Microsoft (presumably Azure), AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are viewed by enterprises that already are using either 4G private networks of private 5G networks as the “most innovative private network provider globally,” according to Omdia.
Those findings should not come as a surprise. Public networking suppliers never have dominated the private networks space, which has been the province of “do it yourself” solutions or the work of system integrators.
There is a reason public networks terminate at the side of the house or business, while premises networking long has been a related but different business, dominated by different suppliers.
Think about any local area network (cabled or wireless) and it is clear that private networks of any sort--and so far 5G is no exception--are a different domain than wide area networking. Public networking suppliers can, of course, create business units to compete in the private networks business. That is what AT&T and DT are doing.
But LANs and private networks are an adjacency, not a core competence for a WAN services supplier. LANs and private networks can use technologies similar to those used by WANs (internet protocol, Ethernet, cables and connectors, routers, switches and so forth), but private networks do not require use of the public infrastructure.
Two thirds of enterprises also require private network suppliers to demonstrate integration with their existing cloud platform before they will buy, Omdia also notes. That also makes sense.
The larger point is that mobile service providers might not have such clear advantages as might be supposed when private 5G networks are considered. That does not mean WAN suppliers cannot be successful, simply that to be successful they will have to create separate business units focused on enterprise private networks.
To do so, they will have to compete with many other private networking specialists and integrators that traditionally have made a living designing and building such networks for enterprises.
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