Between the aging of “Professional Mobile Radio” technologies (PMR, professional mobile radio) and the changing needs of the users of these solutions, the environment of “Mobile Private Networks” (MPN, mobile private networks) is undergoing radical change. Their migration to 5G standards opens new perspectives.
For decades, traditional PMR networks have enabled actors such as security services (police, armies, firefighters, etc.), or large industrial sites such as airports to benefit from dedicated group communication systems such as radio / talkie Walkie. Aging and often expensive to maintain, traditional private networks are reaching their technical and functional limits. Their end is announced by 2035.
5G, ideal candidate for modern MPNs
As Denis de Drouâs, Private Radio Networks Program Manager at Orange Business Services, explains, “our customers rely on historical solutions, aging and heterogeneous technologies – text, industrial WiFi, TETRA, DMR… These are disparate from a safety point of view and no longer present a level of performance in line with current expectations and uses. The development of industry 4.0 in particular, with its applications around the augmented technician, computer vision, predictive maintenance, etc., requires more advanced network capacities. To replace them, the entire ecosystem agrees to move towards 5G standards, able to support these needs.”
The ecosystem is unanimously moving towards 5G to replace legacy private network solutions and meet new needs.
5G technologies are thus compliant with the new requirements of private networks: performance to support new uses, very high level of resilience and SLA (service level agreement), security and confidentiality, control and customization of the solution by the customer.
Organize migration
This dynamic of transition from aging networks to the latest mobile network standards has already begun with the LTE standard, and will find its full expression with 5G. At Orange Business Services, a dialogue is set up with customers to study their specific projects, needs and uses, with a view to identifying the MPN model best suited to the use cases and expected return on investment. Three types of offers are offered in 4G/5G: standalone Mobile Private Network, a fully dedicated and autonomous private network with tailor-made engineering and operating model; the Mobile Private Network virtual, a virtual private network on the operator network with optimal coverage, guaranteed minimum bandwidth and service availability rate commitments; and the hybrid Mobile Private Network, a hybrid private network capitalizing on the operator network (for cost and performance reasons) with dual support from the shared equipment of the national operator network and equipment dedicated to the customer on his site to maintain his campus data.
Mobile Private Networks make it possible both to take up the uses of old networks and to enrich them on a single, multi-service, multi-terminal and scalable network, and also to project themselves into future use cases.
For example, customers relying on traditional PMR solutions will be able, via a smartphone application, to reproduce these communications while accessing enhanced functionalities with the sharing of files, photos, real-time video, etc.
Co-innovation on 5G private networks
At the same time, the innovation ecosystem is mobilizing to shape the future of MPN 5G solutions. “Experiments have already been initiated and projects developed with customers in co-innovation, explains Mélanie Arnac, Private Network Project Manager at Orange Innovation. We have also developed partnerships with suppliers Ericsson and Nokia to assess future solutions, define suitable architecture models, analyze potential performance, etc., using specific network equipment and application servers. If standalone MPNs are already available in 5G, mainly on the experimental frequencies allocated by Arcep to verticals (in the 3.8-4.0 GHz band), industrial solutions of the operated type (virtual and hybrid) will arrive by 2023 with the deployment of operator networks in 5G Stand Alone.”
Beyond a significant upgrade in terms of performance and services, the move from MPNs to 5G should be beneficial in terms of accessibility. By pooling the components of the services – networks and terminals – with consumer technologies, economies of scale are expected at competitive prices. The use of standardized technologies will also ensure that the solutions will continue to evolve, be updated and maintained.