Private 5G Networks Will Soar in 2022, Is Your Fiber Plan Ready to Meet Demand?

According to a recent report by RAN Research, a division of Rethink Technology Research, private 5G network deployments will surge over the next few years, accelerating ahead of public 5G rollouts. With growth expected to be its fastest between 2022-2025, and peaking in 2027, the golden era of private 5G networks is on our doorstep. So, what does this mean for broadband and fiber?

Enterprises Are Taking Network Investments into their Own Hands

LTE network demand by non-Mobile Network Operators is expected to reach over $10 billion globally by 2025, according to Mobile Experts. This is being driven by the rise of governments and enterprises that want to launch and support their own 5G services, such as smart cities and smart factory applications. Or, for example, in the financial sector, who are looking to deliver real-time information exchange across different trading floors at lightning speed. According to Mobile Experts, the sectors leading the pack in private network investment include:

• National, regional, and local governments
• Utility and energy providers
• Airports, ports, railways, transport, and logistic companies
• Industrial and manufacturing companies
• Large sports and entertainment venues

While a variety of players will look to dominate the non-public network (NPN) market, larger enterprises and other stakeholders are looking to deploy their own 5G-based networks. So much so, Rethink Technology predicts that enterprise networks deployed by private operators will require at least 26 million small cells by 2026, 68% of which will be deployed to support enterprise and industrial use cases.

The rise of 5G Private Networks Puts Fiber in the Spotlight

To date, GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA, as well as LTE technology-based radio connectivity, can be used to gain the level of super-dense, condensed coverage their builders want. But within the next two years, to achieve the desired performance, 5G SA (Standalone) coverage and capabilities will be essential to reduce latency to the absolute minimum. To deliver the latency required to support these exciting 5G use cases, NPNs will need fiber for several different scenarios, such as supporting connectivity to multi-edge computing (MEC) resources,

Efficient planning, deployment, operating, and assurance is critical for fiber success

In contrast to previous eras where data centers have been typically clustered closely together, 5G non-public networks will demand a more agile mindset and the ability to reach and service any location, at any time. Therefore, to capitalize effectively on the anticipated surge in demand for fiber networks, fiber providers need to ensure they have an end-to-end network planning platform to effectively plan, deploy, operate, and assure that 5G non-public network services can meet an increasingly diverse set of performance requirements. When considering your strategy for a successful end-to-end fiber network rollout, assess whether your platform has the key capabilities required to:

• Rapidly identify barriers to fiber rollout,
• Establish end-to-end network connectivity through active, passive and fiber network elements,
• Build resilient design into the planning process,
• Enable bi-directional tracing of a fiber, cable, wavelength or channel,
• Improve network reliability and performance, accelerate time to revenue for new services, minimize expensive truck rolls and improve customer satisfaction through automated fixed-line testing for FTTH, FTTB, and FTTP networks, and
• Manage critical services in real-time through end-to-end service assurance.