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Rewriting the private 5G story
23 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, we’re joined by Matteo Grandi, VP of Innovation at Neutroon, for a first-hand look at the motivations, vision, and expectations of a startup targeting the private 5G market. With Matteo, we discuss the state of the industry, the rationale behind Neutroon’s move into private networking, and how the company views the challenges and opportunities of managing private 5G across multiple enterprise sites while addressing the growing need for network convergence.
Our guest walks us through real deployments, key partnerships, roadblocks, and emerging opportunities that are shaping the future of scalable private networks in Europe and beyond.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:02
Pablo Tomasi
Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome back to the Telco Drift. ah For those that I haven't met yet, I'm Pablo, sort of an independent analyst. And in today's episode, I'm joined by Matteo Grandi from Neutroon
00:00:15
Pablo Tomasi
He's the VP of Innovation at Neutroon And we will discuss private 5G, we will discuss life as a startup, and we'll discuss what is happening in the market. So Matteo, welcome to the Telco Drift.
00:00:26
Matteo Grandi
Hi, Pablo. Thanks for having me.
00:00:29
Pablo Tomasi
So before we get started, as always, let's let's get to know a little bit better our
Matteo's Background and Neutroon's Origin
00:00:34
Pablo Tomasi
guest. ah So how did you end up you know working in startup and how did you end up working on Private 5G?
00:00:42
Matteo Grandi
Yeah, let's say that i'm I'm a telco, so I'm a telco engineer from a background. ah always try to be transversal, so not only, let's say, studying ah technically technical related topics, but I always try also to study more on innovation, and innovation management, an MBA, master business and administration, and so on.
00:01:06
Matteo Grandi
But at the end, all the story that how I'd ended up in ah in Neutroon ah comes from the very beginning of my career, which I was ah a researcher in a research center called i2CAT
00:01:18
Matteo Grandi
And actually... Neutroon is actually part of Neutron is ah is my thesis. So when I finished my thesis, then I worked on the project for a few years before leaving the the research center.
00:01:35
Matteo Grandi
But the research center kept working on on the project. And it was mainly 2016, 17, 18.
00:01:44
Matteo Grandi
ah and And then nineteen and in 2019, 2020, they work on their own. And in 2021, the director of the area where I was working in the and that research center called me and told me, yeah do you remember about ah your thesis?
00:02:01
Matteo Grandi
He said, yes, of course. And now we want to make a product out of it. And they start explaining ah all all what they did. And so I say, OK, let's jump on board. It looks like something really promising, something really exciting. And these those such trains that comes only once in your life, you know?
00:02:21
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah, and it's it sounds pretty exciting, right, that you're writing a thesis and you know you're doing something and then people are picking it up and say, actually, there is some leg to this and let's let's get this into the real market. Let's get this into a product. So fascinating story.
00:02:36
Pablo Tomasi
ah but But I'm curious, right, because you guys are a startup.
00:02:39
Matteo Grandi
yeah
00:02:40
Pablo Tomasi
and And I know that when you work in a startup, ah well, i know, so I mean, people have told me more than I know, you need to be able to do a little bit of everything.
Startup Dynamics and Market Challenges
00:02:50
Pablo Tomasi
You need to be a little bit of a, you know, jack of all trades. So how how do you find life, you know, working as ah as a startup company in in a new emerging market?
00:02:59
Matteo Grandi
Yeah, absolutely. When you are in a startup, you have to wear different hats every day. so But let's say that the to give a bit of reality check, Let's say that the startup is, let's say, a bit of sales and ecosystem, product, technology, all mixed together.
00:03:11
Pablo Tomasi
Thank
00:03:19
Matteo Grandi
So as of any company, but in a startup, this is it even pushed to the extreme because at the end you're faced with a new technology for technological startup, of course, building a new product.
00:03:31
Matteo Grandi
building your own ecosystem and then trying to selling it in a market that mainly you ah you do not know you want to ah you want to, let's say, build your own market.
00:03:43
Matteo Grandi
So the technology must work, of course, but You win or lose depending mainly on the partnership. So for instance, we had a lot of partnership with system integrators, ah mobile network operators, and some of them worked, some of them didn't.
00:03:59
Matteo Grandi
At the very beginning, was really tough, especially when you are struggling to find your your direction, because as the name say, Neutroon started with the idea of ah going towards the neutral hosting.
00:04:12
Matteo Grandi
But very soon we realized that the market for neutral hosting was really tough. It has to involve ah tech operators, regulators, municipalities, all those entities that are in generally quite in general quite quite quite low in reacting, very, very bureaucratic.
Neutron's Strategic Pivot
00:04:32
Matteo Grandi
So we had to pivot at the very beginning towards the private network. ah The private network market seems more promising, also pushed from what we saw in the United States, ah where thanks to the CBRS, the private network market was already taking off quite quickly.
00:04:37
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:04:49
Matteo Grandi
ah quite consistently. So we tried to replicate ah that in the and in Europe. And we were probably the first or among the first startups doing that in in Europe. And we we did it our own way.
00:05:02
Matteo Grandi
So at the very beginning, we started juggling with a lot of proof of concept, custom integrations ah for different verticals. So of course, the main focus at the beginning was manufacturing, warehousing, logistic ports, and
00:05:17
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:05:17
Matteo Grandi
And then we have to start also pressing on, make pressure on regulators, you know, for the spectrum, especially because we are company in South Europe, especially Spain.
00:05:30
Matteo Grandi
So where, let's say, regulators are... um not really into providing spectrum to whoever is asking for because telco operators invested, don't remember exactly how much, but was around 60 billion in ah in purchasing spectrum.
00:05:48
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:05:49
Matteo Grandi
So it's not that the regulator now is going to give his spectrum for whoever is asking for. But it's ah it's an important resource when we are talking about cellular communication. So in general, startups in private 5G either can solve a vertical problem, either can try to be more horizontal towards, let's say, ah the end user needs.
Building a Market Ecosystem
00:06:11
Matteo Grandi
But in any case, you have to, let's say, become modular, have a modular infrastructure of ah providers, ah partners to build your your own ecosystem according to ah to your ah to your market.
00:06:29
Matteo Grandi
So this is like ah ah what has been Neutroon the last basically five years.
00:06:36
Pablo Tomasi
so Sounds like a very, very you know challenging being able to to to juggle all different things. and And again, while making sure that the technology, that the solution is is working. And then the soft skills. I like what you said about Telcos being slow ah because it's something that i hear from a lot of people. And I and i know what my Telco friends are not gonna particularly love that.
00:07:00
Pablo Tomasi
um But if everyone sort of is has the same perception, has the same view of you know the telco world not being one of the fastest ones to react, to embrace new things,
00:07:14
Pablo Tomasi
well, eventually either you get the feedback on board and you try to address that. Or yeah you know as as much as the spectrum, as you said, is is is it a little bit of a covering blanket for them that protects a certain world business if you want.
00:07:26
Matteo Grandi
yeah
00:07:29
Pablo Tomasi
but But then you need you need to really drive that innovation, which I see very few telcos trying to to really change the way that they do things.
00:07:29
Matteo Grandi
but
00:07:39
Matteo Grandi
Yeah. I don't really feel to blame telcos in general, because if you if you see them, they big companies, enormous companies.
00:07:45
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah. yeah
00:07:47
Matteo Grandi
So they are stopped by their own weights, a lot of bureaucracy, internal bureaucracy procedures that they have to follow. And when you're going to talk about changing or modifying their core business using their spectrum, which is their main resource, of course, in for them gets really tough.
00:08:05
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah, and the spectrum conversation is is getting matter better. I believe in Spain, you there is some access to spectrum right now. But what I heard is that it's not the ideal spectrum of for private networks, that other bands would be better suited. That's what I heard from some people.
00:08:22
Pablo Tomasi
ah But it's still like sort of first step is taken,
Private 5G Market Evolution
00:08:25
Pablo Tomasi
right? You you got a couple of options and then find finding the the best spectrum or whatever is available.
00:08:25
Matteo Grandi
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:08:31
Pablo Tomasi
We'll we'll see how the market develops. but when So when I'm thinking you decided to target if i g the private 5G market, is that because it was nascent opportunity and was a good fit with what you guys wanted to do?
00:08:49
Pablo Tomasi
And also, how have you seen the market developing? Because I'm i'm curious on your perspective particularly. Because again, if you talk to a very large company, they may have a different view of how the market has developed, right? Because different priorities, different ambitions. So if you're looking on the other side of the ecosystem, right, we'm not talking about the $130 billion dollar companies, you're talking about a startup.
00:09:11
Pablo Tomasi
Are you happy with what you've seen in the market? Or is there something that still needs to really happen that hasn't happened yet?
00:09:20
Matteo Grandi
Mixed feelings in that sense, I would say.
Customer Education and Technology Integration
00:09:23
Matteo Grandi
So finally, probably this was the first year in which I can say that private 5G finally grow.
00:09:32
Pablo Tomasi
and okay
00:09:32
Matteo Grandi
Finally. Because it's from ah basically 2020, 2021 that we we can hear that the expected growth of private 5G in the next two, three, four, five years, it will be whatever CAGR.
00:09:46
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah, never trust the analysts.
00:09:46
Matteo Grandi
But actually it was... Yeah, but actually it was not like that. And we believe at the very beginning that the industry, and especially the manufacturing, was the main driver of of this growth.
00:10:02
Matteo Grandi
And actually was not like that, at least for the main geographies where Neutroon working. So Spain, Portugal, UK, and United States. But so now finally the market, ah the private 5G market gained some momentum.
00:10:19
Matteo Grandi
At the very beginning, we had to educate the the potential users, the potential customers. So ah When I say users and customers, it's two different things for for us because the Neutron business model is a B2B2B.
00:10:34
Matteo Grandi
So we sell basically to system integrators, mobile network operators, since the main product is a platform that allows you to ah manage multiple private networks independently from the vendor, independently from the technology.
00:10:44
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:10:47
Matteo Grandi
So we we try to be as much agnostic as possible to the vendor and to the technology. We integrate ah different vendors from the Radio Access Network, Core Network, Edge Computing perspective and so on, also user equipment.
00:11:02
Matteo Grandi
and we provide a single pane of glass so that ah a system integrator or network operators can manage easily and automate easily ah different ah different networks different private networks, both private 5G networks system networks.
00:11:19
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:11:19
Matteo Grandi
So let's say there is a bit of mix in these technologies that are now converging. So what we saw at the beginning that the market didn't even understand what private 5G was about.
00:11:33
Matteo Grandi
So who was more skilled to know about 5G, the public 5G, which is something completely different from the private one. So having first commercial deployments was basically a dream back on the day, on that time.
00:11:48
Matteo Grandi
So we run a lot of proof of concept, we run many ah European and Spanish innovation projects that allows us to demonstrate us the the power of of Private 5G and which which was possible to do.
00:11:57
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:12:06
Matteo Grandi
and But now, finally, we are having commercial deployments. So it's a couple of years that we are having real commercial deployments,
Driving Factors in Private 5G Growth
00:12:14
Matteo Grandi
around probably 15 networks we have right now ah in in Europe.
00:12:20
Matteo Grandi
They are real networks, real networks that are used for a specific purpose in the industry, in the logistics, with port authority and so on. So now the drivers are different.
00:12:31
Matteo Grandi
So now the drivers are the is the control robotics, latency, security. Also security playing quite ah quite a role for this network.
00:12:39
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:12:43
Matteo Grandi
And in general, the possibility of managing those networks ah with a certain granularity. And then, of course, there is all the part of the business models.
00:12:53
Matteo Grandi
Also, business model is something quite different from what the market was used to. Of course, if you think that to make the typical comparison, 5G versus Wi-Fi. So the business models of the two worlds are completely different.
00:13:07
Pablo Tomasi
yeah
00:13:07
Matteo Grandi
So either the operators ah leads the private networks or there are some other vendors or system integrators managing the networks.
00:13:19
Matteo Grandi
Or there is the possibility of a shared infrastructure, neutral host, which is still a bit foggy um in general, at's the least at least in Europe.
00:13:30
Pablo Tomasi
I...
00:13:30
Matteo Grandi
But now we are moving ah from just a POC heavy period to really we can see the an industrial scaling and project that they can scale in the industry partnering more with the with vendors, with telco operators, system integrators, hyperscalers also.
00:13:30
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:13:51
Matteo Grandi
They are playing a role in the stack, especially for cloud and edge convergences. there is There is more maturity now in the market, but this has been quite tough at the beginning.
00:14:02
Pablo Tomasi
So there are a few things that I wanted to follow up from this. and i should you know get like a pen or something to write things down, but and I'm not that prepared, unfortunately. So we'll forget something. But the first thing that I just want to echo your sentiment, yeah, the neutral host is still a little bit blurry to to myself as well in terms because yes, you can reuse the same infrastructure, but then is the business model really aligned? is is there the incentive from a telco perspective to really you know have the network serving other people? And why would the enterprise really bother with that in most cases?
Neutral Host Models Discussion
00:14:40
Matteo Grandi
Mm-hmm.
00:14:40
Pablo Tomasi
But if you look at Ericsson, it's probably the the big name that is really pushing that idea. of ah you know the private 5G and the neutral host. And they they are very confident.
00:14:53
Pablo Tomasi
Hopefully, they will provide me some clarity when day are the other. ah But the other thing that I wanted to ask is, well, good good that you know the the guys are seeing momentum. ah When it comes to to managing different sites and effectively what you guys are doing,
00:15:08
Pablo Tomasi
it The few times that I hear talking about AI in private networks is sort of within this realm more than anything else. So i'm just curious from your perspective, ah is that really the the first opportunity for AI in private networks? Or is it bit exaggerated is just trying to fit AI where it doesn't belong?
00:15:34
Matteo Grandi
Yeah, um that's that's a great question. um Let's say that AI is a buzzword, especially now in this period. AI is really a buzzword. So, of course, there is interest fitting AI in whichever thing. so Because sells.
00:15:52
Pablo Tomasi
yeah
00:15:52
Matteo Grandi
If I want to sell you pen that you say that you don't have, of course, if i say if I tell you that this pen is powered with AI, it sounds a way cooler, no?
00:15:56
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:16:01
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:16:04
Matteo Grandi
So whatever now with AI sounds sounds better, sounds more futuristic and also future-proof.
00:16:04
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah, 100%. ah hundred percent
00:16:10
Matteo Grandi
ah The reality is that we, in Neutroon at least we use AI for certain things, um but it's really recently that we have a real AI agent in which you can interact and it helps you to configure
AI in Network Management
00:16:26
Matteo Grandi
the network. So it's like...
00:16:27
Matteo Grandi
more uh more an agent that you can telling ah this agent what you want to do what you want to configure so that you don't if even if you are really agnostic to whatever happened in the network you are not a technician or whatever whatever you are still able to or even for the troubleshooting for the troubleshooting perspective it helps but if you're gonna go really into the network because this is more like managing the network, configuring and troubleshooting.
00:16:56
Matteo Grandi
If you really want to go into the network, like optimization, self-healing, I think that AI can play a big role. AI maybe is too broad.
00:17:07
Matteo Grandi
I see more like machine learning, graph neural network as most promising, let's say, approaches to to optimization of resources.
00:17:19
Matteo Grandi
The question here here is, ah does it really make sense? So depends how big is your deployment. It depends on what is your deployment.
00:17:26
Pablo Tomasi
Okay.
00:17:28
Matteo Grandi
So is it's very difficult to generalize. AI is a tool. as a 5G is a tool, so Wi-Fi is a tool. I'm not advocating that 5G is better than or 4G is better than. There are some radios in the market that are sold as a 5G radio, but they are actually 4G plus radios, let's say. Their performance here is really comparable with the 4G radios in general.
00:17:55
Matteo Grandi
So, but really depends on what you need. So what we try to provide to our customer is ah is a best spoke solution, something that really fits their need.
00:18:04
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:18:06
Matteo Grandi
We help the customer to the final user more than the customer. So who is going to actually to to use the network, to have ah the business case on the network, to discover which are the needs, discover which are the requirements, and then we build a network on top of that.
00:18:22
Matteo Grandi
to solve that specific issue. there are There have been some cases in which we mixed some technology. So like there was case and in a very famous manufacturing industry.
00:18:36
Matteo Grandi
ah They need a lot of uplink, but they already have radio that cannot change the resource block allocation. So you cannot change the ratio between ah up link and downlink.
00:18:49
Pablo Tomasi
yeah
00:18:49
Matteo Grandi
We need more uplink. So in that case, for instance, we ah bonded ah the uplink of 5G with the uplink from Wi-Fi. detecting which type of traffic has to go over five g and which type of traffic has to go over Wi-Fi. So that was a matter of ah optimization of resources that you have, in that case for the uplink.
AI in Small Deployments and Edge Computing
00:19:10
Matteo Grandi
And of course, if you're going do things like a more intelligent way, you can act a deep packet inspection or an analysis of the pattern of the traffic and then take decision on how to use, how to direct the traffic over the different interfaces that you have available, both the 5G and the Wi-Fi interfaces, in order to balance the traffic according to your needs and optimize the the network.
00:19:30
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:19:36
Matteo Grandi
There are other optimizations, like in general, if if you can recognize certain patterns on ah energy, on the energy consumption, so you can make optimization also there.
00:19:49
Matteo Grandi
In general, if I have to be completely honest, many of the deployment that that we have are less than 10 radios.
00:20:00
Matteo Grandi
So not such a super huge deployments. In that case, many time does not make a lot of sense to add AI.
00:20:11
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:20:11
Matteo Grandi
especially in the network, in the RAN and the core network. Maybe it makes sense having something like on the edge computing, especially if you want to perform a more intelligent deployment of certain services only when they are needed, let's say, more lean.
00:20:29
Matteo Grandi
So that case and makes more sense. But it will come. It will come. And I guess that the recent ah investment of Nvidia into Nokia probably will go in that direction to really have AI into the RAN especially.
00:20:45
Pablo Tomasi
So there are a couple of things that are interesting. One is that when you said about, OK, we have like 10 radios in the network, even when I look at the the really big guys, and and you can say that the average is still around that number.
00:21:00
Pablo Tomasi
So it's interesting it doesn't matter how big you are, sort of with 10 radios, you serve a campus need pretty much, at least right now.
00:21:00
Matteo Grandi
Yeah.
00:21:08
Matteo Grandi
you
00:21:09
Pablo Tomasi
Then, of course, the more stuff you put, the more you can add and so on. The other thing that I wanted to do quickly touch, um so you mentioned the you you can sort of tweak the energy side of things.
00:21:20
Pablo Tomasi
And I think that's quite interesting because very rarely in the private networks I hear people talking about need kind of energy savings or you know optimizing energy.
00:21:32
Pablo Tomasi
um i was just thought it was very, very interesting that that that you mentioned that it's something that potentially could be more important once sustainability becomes cool again, which right now it's not is not that great again for now, but we' we'll come back.
00:21:43
Matteo Grandi
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:21:48
Matteo Grandi
yeah
00:21:50
Pablo Tomasi
And the the other thing that's sort of kind of ah of a segway from from body where um you were discussing So you're talking a lot about partners that that are working with you and you know you're imagining you're building a solution with your partner to serve the the enterprise.
00:22:08
Pablo Tomasi
Is there any name that stands out? any Any company or any type of company that you think, OK, these guys really helping the market to grow? Because again, trying to get some lessons that can be extrapolated for others.
00:22:22
Matteo Grandi
Well, in general, let's say names. i Now here, i I would like to thank a lot of a lot of partners, a lot of our partners, especially ah vendors and system integrators, ah which which we used.
00:22:39
Matteo Grandi
But Let's say maybe now one that really in the last two years played an important role for Newton was Shared Access. So it's a UK based company.
00:22:50
Matteo Grandi
And you can call them as a DAS provider or a tower company, but really they make something that is ah that is innovative. So they want to go beyond what the distributed antenna system can provide.
00:23:06
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:23:06
Matteo Grandi
They wanted to go ah beyond what just a private network can can provide. They want to mix ah the the two technologies together in order to get the most from from both of them.
00:23:18
Matteo Grandi
So from more a traditional, more future approach. So they really had the um the the courage to to make the leap. And they invested and they trust Neutroon do that.
00:23:31
Matteo Grandi
So really, I think that companies like this are the ones that are pushing the market one step forward.
00:23:40
Pablo Tomasi
and and that's so Is it fair to assume that ah you know if we go like a couple of years back, there was always the conversation, right? Wi-Fi versus private network, sort of one vs the odd.
00:23:50
Matteo Grandi
no
00:23:53
Pablo Tomasi
From what you're saying on your part and from what you said before about the example that you provided of bringing the uplink link from private network and Wi-Fi, Is it fair to expect that the future will really we build on be built by whoever is able to get the convergence of different access technologies together working the best way possible, rather than having the single best of breed product of for P5G or Wi-Fi? is Is that sort of where you guys also see the market going?
00:24:21
Matteo Grandi
is what I believe. I think that there has to be a convergence. um In general, not only five g and Wi-Fi, but also satellites, communication, distributed antenna
Convergence of Connectivity Technologies
00:24:34
Matteo Grandi
systems.
00:24:34
Matteo Grandi
In general, we are all these technologies are getting towards the same objective, to give connectivity. So at the end, doesn't make a lot of sense for, at least in my opinion, to start checking who is the best.
00:24:51
Matteo Grandi
yeah Who is the best for what?
00:24:53
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:24:54
Matteo Grandi
So maybe there is not a single best and maybe the requirements will change over time. So better to have a system that can adapt to your requirements and can use different tools.
00:25:06
Matteo Grandi
No one will ever go to fix a car with just a hammer or with just a screwdriver, but you need a set of tools. So I think this is the differentiator that you can you can really place on the market.
00:25:23
Matteo Grandi
And this is ah the direction that Neutroon took. We believe in that. There has to be convergence between all the different ah different technologies. And not only from the radio access perspective, also so from the backhauling perspective.
00:25:38
Matteo Grandi
So in that case, there are technologies that are nowadays used as a general backhaul. So if you think about ah fiber, optical fibers, but where optical fibers are are not there, so maybe you can think about satellite communication.
00:25:48
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:25:56
Matteo Grandi
or public 5G or 4G as a backhaul as two. So it really depends on on many different ah conditions and really depends on the requirements.
00:26:11
Matteo Grandi
The important thing to me is being able to operate different technologies, integrate with different technologies and be able to get the most out of them.
00:26:21
Pablo Tomasi
And it's interesting because ah on... Yeah, I've seen that as well. And and so you're mentioning Satellite, which is something that I've also been working on with my other self as a proper analyst.
00:26:35
Pablo Tomasi
ah And it's a very exciting market. I probably have seen that a couple of days ago, Amazon renamed Kuiper, Amazon Leo.
00:26:43
Matteo Grandi
Yep.
00:26:44
Pablo Tomasi
Probably not overly inventive as a it's a name, but...
00:26:44
Matteo Grandi
yeah
00:26:48
Pablo Tomasi
clearly that's a big brand splash, right? you know It's Amazon and it's clear what they're doing now with Leo. And I think and particularly because there is a lot of private networks that that are going to be in isolated area, um getting that sort of Leo component will become important.
00:27:06
Pablo Tomasi
But that brings me to to the last segway of this conversation. Something that I often see is that private networks, ah like that actually that I think more than I see, private networks are our sovereign play.
00:27:19
Matteo Grandi
I'm sorry?
00:27:19
Pablo Tomasi
at
00:27:19
Matteo Grandi
As
00:27:20
Pablo Tomasi
are a sovereign play, so are sort of the the most critical and the most secure and the most everything within a confined environment, within adhering to certain regulations.
Private 5G vs. Other Technologies
00:27:31
Pablo Tomasi
ah is Is that something that you, is a statement that you agree or disagree on type of?
00:27:37
Matteo Grandi
I said, Private 5G is just another tool in your tool set.
00:27:43
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:27:43
Matteo Grandi
So it's cool because actually it's it's a technology that is finally quite mature also in the market. Just don't look at the standard because then the market is around a couple of years back from from the release that you have in the standard.
00:27:51
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:27:59
Matteo Grandi
But for what we see how in the last two, three years, also the product in the market um improved Because at the very beginning, there was a there were two enormous gaps.
00:28:13
Matteo Grandi
So the spectrum accessibility and the immaturity of the different device ecosystems. Now, finally, the device ecosystem is bridging this gap, is closing this gap.
00:28:24
Matteo Grandi
So it's ah still, still there is there is a gap, but it's shrinking. and you can really see that now we have devices that the vast majority of devices are able to work in standalone mode which was not the case at the very at the very beginning so also smartphones uh not only cpes are able to work in standalone mode so there is still a lack of sensors for instance 5 g native sensors
00:28:53
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:28:53
Matteo Grandi
I want to see what happens with the eSIMs because many sensors, they do not have embedded eSIMs. So there is still ah certain path to work, but...
00:29:07
Matteo Grandi
but I would say that Private FG is quite flexible as a technology in its complexity because, of course, it's a more complex if you're taking comparison with ah a legacy distributed antenna system or if you compare it with Wi-Fi.
00:29:23
Matteo Grandi
In its complexity, it hides a lot of potential. But I don't want to say that you can solve whichever things with private 5G because it's not the case. There are certain things that yeah other other technologies ah might be might be better.
00:29:40
Matteo Grandi
so Just to make a very, very stupid example, if you have one single device connected to your, your let's say, access point, ah being it a 5G network or being it a Wi-Fi access point, Wi-Fi is much better in terms of performance, of pure performance.
00:29:52
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:30:02
Matteo Grandi
If you have a Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7, it's way better than If you have one single device connected, so all the network for this device, which is typically not the case, then Wi-Fi start to struggle when there are more and more devices connected because they are going to compete for the same medium.
00:30:23
Matteo Grandi
So the famous CSMACA, Carrier Sensor Multiple Access Collision Avoidance.
00:30:25
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:30:28
Matteo Grandi
They start to apply these protocols, so they start listening. They have to wait certain times. So it's all this waiting time before before transmitting is basically suboptimal.
00:30:39
Matteo Grandi
While in 5G, since you have the core network that is deciding who has the priority. ah You have certain quality of service that you can apply. The scheduler that is going to say say who is going to transmit, then it's much more efficient when there are a lot of devices. Then what we saw is that in general, 5 g is more resilient to clutter.
00:31:04
Matteo Grandi
And I'm not talking about that the ISM spectrum is ah full of other Wi-Fi's and you're you're never alone there.
00:31:04
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:31:12
Matteo Grandi
But even, let's say, if you synthetically generate clutter, and if you want to jam a Wi-Fi or you want to jam private 5G network, 5G is quite better of of Wi-Fi in this sense, at least for for what we measure.
00:31:29
Matteo Grandi
But I saw the same ah ah the same results also recently that I was working in a project with the with the defense in the defense sector. And they tried to jam different type of technology. And 5G behaved quite well.
00:31:43
Matteo Grandi
So it depends. Every technology had its own peculiarity in and capabilities. And we should be able to we have to be able to to take advantage of all of them.
00:31:54
Pablo Tomasi
and Interesting. and and Another time we're going to be talking about defense, but probably not now. And I imagine a lot of it is going to be under NDA. That's always the case. Those guys are very secretive.
00:32:06
Pablo Tomasi
But since you're running pretty much at the end of the of the time that we had for this, it Do you have any sort of expectation for next year or like ah what what do you think is going to happen next year with the private 5G? I mean, you are quite positive the market is growing, ecosystem of devices moving, spectrum is getting there.
00:32:29
Pablo Tomasi
So you, you know, glass half full type of guy for next year and and anything else that you think is going to happen.
00:32:37
Matteo Grandi
Yeah, I think that, as you say, the spectrum is getting there. That's the one of the most important things that are going to happen. um The European Commission stated that there will be the upper part of the N77 band dedicated for private networks.
00:32:58
Matteo Grandi
So this is this is good. And ah many countries already start taking actions in order to have this ah this part of the spectrum, ah let's say, dedicated for this type ah of ah of use.
00:33:13
Matteo Grandi
Another thing that I would like to see is more on the business model. So we can we can mention neutral host, but neutral hosting is just one of the possible business models.
00:33:23
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:33:25
Matteo Grandi
At the end, ah is so it has been defined that in some countries like the ah the JOTS in the UK, but not all the countries, they are on the same page from this perspective.
00:33:37
Matteo Grandi
It would be nice to... Because if we if you wait for the ah for the regulators and for the mobile network operators to agree on anything, probably we will never see it.
00:33:49
Matteo Grandi
So it has to be a bold move from from the government, from the European Union, that say, okay, now we can apply this business model. And the operator has to agree on that. Of course, there has to be a return also for the operators.
00:34:04
Matteo Grandi
so But this is also something that I would like to see a bit more regulation on the type of business model that you can apply. And this will open a lot of possibilities in the indoor coverage spectrum. So this is quite quite important.
00:34:21
Matteo Grandi
and And then finally, the technical interplay and evolution. So the modern ah ah small cell and the DAS system with private 5G coverage, all these solutions that are, let's say, replacing now the legacy distributed antenna systems that are more, let's say,
00:34:42
Matteo Grandi
um multi multi-carrier coverage. Now we are going towards the multi-operator, small-cell and virtualizer run. So this is also something that I would like to see a bit more ah regulated on what is possible to be done and what has to be done and in which way.
00:35:00
Matteo Grandi
So this is something that really ah really should the should change in the next years. But already with the spectrum, probably we will see like ah a kickstart of the of the real ah deployments of private 5G
00:35:19
Matteo Grandi
And of course, if the pricing of ah of especially the radio access network will drop a bit, because it's still too expensive in my opinion,
00:35:23
Pablo Tomasi
yeah Yeah.
00:35:29
Matteo Grandi
That would be, that which is also probably the reason why there are not a lot of big deployments. At the end, the deployment scale with the radio.
Future of Private 5G and 6G Developments
00:35:40
Matteo Grandi
If it's the radio access network, the expensive part, then there is a natural limit to to scale.
00:35:40
Pablo Tomasi
yeah
00:35:47
Matteo Grandi
so But in general, if all these pieces of the puzzle are going to find their own their own spot, there will be really good chance to see finally the private 5G deployment really taking the market, which is also good for the future generation, the 6G.
00:36:05
Matteo Grandi
In general, if 5G delayed on and or missed the his's its promise for years, then it's going to affect also the release of the 6 g
00:36:05
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:36:17
Pablo Tomasi
yeah
00:36:18
Matteo Grandi
and And this is a pity. So it's important that these the current generation of cellular technology can be really placed into the market and can really uptake the market in order then to leave space for the next generation.
00:36:33
Pablo Tomasi
yeah's Yeah, that's a valid point. And i'm I'm one of the skeptics about 6G that need to find a guest to to to come on the show and you know correct my view of why 6G at this point in time is really not needed.
00:36:47
Pablo Tomasi
But yeah, thanks thanks thanks for sharing this. And yeah, regulations and the business model really needs to kind of step up. So, Matteo, thank you very much for for your insights.
00:36:56
Matteo Grandi
See you.
00:36:57
Pablo Tomasi
It a pleasure having you on the show.
00:36:59
Matteo Grandi
Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.