In 2019, 5G (fifth-generation wireless) was successfully launched. By 2022, 5G mobile phones became a consumer resource. In enterprise applications, however, 5G is just leaving the gate. At least in the United States, there are still hurdles to overcome. The cost to build out 5G at an enterprise level remains high, enabled devices (other than phones) are rare and markets need to be sorted out. The promise of 5G remains, but more work needs to be done.

In its global outlook, Ericsson Group, Plano, Texas, shared that 5G cellular reached 1 billion subscriptions by the end of 2022. That pace was quicker than 4G by two years. By the end of 2028, the company estimates North America will have the highest 5G penetration (about 91%), followed by Western Europe (88%). It remains unclear if this equates to a similar demand for 5G enterprise. A case for adoption must be made.

“The challenge right now is that the method for deploying private 5G in the enterprise, in the United States, is using a technology and licensing paradigm that’s called CBRS (citizens broadband radio service)—not to be confused with CB radio. CBRS is a private LTE technology, a 4G technology that will eventually be upgraded to 5G, but [that] hasn’t happened yet,” said David Witkowski, founder and CEO of Aptos, Calif.-based Oku Solutions LLC, a consultancy for the broadband telecommunications industry.

 He also serves as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) senior member and co-chair of the Deployment Working Group, IEEE Future Networks Technical Community. 

“We address the question of how things get installed in the built environment,” he said. 5G serves as an evolution of 4G.

“[The moves] from 2G to 3G or 3G to 4G were ‘forklift upgrades’—the entire system was ripped out and replaced with new equipment,” Witkowski said. “They probably were mounted on the same poles, but the radios were different. 5G allows you to continue to leverage 4G assets. There are now many cell sites which offer both 4G and 5G signals at the same time.” 

This would be an example of a nonstandalone approach where the 5G is working off a 4G core. Private 5G, however, would have a 5G core and its own radio network, which could provide a pure 5G enterprise environment, or work with a company’s 4G assets.

Flavors of 5G

Beyond its speed, 5G’s merits include stability, security and dramatically lower latency that will help stabilize conference calls and other off-site communication, and provide robust artificial intelligence and augmented reality experiences. 

Low-band 5G [600–900 gigahertz (GHz)] offers the closest spectrum to 4G and 4G LTE. It can travel long distances. 

Midband 5G (2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 3.7–4.2 GHz) has more capacity to carry larger amounts of data, but cannot travel as far as low-band. High-band 5G, or millimeter wave (30–300 GHz), travels the shortest distance, but offers the highest speed connectivity and fastest download. 

Witkowski said that millimeter-wave 5G is the latest advance. The current primary use-case of millimeter-wave 5G is as a broadband service, competing with DSL, cable and fiber internet service providers (ISPs).

Unfortunately, 5G standalone networks are uncommon today.

“The devil’s in the details when it comes to enterprise 5G,” said Daniel Hays, U.S. technology, media and telecommunications principal/partner for PwC, New York. “With 5G standalone, you’re essentially getting a new car that’s been built from the ground up. These networks will deliver a lot of the advanced functionality and capabilities that 5G can offer.”

Hays said a second generation of 5G will be needed that enables more complexity, such as network slicing that gives an organization the ability to dedicate certain portions of the network to different users. This will be important to many enterprise networks, especially medium to large. 

“Today, we are maybe at 5G version 1.5,” he said.

Making the case

Private 5G equipped with 5G radios could improve Wi-Fi. 5G is inherently more secure, though Wi-Fi isn’t sitting still in that regard. Witkowski cited SIM-based Wi-Fi authentication using encryption technology called IEEE 802.1x in addition to Wi-Fi’s existing encryption, making it more secure. 5G’s low latency could be a selling point, as could its potential to unleash the internet of things, though again, 5G devices are needed. The ubiquity of Wi-Fi will also present an uphill challenge for 5G enterprise. Nearly every microprocessor chip comes with a Wi-Fi radio.

“When will everything convert to 5G?” Witkowski asked. “Probably not anytime soon. You would have to add 5G radios into all the stuff that we have in our houses, from appliances to video doorbells. This is true in the enterprise, too, because in addition to the smartphones, tablets and laptops, nearly every copier, door lock, security camera, thermostat, etc., is already attached via campus Wi-Fi. 

“Wi-Fi also keeps increasing its speeds and available spectrum with Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6e, and there’s even talk of Wi-Fi 7. Then there is Hotspot 2.0 [a new Wi-Fi standard for public access, eliminating additional user password sign-on and authentication],” he said.

“Companies planning to roll out private 5G networks will also need RAN [radio access network] hardware—small cells or a base station—[as well as] 5G core software and devices that work on the chosen frequency. Gaining access to radio spectrum is a challenge in a private network deployment. All these combined create competitive pressure on private 5G in the enterprise,” he said.

Those sold on the merits of 5G may be game for a private network in the enterprise environment if it’s part of a new construction. The architecture of a private 5G network will depend on how an owner wants to use it, which may also indicate the speed of 5G that will work best.

“To fully harness the power of 5G, organizations need to be thinking about how they can utilize the massive amounts of data that it enables, often combining it with technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Hays said.

The EC and 5G

For the electrical contractor, the installation of enterprise 5G may fall to them.

“As 5G continues to develop in the enterprise, there should be a significant amount of work to connect and install the myriad network equipment, network cabling, power, endpoints and sensors that will make it all work,” Hays said. The consensus is that 5G won’t replace Wi-Fi, but it will serve as a complement.

“CBRS, which I mentioned earlier, is not yet 5G-enabled, but as a private 4G network, it’s been heavily used in education for distance­-learning networks,” Witkowski said.

During the pandemic, when schooling meant remote learning, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit based in San Jose, Calif., built a set of CBRS networks using private LTE and 4G. Witkowski heads up the organization’s Civic Technologies Program. The radios were installed on the roofs of elementary schools in a district where 75% of all students lived within one mile of the school. Each student received a CBRS client device, which used Wi-Fi to connect their Chromebooks.

“You still get Wi-Fi in the mix, but you’re transporting the client device using CBRS,” Witkowski said. “In the future, we’ll have 5G-enabled CBRS, which will provide better performance. So, we leverage 5G as a transport technology, to get to something that then converts to Wi-Fi for the user’s devices. It allows you to use more power and cover larger areas, and it carries quite a bit of information.”

Citing another real-life example, Witkowski pointed to Fremont, Calif., where the mayor approved using millimeter-wave 5G from cellular carriers to deliver broadband to homes and businesses. 

“With our help, Verizon Wireless installed an extensive 5G millimeter-wave network, providing Fremont residents with broadband in lieu of DSL, cable or fiber that would have required a lot of digging to install. They [Verizon] hand you a 5G box about the size of a loaf of bread, which you attach to the side of your house, [from which you] run a single wire inside to another small box. You plug it in, and it converts the 5G to Wi-Fi. Typically, a broadband network needs to support between 25–40 megabits per user in a home or business, which 5G millimeter-wave easily delivers,” he said.

Other possible markets for 5G

Witkowski added that 5G is superior for wide-area enterprise networks, which could be a good fit in markets where Wi-Fi doesn’t work well, notably something that’s larger than a college or corporate campus. Wi-Fi is a local area networking technology.

“I see 5G enterprise applications in smart agriculture, such as smart tractors and other next-generation farm vehicles, including precision harvesters and tillers,” he said. 

“Enterprise 5G would make sense in a logging operation. It would be suited for underground communication needed in mining operations where GSP satellite information is challenged. Petroleum drilling fields and pipelines could be another good application for enterprise 5G, also electrical generation, transmission networks and substations. I can potentially see enterprise 5G used on a factory floor.”

Hays learned of a military logistics facility piloting 5G to help better manage inventory and flow of goods to the armed forces.

“Such pilots are valuable learning opportunities and can introduce us to new applications of 5G we haven’t considered. They are tackling how to configure a 5G network, how to integrate 5G with the applications and services that facility is using,” he said.

Another opportunity for 5G is transportation (e.g., autonomous vehicles and technology-equipped smart ambulances).

“Wi-Fi cannot support vehicles that move faster than about 15 miles an hour, because it doesn’t have a reliable method to transfer, or ‘hand off’ data connections between radios,” Witkowski said. “4G and now 5G inherently and reliably support seamless handoff when client devices are moving quickly.”

Exploring applications for 5G is part of its future. It may share a space with Wi-Fi in an enterprise application or be a solo player. Expect 5G to be used for more than just connecting devices.

Header Image: Stock.adobe.com / Rawf8 / shutterstock / A-Square / Khakimullin Aleksandr