The 5G is in its infancy, and the adoption of this “superfast internet-speed providing” technology has been growing day by day. More than private users, enterprises can reap innumerable benefits by implementing this technology for carrying out their daily operations. The 5G service providers have been launching innovative solutions and services to empower enterprises with advanced capabilities. The platform that is capable of management and controlling policies for organizations of a single company at different locations has been launched. This would provide a policy control over multiple organizations from a single location. The platform would be helpful for companies in different sectors such as healthcare, automotive, industrial, and others.
Service providers have been extending their services at different locations to mark their presence across different regions and raise their market share. Moreover, they have been implementing 5G enterprise technologies that can help in implementing internet of things (IoT) and edge computing efficiently in the next years. Partnership is another strategy adopted by market players to create a 5G-enabled platform for companies to test and develop their apps. This platform contains tools and software developed by both companies. It enhances capabilities of testing and accelerates the app development process for enterprises. The demand for 5G enterprise is expected to increase in the coming years. According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the global 5G enterprise market is estimated to reach $16.84 billion by 2028. Following are some of the trends taking place across the world.
Market players have been launching innovative services for enterprises as they shift toward cloud and digital platforms. NTT, the technology services unit of mobile operator NTT Docomo, launched the private 5G network-as-a-service platform for enterprise partners. Its Private 5G platform (P5G) offers excellent connectivity along with capability to roll out cloud-native architecture and a customized full stack for enabling self-service management on a single platform. This platform is meant for enterprises that deploy a private 5G network with the help of a single partner across different regions and eliminate friction.
Shahid Ahmed, the EVP of New Ventures and Innovation at NTT, highlighted that the company has been targeting enterprises operating in the industrial, automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail sectors in the U.S. and in Europe, specifically the U.K. and Germany. The company delivers this platform through different deployment types including cloud, edge, and on-premise. Such private network with visibility over the entire platform enables companies carry out policy management through a security standpoint. Even when there are 10 companies spread across 10 different countries, the parent company can control and manage different policies from a single place through a single platform. This benefits the company as it eliminates costs of deployment at 10 different locations and offers full control over the management of policies.
The 5G enterprise service providers have been extending their capabilities to serve companies from different locations and improve their market share. Moreover, the expansion strategy helps them in creating a footprint and consolidating their market position. Verizon expanded its 5G capabilities by deploying mmWave spectrum for fixed wireless access (FWA) for serving enterprises across 18 cities in the U.S. This took the total number of cities served in the U.S. to 42. The company has been providing the 5G Business Internet service to companies seeking an alternative to broadband providers. Sampath Sowmyanarayan, the Chief Revenue Officer at Verizon Business, highlighted that its services enable enterprises build a “scalable framework” for implementing technologies such as edge computing and IoT in an efficient manner in the coming years. The service provider would complement the 5G FWA with C-Band spectrum in the future to improve its services.
Market players have adopted a partnership strategy for development of 5G capabilities by keeping the requirements of the specific sector in mind. IBM Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. partnered and launched a testbed for development of 5G-enabled technologies. The 5G Industry 4.0 Testbed has been launched at the Industry Solution Lab of IBM. This lab will be utilized for development and testing of Industry 4.0 apps. This testbed combined capabilities of both companies to create a suitable platform for app development for companies operating in the industrial sector. Verizon’s 5G-based multi-access edge computing architecture will be linked with its ThingSpace IoT platform. Moreover, IBM would offer its Watson artificial intelligence tools, Maximo asset monitoring software, and cloud-based data analytics services.
When these tools and software of both companies will be combined, an extensive 5G internet of things (IoT) platform will be created. This platform can be used to track asset health, detect and fix issues occurring during operation, and deliver real-time analytics. Steve Canepa, the Global General Manager and Managing Director of IBM Communications Sector, outlined that this lab is open for offering hand-n experiences to enterprises that aim for utilizing 5G capabilities such as improved bandwidth, network slicing, lowered latency, and others. In addition, they can utilize automated management and deployment approaches along with testing use cases.
