Mobile Private Networks: Common denominator of technologies

Towards a unique technology

Support a whole range of network technologies within the same structural area. That is the challenge certain organizations are faced with, without, however, knowing the miracle solution. Arnaud stresses immediately: “The industrial players in our economic landscape cannot afford to adopt a unique technology without being certain that it will be able to meet all their requirements in terms of automation and powerful mobile applications.”

But if the current technologies like Wi-Fi have their limits, the new generation of mobile technology will be able to overcome these: welcome to 5G. “Wi-Fi is perfect for an office environment, but can be subject to interference in more complex environments or metal frame constructions, for example. 5G, on the other hand, cannot only be deployed locally, but also over a much wider area, up to several hundreds of kilometres away.”

Mobile Private Networks

The choice of the organizations, of course, does not stop with that of technologies alone. They also need to take the critical level of their data and volume into account. “That is where Mobile Private Networks make a difference: the data remains within the company.” And if private mobile networks are not a novelty, they were mainly used after a fashion in very specific industries such as mines or offshore platforms.

Our expert states that: “These areas are often ignored by operators but that will soon be a thing of the past, too. Make way for the all-in-one solution, thanks to Mobile Private Networks combined with 5G.”

5G on the other hand, cannot only be deployed locally, but also over a much wider area, up to several hundreds of kilometres away.

Arnaud Brehonnet

Spectres and Slicing

Several types of private mobile network architecture are already on the market. The latest ones consist of creating networks closed off from the public network. “That model is based on a spectre of dedicated frequencies, which can be attributed to industrial players, as is the case in Germany for example, for their car manufacturers.”

A second one consists of using the resources of a public network. “With this method of Local Breakout, it is no longer required to keep a part of the spectre, the holy grail of mobile operators.” And the third possibility (of which we will hear more later) is Slicing: “A sort of subdividing of a purely public network into several sub-networks, which can meet public or private mobile requirements. In this case, the data will pass through the core of the public mobile network before reaching the application server.”

Arnaud Brehonnet

PMN as the spine

Listening to Arnaud, we begin to understand that deploying a private mobile network also requires substantial investments in terms of infrastructure. “Return on investment needs to be, therefore, as high as possible. The aim is to use that Private Mobile Network for the highest number of cases possible. And all that via one unique solution. As a real spine for all the machine-to-machine, person-to-person and person-to-machine communications. In order to be able to fulfil that ambition, you need a technology with very high output and low latency: 5G.”

A private mobile network for whom?

We can easily understand that the public network is synonymous with shared resources, whereas the private network has a dedicated bandwidth. Being the specialist, Proximus points to several sectors for which an infrastructure of the type Mobile Private Network seems only logical: “First of all, the industrial sector, in order to accelerate automation. But also ports, airports, logistics, or Defence and security services. Within two years, this type of solution will be used on a grand scale”, Arnaud concludes.