Private CBRS Networks– Bridging Strategy to 5G
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Session Abstract:
The lack of internet access for wireless use cases for applications like distance learning, particularly in the wake of COVID, has pushed edge networking in multiple enterprise sectors. CSPs, system integrators and managed service providers are defining, testing, and deploying private network solutions to connect airports, seaports, and manufacturing sites around the world. Private CBRS networks are “bridging strategy to 5G”, creating an “inflection point in wireless.” On this session are Caroline Chan, VP and GM of the 5G Infrastructure Division at Intel, Kishore Raja, Vice President, Commercial Technology Solutions at Federated Wireless and Todd Landry, Vice President, Innovation Strategy at JMA Wireless.
Executive Speakers:
Caroline Chan - VP and GM, 5G Infrastructure Division, Network Platform Group, Intel
Kishore Raja - Vice President, Commercial Technology Solution, Federated Wireless
Todd Landry - Vice President, Innovation Strategy, JMA Wireless
Transcription
Abe: The lack of internet access for wireless use cases for applications like distance learning, particularly in the wake of COVID has pushed edge networking and multiple enterprise sectors, CSPs system integrators and managed service providers are defining testing and deploying private network solutions to connect airports, sea ports, and manufacturing sites around the world. Private CBRS networks are bridging strategy to 5G. And on this session, we'll discuss these inflection points in wireless.
Joining us are Caroline Chan, she's vice president and general manager of the 5G infrastructure division, that at Intel. We also have Kishore Raja, he's vice president commercial technology solutions at Federated Wireless. And last, we have Todd Landry, he's vice president innovation strategy at JMA Wireless.
Well, thanks for being here. Kishore if you can kick us off on the conversation today. Would you agree that the use of public LTE and Wi-Fi networks has become really the fourth utility resource that's vital as power, water and also internet connectivity?
Kishore: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me again, and it's good to be here with Intel and JMA and yeah, I mean, let me start by setting the stage. Look, there are close to 18 billion wifi devices available today, with more than 4 billion devices that are just going to be released in 2022, out of which at least 2 billion of them would be on wifi six. So I think public wifi and public LTE have been pretty much like a commodity for the past many, many years. But what's also happening is it's becoming challenging to have specific applications run on public networks. So even though there's more than 70% of the traffic expected to be offloaded onto wifi in the 5g era, public networks are congested.
Too many devices, too many applications, with no guaranteed SLA. And I think that's where the concept of really private LTE and private wireless beat LTE or wifi, especially with the CBRS as well, is going to play a vital role, but definitely the existing public LTE and wifi has absolutely become the fourth utility. And it's going to be as vital. It's already as vital as power, water and basic internet connectivity.
Abe: And Caroline.
Caroline: I could not agree more. Basically when we designed the public network, we really designed it for everybody. There was not a specific focusing on solving a enterprise problem. When you do a private network, you tend to focus on education, factories, and ports. You really target a use case and you design for that. I think that makes a big difference. That’s what makes it so essential, the fourth become the path to 5G.
Abe: And Todd, anything to add on the fourth utility?
Todd: Yeah, probably a couple of just key things. We live in an untethered world all of us, every day. So the days of a phone on the wall in our homes have long disappeared as humans. But when you look at what's happening in the evolution of industry, now we're untethering everything. I'm in our 5g factory in upstate New York here where we have a 5g network and this factory happens to be behind me and these things have to be untethered to work. The one thing I'd add to it is that security, data protection and cybersecurity issues have become the forefront of every discussion with our customers jointly here. And as a result of that, you have to have technologies that are very secure utility, so that fourth utility, and what it can do for the environments we're talking about is pretty critical in what it enables.
Abe: So, Caroline, I want to go back to you on some of the challenges here. So what are the key challenges for public LTE and wifi, for example, when these networks are not really available due to coverage limitations, when they're not working well due to capacity issues, when they're not considered secure enough for that application?
Caroline: I think all of it, like typically when you have cases like port utility, they're not well covered. We tend to do the public LTE for humans, for phones, where there are a lot of people and ports tend not to have as many people, although you have a lot of endpoints that need to be serviced. So coverage is definitely a huge issue. Then capacity, congestion, where everybody gets on without consideration of the fact that there's a factory to be run. There is a port to be operated. And that creates a disparity in service quality. Then I think Todd just mentioned security. That's the forefront in every CIO's mind. How do we make it secure such that your data, the production data, your critical enterprise does not land in the wrong hands? So all of that, we need to take into account when we design a private network. And that to me is one of the many reasons why a private network is essential to the digitalization of our enterprises.
Abe: And Todd, back to you, one of the challenges.
Todd: Yeah. We'll stress the security issue a lot, one of the merits of leveraging the way the cellular topologies have been built is that you get a fairly inherent security topology built into it. And not only is there a security topology built into it, but it follows industry norms such as NIST based, FIPs based, encryption methodologies. We're big on CMMP version 2, which is required to really do a good job there. The other piece of this is, while we talk about it as capacity issues, the real issue is that there is a need for mobility. So when you start moving devices, whether they're robots, like they are behind me, or they're humans connected with some form of mobile device, not all these networks are so well versed at maintaining that connectivity through various types of environments. So been in a critical issue and some of the stuff that has been going on in the past couple years here with bridging new cellular technology for private use has been phenomenal to solve that problem.
Abe: So Kishore I'm going to go back to you. So how has CBRS really placing enormous wireless networking power into the hands of organizations and what are the primary advantages of CBRS based LTE private networks?
Kishore: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so to start with, obviously setting up a traditional LTE network, is a pretty daunting and challenging task. You got to set up the core. You got to have the ran and then you got to have the transport and all the pieces set together. That's pretty challenging. So what CBRS has done is really enable a key part of that set up, which is from a spectrum perspective. So spectrum used to be the main thing that enterprises or operators had to auction first. Get the broadcast rights to the spectrum and then start with the deployment, which is again, a tedious task. Now with CBRS, the spectrum is available for any enterprise where they can go and set up their own network. And on top of that, you have mobile networks that can be almost deployed like in a box, kind of a scenario.
So pretty much everything is virtualized using software, cloud-native methodologies. So what that means is when you go and deploy these wireless networks, they can be agile. They can scale up and down. They can be addressed to a specific set of use cases. As we spoke in the last tech question, private networks are not generic networks, they're purpose-built networks for it to solve specific types of problems. They can be latency sensitive. They can be bandwidth sensitive, security sensitive. So you need to make sure that the networks are flexible. Enough agile, enough scalable to address these ever-changing scenarios and situations, that is where I would say a private CBRS is in the forefront of all of these. And obviously, with the emerging challenges and opportunities in different types of enterprises, be it like logistics, government DOD or sled and manufacturing and agriculture and so on and so forth. All of these require a purpose built network. That is where I would say CBRS is leading the many of these deployments, obviously along with wifi and private 5g as well.
Abe: Todd, anything to add.
Todd: Yeah. Kishore hit a key point there, is that these are complicated networks. That's the reason why many of us in this industry have a lot of expertise in the areas. And you have to have a lot of different domain knowledge, from the ran side, the RF planning side, the forest side, the IP networking side. But to your question, this is putting enormous power in the hands of the private sector to enable the untethering of devices. A lot of times we think about what is tethered. I always laugh when I go back and say, you know, we had an RJ11 on the wall of our homes, but there rae still RJ45s of ethernet connectivity anywhere, everywhere. And when you look at places like factories right here, all of our pods are virtual pods that can be moved around and refactored based on the assembly bill. Well, what that means is I don't want them connected to that RJ45 ethernet Jack, I need that flexibility.
So the power of leveraging these networks, A, because they're secure, A, because as Kishore said, you can build them purpose build, and you can depend on them for connectivity, just like an ethernet cable, but yet you untether things and you put the power of complete agility in a factory or in any environment where you use it. So it has absolutely put enormous power in the hands of IT networking professionals.
Abe: So Caroline, back to the topic of this session, can you explain to our audience how private CBRS networks are bridging strategy to 5g and really creating an inflection point in wireless right now?
Caroline: So 5g is still evolving. You have release 16, release 17 coming out, and then particularly the portion of 5g is designed to target the vertical use cases. But here we are, we have CBRS network in this country. We have the spectrum that are very low cost at the hands of the private enterprise, as my fellow panelists have been talking about. We are taking advantage of this. We are doing all the learnings, bridging strategy, but really in reality, we are reducing the complexity of a typical wireless network and really talking that for the enterprises, everything that Todd and Kishore just talked about. What we are doing is to get all the learnings, getting, in fact, putting that this powerful tool in the hands of folks like DOD like the ports and venues. We're doing a rapid adoption of the technology by the time the release 16, 17 comes we'll be ready.
I'm very convinced that CBRS will be here for a long time. Will actually be part of the portfolio, the tools that we can use to address varieties of enterprise use case indoor, outdoor. It could be out in the middle of nowhere for farming for example. All of these things needs varieties of tools. It's not just one size fits all. CBRS network will be here to stay and will be a wide adoption. And also to take us to the path to eventually 5g and even 6g.
Abe: Todd, any comments on bridging a strategy to 5g?
Todd: Yeah. It's funny because Caroline looking back in time, you and I started talking about a vision for the industry some six, seven years ago. And one of the things we really identified back then is that the network is going to go through changes, 4g, 5g, the ability to add features, the ability to change capacity, the ability to slice the network. The key thing that was necessary to create that agility was software. So when we came together, the vision coupled, off the shelf compute capability with software capability, and it's one of the reasons that JMA, we built [12:46 inaudible] ran as a pair full software stack platform that could leverage Intel compute to be able to adapt to customer needs and to the emerging standards.
So while today we're building 4g CBRS LTE networks all we have to do is change that software configuration and we create a bridging or a migration strategy to 5g. We'll create a migration strategy and software to 6g. So while CBRS networks are opening, the wireless spectrum is opening the door to do so many more things. It's how some of us in the industry have come together to actually involve technology and innovate in a very different way that is also allowing this kind of bridging to the next world.
Abe: So Kishore, I'm going to go back to you and then have Caroline follow up. So what is a use case by which CSPs, system integrators and managed service providers are really defining, testing and deploying private network solutions?
Kishore: Yeah, I mean, this is I would say the pivotal question, especially when we talk about private wireless in CBRS 5g and wifi. What I would do is I would just take a step back and look at the different type of enterprises because not all enterprises have the same requirements. They have their own distinct, specific needs, like government and DOD. It's all about, automating the operations and making the warehouses smart warehouse, logistics, realtime robotics and campus security and building operations and things like that. And then you switch to, let's say some enterprise, like a retail enterprise, you have things like, smart check in and smart signage and smart rooms. Healthcare is completely a different enterprise, which has its own set of requirements, security sensitive, and things like that.
And then you have enterprises like agriculture and manufacturing, like connecting AGVs, autonomous guided vehicles in a manufacturing factory or a warehouse. Remote telehealth, smart cities, venues and events. And I haven't even talked about the sled, which is state local and education. There's a whole bunch of government funds and opportunities to connect the unconnected, to bridge the digital divide. And so each of them have very specific type of needs and KPIs. Some on bandwidth can be like the sled and the education. On the logistics front, they're like latency sensitive and the government DOD and other types of manufacturing enterprises. They're all security oriented and connecting different types of IOT and headless devices.
So this, as you can see, there are so many different types of enterprises. This is where the power of private wireless is enabled for the communication service providers to go and purpose build these networks for each of these enterprises. And as we move towards 5g, there are so many things we are learning from a spectrum, use cases, deployment and commissioning. And Todd also talked about software. I mean, that is a key aspect when you're thinking of scaling the networks to literally hundreds to thousands automation and things like that. So to me, we are at a really pivotal point in the history to see the innovation of private wireless networks into 5g.
Abe: Caroline.
Caroline: I think Kishore covered it really well. I just wanted to highlight one particular one early on, we worked on to get all three parties and plus a hyperscale, which we bring rich CBRS network connectivity to unconnected. I should say less connected neighborhood, allow distance learning for the children at the height of the pandemic. And then eventually that led to telehealth software being laid on top of it. So it truly is, if we build it and then all the software layer applications started coming in together, like what Todd talked about, we build this network with cloud native in mind, we build it with Kubernetes, we build it such that application developers can come in, deploy as if this is like a cloud based network. And that proved to be true. And all of us work together with hyperscale and really roll out this rapidly in the Sled environment that Kishore talked about, state local and education. So many use cases, by really taking all the ones that you just mentioned, CSPs and system integration, manage service providers, come together to roll this out in a rapid and scalable fashion.
Abe: So Todd, over to you. So tell us about the emergence of shared ran for really multi-service offerings that include MNO coverage and private use and how are they creating increased economies of scale?
Todd: Yeah, so it's really interesting what's evolving right now in front of us in our industry. As we've been talking about here, new spectrum for private use has open the door to do private wireless use cases. But when organizations look at any investment in the infrastructure, they're always looking for different ways to get return on an investment. Now, when you look across the United States alone, there are as much as 20 billion square feet of building space, that has a fairly low density of UE devices, mobile devices in it. So it's not like a stadium or an arena. And you can look at it and say, well do I have good coverage or not in that facility? Well, everybody wants mobile coverage for the mobile operators. And then they also want the private wireless utilities.
Well, one of the things we're seeing come together in the industry and we're kind of the forefront of working on these deployments right now, is not only deploy as a private wireless solution with this spectrum, but now using technologies like mockin, our multi operator for networks, I can interconnect the mobile operator for networks into the same CBRS infrastructure, and it becomes shared spectrum. And in these kind of environments where you don't have the high density of users you actually have more than enough spectrum to build a common infrastructure. If you think of mobile operators, plus private wireless, all of a sudden you kind of have five networks converging into one infrastructure. So your economies of scale and what you get out of that investment are extremely high. And this is really something for everybody to watch because this is unfolding in the marketplace as we speak.
Abe: Interesting. I wanted to kind of wrap with a futurist question, but if anyone has anything to add on what Todd just mentioned please go ahead.
Kishore: I mean, I would just add one thing Abe, I completely agree with Todd, I mean, look at what CBRS is doing from a private wireless perspective. Number one, it's opened up spectrum and it's actually using the concept of spectrum sharing on a contended basis. Now I'm going to go back like about 10, 15 years ago, look at all the enterprise systems. They are all opened up and using the concept of open APIs to communicate between each of this. Same thing's happening in wifi. Wifi is opened up on the ran side with the concept of open wifi. Why can't we do the same thing on the ran side? I mean, just so we set the context and everyone understands. A spectrum is a way to enable the broadcast of the wireless network. And then you have the actual radio hardware that's been closed so far. Imagine making shared and open with the concept of shared ran and open ran. It allows for supplier diversity. It allows for innovation and automation and things like AI. So to me, that's going to be a very key concept. It's still a couple of years down the line. But's a very key, innovative concept heading towards 5g.
Abe: Well, I wanted to get everybody to comment on this last question. So Caroline, I'll start with you and I'll finish with Kishore. Todd, if you can follow on Caroline's response. So what initiatives are Intel, Federated Wireless and JMA involved in for CBRS based LTE private networks in the near future?
Caroline: I think what Todd was just talking about, lots and lots of buildings, venues. I think those it's really a low hanging fruit for us to cover. Sled, the state local and education. There is quite a bit of funding coming down. DOD, all of these are very good rich areas that we can roll out CBRS private LTE network and meet the needs that the TCO and there are plenty of use cases, especially given the fact that we are really focusing the network on a cloud native software driven and leveraging the fact that we have this rich spectrum called CBRS.
Abe: Todd.
Todd: Yeah. You know, what's interesting Abe is that if you look at the timeframe that CBRS spectrum is available on the market, it's really not been that long in the big scheme of things, but if you look at what we've done with it and what's going on right in front of us now, we recently announced a relationship with Syracuse University. So this is a very large upstate New York private university about 20, 25,000 student population. We'll do naming rights with the dome there for market presence. But what's important about that when you read about it is we're working with the university for a massive 5g network that enables university communications, like it's not been done before. So we've got some significant projects going on in that realm. And what's happening is we came out of, crazy enough, we launched spectrum and we immediately went into COVID state.
And then we all focused on understanding the architecture and what it could do, and then talking to customers and building out. And now at this very moment, all three of us on this call have been aggressively working with a wide range of customers on building out all these use cases we spoke of before. So I think the exciting part as we speak right now, right in front of us, is we'll look at the next two years, and we will see announcement after announcement and use case after use case of this technology being applied. And that's what's so exciting about this very moment in time. We really got everything wrapped around in terms of implementation, technology, spectrum availability, and we're really unleashing it into all these used case. So pretty exciting times I mean, you're going to see a lot of new announcements ahead.
Abe: And over to you Kishore initiatives in the future for federated wireless.
Kishore: Yeah. I mean, there's quite a bit of initiatives going on, especially in the area of private wireless networks. I would start by saying that more than 80% of the connectivity happens in indoor enterprises. And I would also say that roughly about 70 to 80% of these enterprises are either not connected or not well connected for purpose-built use cases. So I'm really happy to share at least like two use cases that we're working with, Intel and JMA. I'm going to start with one use case where we are partnered with the California winery on solving agriculture-related problems, making it an autonomous agriculture. So it was a joint partnership with Intel and blue-white robotics. So blue-white robotics built the adaptive autonomous kit that actually converts a regular typical tractor into a fully autonomous vehicle.
And then federated wireless enabled a full-fledged private wireless CBRS based network and typical farming tasks like spraying and dusting were completely automated with the flip of a switch. And a single operator can actually control multiple of these tractors connected to this private wireless networks. And that was like a really cool example. And the last one, or the second one, I would say is the partnership with Intel and JMA along with the hyperscalers, which is Amazon web services that we are doing at the unified school district here in Northern California. Basically, this is a typical example of bridging a digital divide, where we have large communities as part of the unified school district, looking for a broadband connectivity. So Intel and JMA initially set up a pilot and then federated wireless is now joining to do a full-fledged commercial deployment. And that showcases really, at least two examples of deploying a private pilot network in different types of enterprises.
Abe: Certainly private CBRS networks is an area that has a lot of runway. We started talking about this probably about 18 months ago or so, in depth anyway. So I don't see that conversation ending anytime soon. So we wanted to get really the stakeholders in this space. We feel like we've gathered all three of them. We know there are more, but you guys are certainly the headliners in this space. We wanted to make sure we had you all speaking at the same time. So we appreciate your time. Of course we've all done this before. I know the next time we see each other, probably won't be virtually where we have some technical issues every once in a while. We'll be in person very likely in Las Vegas. So for our audience out there, who's watching this, that's probably the next time you will see this group together. So thanks again for your time, everybody.
Thank you.
Abe: Thank you so much. And to our audience, thank you to our speakers on private CBRS networks called “bridging strategy to 5g.” For this session on demand, please go to thenetworkmediagroup.com, so long.