Now that the dust has fully settled on MWC Las Vegas, and the new year will be here in the blink of an eye, we thought we’d share an overview of our activities and observations from the show, and what we think it reveals for the future.
The OnGo Alliance hosted a pavilion at MWC, and our members brought their technologies and expertise to one location for attendees to learn about how CBRS is gaining great momentum across the country. The Alliance announced new statistics that illustrate that growth including new milestones for the CBRS ecosystem with 270K CBRS devices deployed as of today, 490+ different types of client devices (EUDs) in the field, more than 4,300 certified installers, and we established a new Alliance membership tier for implementors.
We also co-hosted a very well-attended Private Wireless Networks Summit, discussing with an engaged audience of many conference attendees how CBRS-powered private, fixed wireless, and neutral host networks are being implemented across a host of vertical markets throughout the US, and are gaining adoption with airports, stadiums, K-12 school districts, WISPs, Mobile Operators, and municipalities.
Our conversations on the show floor and at the Summit revealed interesting trends:
- It was clear that enterprise deployments were the primary focus at the show
- The top industries for growth for CBRS technologies are shaping up to be shipping and logistics, energy, and smart manufacturing One of our analyst friends made the comparison that Wi-Fi took 5-10 years to reach popularity; he expects 6-7 years for CBRS, and we’re already 3 years in
- We’re now up to 270,000 CBRS devices deployed, a number that has increased more than 100% year over year
Several of our members announced exciting news that they delivered at the show, running the gamut from new customers to new CBRS deployments:
- Boingo Wireless –
- Boingo Wireless announced their work building an innovation center at the Las Vegas monorail station which will use CBRS to make the tech hub a showcase for using connectivity to demonstrate security, gaming/gambling and smart cities services, all of which are critical to the Las Vegas tourism economy and of interest to carriers looking to show off low-latency mobile network applications.
- Celona/NTT –
- Japan-based NTT has expanded an already-major private LTE and 5G project in the City of Las Vegas, in Nevada in the US, by leading a vendor collective to double the number of network access points across the city, and also to open the infrastructure to third-party access points and end-user devices. NTT said the work will make the city-wide 5G network “the most extensive private network” in the US, as well as “the largest open, municipal CBRS deployment”.
- Federated Wireless –
- Federated Wireless has partnered with the infrastructure developer JBG Smith to deploy 5G private wireless networks in National Landing, an area in Northern Virginia encompassing parts of the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods of office buildings, residential high-rises and retail. Initially, Federated and JBG Smith will create an interoperable 5G private wireless network showcase in National Landing to demo next-generation technologies including IoT, AI, advanced robotics, AR/VR, and edge and cloud computing.
- Radisys –
- Radisys hosted a booth in the OnGo Alliance pavilion at MWC Las Vegas 2022 to highlight Radisys’ Citizens Broadband Radio Services Devices (CBSD) Test Harness which it recently contributed to the OnGo Alliance and they demoed their new product in the OnGo Alliance pavilion during the show.
- Nokia –
- Private network vendor Nokia has bolstered its portfolio of industrial 5G devices with new ruggedized versions of its key 5G field-router and XR20 smartphone for the oil and gas sector. The new versions are designed for use in “hazardous, flammable, explosive, and dusty” environments, the Finnish firm said; both are certified accordingly for usage in oil and gas exploration and production by the relevant standards bodies. The new devices go with an expanding range of industrial LTE and 5G devices from Nokia.
- Pente Networks –
- Pente introduced the general availability of a plug-and-play, highly resilient and edge-to-cloud solution optimized on the Pente enterprise platform. Pente Survivable Edge is controlled and configured from the cloud, but also works completely independently and contains all elements needed to provide service during a disconnect from the cloud. Capabilities include local breakout for data, survivability options, and the ability to support real time management and automation, but keeping one management system that can control as many edges, radios and devices as needed.
- Pente & Baicells –
- The two technology providers partnered to announce a range of solutions designed to address challenges and opportunities related to bringing advanced Private Long Term Evolution (P-LTE) 4G and 5G cloud telco capabilities to communities across the country. Brought together in part by their collective participation in the OnGo Alliance, Pente and Baicells demonstrated their combination of strengths as a part of the OnGo Pavilion.
- Athonet –
- Athonet demonstrated its mobile core for LTE, 5G and CBRS, empowering IT professionals to quickly and easily step into a private network. Athonet also showcased both the CBRS and 5G starter kits which include Athonet mobile core, SIM cards, a choice of radio and other components designed to get companies started realizing the benefits of private networks.
- GXC –
- GXC announced it is partnering with Taqtile, the leading provider of AR-based work-instruction solutions for deskless employees, to deliver digital manuals, animated 3D models, step-by-step videos, and detailed holograms to deskless workers, as well as provide real-time access to expert technicians and trainers round-the-clock, accelerating problem resolution and reducing operating costs. The demonstration leveraged GXC’s 5G wireless mesh architecture, which provides enterprises with the reliable, secure, and extensive coverage they require to meet the latency and bandwidth requirements associated with the next generation of business applications and services entering the marketplace.
- SuperMicro –
- SuperMEC is a distributed Multi-access Edge Computing platform that monitors and manages broad portfolio of multi-generation, edge-optimized Supermicro and compliant 3rd-party servers, and their workloads through a micro-cloud lifecycle management feature set.
The variety of CBRS demos showcased by members at MWC LV, and the interest shown in members’ pods revealed just how impactful CBRS is becoming. Based on the deployment announcements made by members, conversations had on the show floor, and the focus of several panel discussions, we expect to see a merry and bright new year for the CBRS ecosystem.
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