At least at the moment, the more-promising verticals for mobile operators hoping to earn direct revenue are in the public safety, utilities, railroad, smart cities and communications verticals, a study by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association suggests.
One commonality in such verticals is the need for mobility, wide area coverage and outdoor coverage. Those are use cases highly favoring use of a mobile network.
Use cases best suited to private network operation (LAN use cases) include manufacturing, mining and seaports, where sensors and device tracking or equipment performance are key, but WAN coverage is not needed.
Private mobile networks using 4G (Long Term Evolution) seem to dominate the ranks of existing private "5G" networks, though 5G projects are poised to increase as well, the GSA study suggests.
The identifiable base of private network users or intended users might number as few as 500 at the moment, GSA estimates. That includes 263 end users as well as several hundred whose spectrum acquisition posture indicates they are planning to become private network users.
Since private mobile networks based on LTE or 5G can be deployed in licensed mobile spectrum, subleased licensed spectrum, shared or unlicensed spectrum, the range of possible users and deployment modes is a bit complex.
Further complicating the analysis, private mobile networks sometimes will be operated “as a service” by a mobile operator or a system integrator on behalf of a customer; or operated by the enterprise directly. In the former case a private mobile network is a direct revenue stream earned by a mobile operator. In the latter case a private network might represent a direct revenue stream for network infrastructure suppliers and local area network support services firms.
Private mobile networks therefore straddle two different parts of the networking market: LAN infrastructure and public network services. Estimates of market size therefore will have to blend sales of infrastructure; services to design, install and maintain such networks; plus mobile operator revenues from supplying turnkey private networks “as a service.”
Inevitably, some will also include the revenue earned by connectivity providers for connections to the public internet, or other access connection revenue that often also will be used for other purposes.
Enterprise private networks might also be built using network slices (a wide area network revenue source for the operator) as well as local site infrastructure (LAN infrastructure; system integration services and support).
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