Manufacturing Today Issue - 219 December 2023 | Page 18

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Better connected

How 5G can revolutionize connectivity strategy in the manufacturing sector

Make no mistake , there has been a significant buzz around 5G in manufacturing lately . I am sure most people are thinking cellular and 5G are just for consumers , however that simply isn ’ t the case .

In principle , previous generations of cellular technologies were built solely with the consumer in mind . But people need to be aware that 5G today is a completely different animal and that it has the potential to truly revolutionize manufacturing .
5G was originally built from the ground up to support industrial applications and deal with the main challenges faced by Wi- Fi with mobility and reliability . To explain it in simple terms , 5G mobile private networks or MPNs are the way 5G is being deployed inside factories . Private means all critical systems are deployed locally with minimal or no data being moved outside the premises to the cloud .
A lot has happened in the last five years , and we are entering a period of sustained network deployment growth based on spectrum liberalization , ecosystem maturity and proven economics / ROI . There are many more reasons for this increase which we will now discuss .
I think a major enabler for the rise of MPNs has been innovation in spectrum policy . The US , probably to catch up with China leading the Industrial 5G race , decided to liberalize spectrum access via CBRS . CBRS allows any enterprise to get its own spectrum for a specific area , without having to rely on an operator , and enabling DIY independent networks . The trend of private spectrum rapidly expanded around the world and today countries like Germany , UK , Japan , Sweden and many others have implemented some kind of private spectrum allocation policy . China is still far ahead in this race ; it ’ s reported that 10,000 MPNs are already connected .
The second factor was the creation of a solid ecosystem around Industrial 5G . Many of them are partially funded by governments in the US , the EU and the UK . A good example here is 5GACIA , which was led by industry heavyweights Bosch and Siemens among
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