4G vs 5G private networks

At Nokia, we are very excited about #5G. This is the first #technology of its kind that has been designed from the start with industry in mind. Over time, it will bring significant improvement to almost 100% of industrial use cases. That’s why we have launched the industry’s first commercial, 5G SA #privatewireless solution. Its features include ultra #reliability, low #latency, time-sensitivity and #communication. All of these factors represent a leap forward compared to 4.9G and LTE. In this podcast, we explain how we want to provide the whole system and our partners with a highly reliable #system that can really help to accelerate the 5G ecosystem. We want to show them what 5G can do, so that the ecosystem players can integrate this chipset inside their next-generation systems. However, given the need for 5G #spectrum, and the fact that industrial OEMs have a slow refresh cycle, we don’t foresee an overwhelming volume of 5G private wireless pick-up until about 2025. And 5G private wireless might not overtake private wireless based on 4.9G LTE until the end of the decade.

One of the reasons for this is that 4.9G includes capabilities that will stay on in the age of 5G. Most private #wireless solutions today that run 4.9G can and will provide a smooth evolution to 5G. 4G dates back several years but, like a good wine, it has got better with age. Plenty of critical #connectivity and #IoT features have been added, with the result that the most recent version was called #4.9G. While key pieces of the 5G ecosystem are being developed, 4.9G LTE can handle the lion’s share of current industry use cases.

Most of Nokia’s customer deployments in the last couple of years have been very much based on 4.9G LTE, and we anticipate that many of our customers will be running 4.9G LTE – maybe with 5G – for at least the next five to ten years. Nevertheless, there are some specific markets where there is a bigger drive towards 5G than others. For instance, in the automotive manufacturing industry, OEMs are designing today the factories that will build cars in five or six years’ time.