The concept of private wireless networks－also known as non-public networks (NPN)－used only by private entities (such as companies or governments) is not new. In fact, the industry has experienced various private companies’ hype in the past decade. Although there are thousands of commercial private networks in service around the world, from a revenue perspective, the growth of the commercial private 5G RAN market is surprisingly far-fetched. But with the increase in activity in this market, it is time to define private wireless and review current market conditions and forecast progress.

One of the challenges of the concept of private wireless is that it is not a specific technology, but a broad term covering a wide range of technologies. The meaning of private wireless varies greatly across the ecosystem.

For example, some Wi-Fi providers think they are providing private wireless connections for enterprises. Small RAN vendors without a macro footprint usually associate private wireless with an enterprise-specific independent connection, while some more mature macro RAN vendors envision private wireless with a wider range of technologies, including macro and small cellular networks.

Vendors focusing on mission-critical and public safety networks see the combination of private LTE and NR with the new spectrum as an opportunity to upgrade existing private narrowband communication equipment. With the number of LoRa terminal nodes exceeding 0.2 B, LoRa base station suppliers believe that they are leading the private wireless Internet of Things market.

Operators have also positioned this concept differently, some focus on the benefits of wider coverage, while others use some new local concepts.

Although the definitions or interpretations of suppliers and operators are quite different, there seems to be a greater consensus among customers.

For end users, private wireless usually means a consistent, reliable, and secure connection that is not accessible to the public to promote efficiency. For industrial sites, private wireless usually means low latency and high reliability. This has nothing to do with the underlying technology, spectrum or business model, but more about solving connectivity challenges. In other words, the end user does not care what the underlying layer is.

From the perspective of Dell’Oro, we believe that private wireless is almost synonymous with 3GPP’s vision of NPN. According to 3GPP, NPN is only used by private entities, such as enterprises. NPN can be deployed in a variety of configurations, using virtual and physical elements located near or far from the site. NPN can be provided as a network slice of the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), hosted by the PLMN, or deployed as a completely independent network.

From the perspective of the end user, private wireless is also a broader term, which usually includes not only RAN, but also transmission, mobile core network (MCN), multi-access edge computing (MEC) and corresponding services.