How Big a Market Will Private 4G, 5G Be, and Should Service Providers Really Care?

How big a revenue driver are private mobile networks (4G, 5G) going to be, and for whom? One hears a lot of noise around shared spectrum or unlicensed spectrum able to support private 4G and 5G enterprise networks, including Citizens Broadband Radio Service. But we sometimes forget to do a reality check.

The private LTE (4G) and private 5G market is going to be small in 2019, as it was in 2018, as a percentage of total local area network spending. It will be an important business for some suppliers in the local area network ecosystem, though.

Wi-Fi extender sales alone might be a billion-dollar business. Spending by service providers in their networks to support Wi-Fi might represent a couple of billion dollars in spending. Wi-Fi as a service might add another $2 billion or so in revenues.  

Wi-Fi device sales might be a $25 billion business in 2019.

Private LTE might have generated $1.75 billion to $2.5 billion in 2018, including the local networks, devices and services to support the networks.

Even within five or so years, the entire private LTE or private 5G market might not reach $3.5 billion, according to Mobile Experts. On the other hand, that might not matter for most connectivity providers in the wide area network and “public” communications markets.

CBRS is going to be, at best, a driver of other horizontal connectivity revenue for mobile and fixed network operators. As with some other products, private 4G and private 5G are going to be niches best plumbed by third parties.

That is why Nokia, for example, is going to focus on enterprise-direct sales for private network infrastructure that uses traditional public network products.

In other words, private 4G and private 5G not only are niches, but also niches similar to Wi-Fi and other local area networks in many ways. They are enterprise owned, not necessarily or mostly “carrier” services.

So the size of such markets, though related to products and services sold by “telcos,” might not actually be much of a market opportunity for telcos.