5G ready or 5G really? Industry CIOs face hard truths about private 5G

Even today, a key question to ask when offered a private 5G network, then, is which release of the specifications it complies with. Systems designed and built to older specifications won’t have all the capabilities of newer ones.

Be wary, too, of “5G-ready” systems that have a 5G core topped with a 4G radio, or 5G radios ready to be updated with a true 5G core. Their capabilities will be different, and the cost of upgrading from 5G-ready to real 5G will vary depending on the site configuration.

Partner up

Another key question is who will plan and build the network as there’s more to private 5G than putting in a hotspot every 50 meters and running an Ethernet drop.

“You’re going to need a good partner, and that partner is going to have to be well versed in 5G,” says Alex Sinclair, a telecommunications industry veteran and now CTO of the GSM Association, an industry body. The options include wireless network operators, which obviously have the experience and often offer private networking as a sideline; wireless equipment vendors such as Nokia, Ericsson, or Huawei; and systems integrators like Tech Mahindra or Infosys, which have specialist private 5G practices.

Finding a partner that knows your business is important because 5G is not a homogenous thing anymore. “If you’re going to integrate it into a factory production line, or an airport, that integration tends to be bespoke,” he says. “You’ve got to pick the right partners to deal with.

Call waiting

Even if you build a true 5G private network, will you be able to use it? That all depends on what you want to connect to it. 5G smartphones are common now but ruggedized tablets, the kind of thing you’d want in an industrial environment, are still few and far between, and command a price premium. Dell, for example, charges $150 to add a 4G modem to its Latitude 7220 Rugged Extreme Tablet, or $348 for a 5G modem — and that isn’t even ready to take advantage of the enhanced network core features of standalone 5G networks.

For the chips that power the wireless modems, there’s also still a huge difference in price — as much as a factor of 15 — between those for 4G and 5G systems. That’s enough to discourage device manufacturers from offering 5G options for now, especially for niche industrial applications. And when they do, they’ll add a hefty mark-up, which further lowers demand.

The shortage of terminals is an old story in the mobile industry. It goes right back to the introduction of the early digital mobile standard known as PCS in the US and GSM everywhere else. Industry jokers claimed that GSM stood for ‘God Send Mobiles,’ says Sinclair.

The adoption cycle

“It’s part of a cycle that by now we understand quite well,” Sinclair says. “We’re about halfway through the adoption cycle with 5G now, but 4G is going to be around for a long time. That also means for private networks, there are a lot of requirements you can cover quite adequately with 4G radio for the moment.”  

Inevitably, 4G will be cheaper today but the cost of 5G devices will drop exponentially, as it has for every previous generation of mobile technology, says Sinclair, so CIOs need to consider when to make the jump.

“It’s all very well saying I’m going to get a better price and it’s better understood and there’s more support for 4G,” he says. “But if you’re going to put it into an application that’s going to be there for 10 years, you really should be thinking about 5G just to be future safe.”