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Private 5G Unplugged: Lessons from the Frontlines
27 Plays13 days ago
In this episode of Private 5G Unplugged, we go beyond the buzzwords to explore real-world experiences from the frontlines of private 5G deployments. In just over 12 minutes, we highlight recent rollouts, unpack their relevance, and share the key lessons that enterprises and tech leaders should take away.
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Transcript
Introduction to Telco Drift Podcast
00:00:01
Pablo Tomasi
Hello everyone and welcome back to this side project of mine. And this time around I thought, you know, to to keep things nice and easy. So I'm going to briefly discuss with you ah some of the recent private 5G deployment that we've seen in the market.
00:00:15
Pablo Tomasi
And I'm going to try to highlight why they, you know, they may be relevant or, you know, interesting, or also why potentially there's a little bit too much hype in terms of some of the problems that are announced that don't really hit the mark.
Exploring Private 5G Projects and Market Trends
00:00:27
Pablo Tomasi
um Now, as you you know you may know, this is all the side projects of mine that I'm doing. So I'm trying to do little of podcasting. The name of the podcast is Telco Drift. I'm pretty sure you can find it in the in the usual you know Spotify or
00:00:42
Pablo Tomasi
Apple Music, wherever you can look for a podcast, to be honest. and And again, today we'll discuss few deployments, private 5G project deployments, why they matter, why they may be significant.
00:00:56
Pablo Tomasi
And by all means, if you have an interesting project for 5G deployment that you would like to discuss with me or something, just send it over. would be you know always good to hear about interesting stuff that are happening and you know trying to evaluate them a little bit and hopefully help other people to to realize why there may be like really interesting things happening in the market and what's going to come next.
Introducing Analyst Pam Tomas
00:01:18
Pablo Tomasi
and for those of you that that I don't know, I'm Pablo Tomasi a work as an analyst and again, this my side project. So um to get started, and this time around compared to the previous times where I didn't have the notes, I did make some notes because I was just trying to make my life a little bit easier.
00:01:35
Pablo Tomasi
So there are a few deployments that I've noticed between the the last prob, like a few months, let's say four to five months.
5G Project at Thames Freeport with Nokia and Verizon
00:01:44
Pablo Tomasi
And there is like, first of all, i'm going to discuss, ah you know, big one recently happened. So the Nokia and Verizon deployment for Thames Freeport, one from New Zealand. Then there's like an Ericsson and Istres city in France, which I thought was very interesting.
00:01:58
Pablo Tomasi
Maersk, again, not sure if pronounced correctly, but interesting stuff happening there in terms of that transport and logistics sector. And then one with Airspan and Boldyn
00:02:10
Pablo Tomasi
ah for rail operations. I'm trying to keep this under 10 minutes, um but well we'll see how it goes. So first of all, let's let's get started with the most recent one, ah which is the Nokia Horizon and Thames Free port.
00:02:25
Pablo Tomasi
ah This is definitely an interesting one, and an interesting one for for various reasons. First of all, as simple as this, but this is a big project. I think they're talking about something like six separate networks, 80 private 5G radios.
00:02:40
Pablo Tomasi
And it's technically it's a port, but you have the logistics, you have warehouse and you have the port manufacturing. So like quite ah quite a wide variety of environment. And again, something that often tends to be overlooked is the fact that even in ah within a single vertical environment, you can say within a port, you actually have all those different environments.
00:03:01
Pablo Tomasi
So you need to be able to cater to all of them. Now, this is important for various reasons from a competitor's perspective. ah First of all, as you may have noticed, this is in the UK, but the lead telco is Verizon.
00:03:14
Pablo Tomasi
Now, Verizon has been very active in the in the port vertical, and particularly in the UK, you know started with the Southampton port. a few years back. and And I think from my point of view, this shows the importance of gaining experience.
00:03:27
Pablo Tomasi
So you know gaining like the technical experience of deploying a port, but also so the contacts, you know knowing what the ports want and knowing how to deliver what that specific environment wants.
00:03:38
Pablo Tomasi
So very good for me to see that you know once you're gaining that knowledge, then it becomes easier for you. And and knowledge, again, it's not just technical, but also from ah you know who to know, who to speak, what do they want type of thing.
00:03:52
Pablo Tomasi
ah's it's definitely a bit of a ah ah challenge or a pity for the local telcos um because I would imagine they probably to a certain extent try to push, leverage, okay, we do have the public network, we can do X, Y, and Z in addition.
00:04:08
Pablo Tomasi
ah But clearly, sometimes people just want their private 5G environment. So again, very significant to understand that if someone just someone just wants their private 5G it doesn't matter what else is happening within the rest of the country with your public network.
From ports to airports
00:04:23
Pablo Tomasi
ah The other reason why think this was so was an interesting one is because, ah yes, it's a big private 5G project, but it's a much, much bigger project to overall. So again, private 5G is just a tiny, small, but very important component of what could be a much wider project.
00:04:41
Pablo Tomasi
And that reminded me a little bit of a Factory 56. It was, I think, Mercedes, if I remember correctly. uh it's effectively like a green greenfield factory as part of that there was a private 5g but of course there is so much more uh so always keep in mind that could be like very big opportunity for private g is just one of the many many ingredients now on more um specific technical sides if you want ah i mean Nokia is involved a digital automation cloud they talk about MXIE but um
00:05:12
Pablo Tomasi
Still, I don't think they go into specifics of how they're actually using Mixi for this. So hopefully there's going to be some some additional details coming along for that. Now, another deployment that I thought was interesting that most the show that this is a phenomenon that happens when they were in that from New Zealand. So Spark in New Zealand and Ericsson, they deployed a private 5G
00:05:36
Pablo Tomasi
This is interesting because they're trying to, I mean, the the deployment, it's it's a trial, that could live defined by themselves as a trial. um And it's ah it's about using drone connected to an autonomous ground robot. but and it's for ah inventory and and similar sim needs.
00:05:59
Pablo Tomasi
um I mean, I'm i'm very skeptical of the use of drones in general, but you know potentially there there may be eventually an an opportunity there. I think the fact that there's trial kind of confirms what I'm thinking, that the drone market It's ah still quite an early stage.
00:06:16
Pablo Tomasi
um but ah But again, we started in the UK, we went to New Zealand, so clearly there is a lot of opportunities globally. And again, lots of different opportunities that may develop at different speeds.
Smart City and Public Safety in Istres, France with Ericsson
00:06:29
Pablo Tomasi
Now we on another another deployment from Ericsson. This is the city in France of Istres. Apologies if I'm butchering the name. And this is in partnership with Spy, SPI, and Unitel.
00:06:44
Pablo Tomasi
And this this, I think, is like really an interesting one. um First of all, because they they provide some numbers in terms of how much it costs in the camera installation.
00:06:55
Pablo Tomasi
you know with or without the private 5g so when you need to dig everything and when you can just run private 5g the difference is like 30 000 euros per unit versus 5 000 per unit and you know they've done their calculation uh with that installation you have covered the cost of the network so pretty much putting the network under the uh number ah three hundred k number So first of all, it's good to see the type of you know calculation because um i think it was John Deere a long time ago that was talking about what the cost of adding new devices, is sort of what makes private cellular so interesting.
00:07:37
Pablo Tomasi
and And once again, you can see the same idea here. um Yes, the network one be more expensive than other options, but When you start thinking, OK, down the line, going to add XYZ devices, for instance, cameras, and add the cost of adding.
00:07:51
Pablo Tomasi
With cellular it's much lower compared to other options. This is also a smart city type of deployment. And in another video, did talk a little bit about smart cities sun and some other things that you can learn about it.
00:08:04
Pablo Tomasi
um But for me, it's like very much security focus. So they talk about it in public safety. And of course, it's about the cameras. Now, having covered smart cities, safe cities, you cannot be smart if you're not safe.
00:08:16
Pablo Tomasi
So I think that's that's pretty much the the first step. um But it shows the relevance of videos. And it shows how important it is to potentially leverage a high performing highly like highly reliable connectivity to drive any smart system's agenda and you know of course safety is going to be the first one but potentially then you can use the the network for other applications and significantly you could segment the network in different ways to support different applications um and cities as difficult as as they are, but for that sort of enterprise 5G story they again again i think it ah it's an opportunity. Not an easy one to capture, but nonetheless a good opportunity.
Maersk's Private LTE for Logistics
00:08:59
Pablo Tomasi
So Maersk and again, don't remember if I pronounced correctly, but they yeah they're rolling out in a new digital connectivity platform, aboard 450 vessels. and that's private LTE platform.
00:09:13
Pablo Tomasi
It use a satellite for backhaul. It is ah replacing a current 2G network infrastructure they had on board. And the sort of the rationale, the need for this is very simple. Like with 5G, sorry, with 2G, you know, lapsus
00:09:31
Pablo Tomasi
With 2G, they could, you know, get certain amount of data. And then with 4G, they can increase the frequency and increase the amount of data they can get. And that, of course, you know, can be used in that sort of very long supply chain to ensure that everything is as it should be.
00:09:50
Pablo Tomasi
So the the ah amount, to the granularity of the data you can get is better. So again, we're not talking about a revolution here. We're talking about sort of a sensible business decision.
00:10:01
Pablo Tomasi
If I get more data, then I can use it for... you know ensuring that everything is smooth within sort of the containers that i'm transporting another key aspect here um so the solution is designed to for seamless interoperability between the private and public network and if i'm looking at the partners provide partners that are involved um I can see that there are also some IoT specialists. And when you're coming from an IoT world, that interoperability between private and public within different public networks is something that you know has to be there. you know You have the contacts, you have the contacts and everything.
00:10:40
Pablo Tomasi
So it does make sense. And in fact, the a critical component of this platform is ah on Onomondo software-defined IoT Evolve packet Core connectivity platform, which is going to be installed locally in 450 vessels.
00:10:53
Pablo Tomasi
ah vessels So very, very interesting.
5G Deployment for Rail Operations by AirSpan Networks
00:10:58
Pablo Tomasi
The last deployment now, and again, we've seen like different scenarios, different verticals.
00:11:06
Pablo Tomasi
So probably the common element is that all of these are industrial, and we know industrial verticals are moving fast. ah The last point that i it last deployment that I want to highlight is an AirSpan Networks Druid software and Boldyn deployment for a rail operator. um First of all, rails is going to be a huge opportunity the selected part of the world, but in Europe, definitely a very, very big opportunity with the whole FRMCS being developed.
00:11:33
Pablo Tomasi
um And this deployment is highlighted as connectivity for maintenance operation facilities, Then in the use cases, i think they they talk a little bit about some other use cases which I'm not really sure they are supporting right now or one they're going to be supporting. It seems to be moving a little bit beyond the pure maintenance.
00:11:52
Pablo Tomasi
And in fact, they talk about real-time train communication. So it's not 100% clear to me whether everything is done right now, whether it's talking about maintenance facilities, multi-site, or across the line. And maybe it's a little bit of everything.
00:12:04
Pablo Tomasi
But it's ah it's good to see, I think, that there is... this sort of combination of you know you may start with a campus opportunity maybe a maintenance side and then eventually there's a sort of broader wider there there wider wide area opportunity that uh that can develop uh on the back of that so again it's not about just having one single private net you may have multiple and multiple type of technologies And given and the person involved, the other is a mention of ORAN.
00:12:33
Pablo Tomasi
However, what is not clear to me is yet sort of what additional benefits is ORAN bringing to the table for this deployment, how ORAN is better in any way than what you would call a traditional RAN approach.
00:12:45
Pablo Tomasi
And this is something that I try to ah tried to understand for quite some time. But I think that in the vast majority of private networks with limited size, the the benefits of ORAN are possibly not really there.
00:12:59
Pablo Tomasi
It's like too small, too simple deployments to really make the most of that sort of ORAN idea of best of breed and large ecosystem to provide different bits and pieces of that environment. But in many ways, very good to see that there is more momentum as well on the rail and transport side.
Future Plans for Telco Drift Episodes
00:13:20
Pablo Tomasi
so that was everything ah hopefully it's gonna be you know hopefully this was interesting enough uh at least getting a few rundowns a few readouts of some deployments and uh again if you have anything they think would be interesting in terms deployment or anything let me know definitely trying to get someone else to speak on this podcast would would be ah a priority um And in terms of, yeah, probably should have said that some some way, somewhere earlier, the cadence of the podcast. As I i said before, it's it is very time-consuming, I'm not going lie.
00:13:55
Pablo Tomasi
So probably I'm going to aim for one podcast every two, three weeks. And most importantly, I do try to get to sort of the quality and the technical aspects. to to become better and you know a little bit more professional here and there.
00:14:09
Pablo Tomasi
But yeah, so summarizing lots of good momentum in industrial, ah some of the new bets, and that could be a MXIE an RAN yet to really, I think, put ah have an impact in the market, ah but a lot of different approaches to private networks and a lot of different approaches to combine different technologies to solve enterprise problem.
00:14:30
Pablo Tomasi
So that's it, and have great day, and see you next time.