that, everybody, have a great private 5G day. Thank you.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
