Private cellular network provider Celona’s recent research noted that these networks rock compared to enterprise Wi-Fi when it comes to a network’s business value, Enterprise IoT Insights reports. The conclusion does not come as too much of a surprise, as companies like Nokia had similar findings in their total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) calculations.
The findings may be obvious, but businesses like Celona and Nokia don’t mind repeating them because it’s a chance to remind the industry of the cost benefits of deploying a private 5G network. For example, Celona said that private LTE/5G could save enterprises 50 to 75 percent in production costs, compared to “conventional alternatives for enterprise wireless,” which would produce a return on investment (ROI) in three months.
Mobile Experts, which handled Celona’s analysis, said in a statement, “a Celona wireless network utilizing private cellular spectrum, delivered 50 to 75 percent annual savings by eliminating network-related production disruption (and) loss in material and labor costs.”
The study focused on a U.S.-based steel manufacturer that has looked at Celona’s Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), Enterprise IoT Insights reports. The manufacturer could save between 50 and 75 percent, with a potential for 200 percent ROI in three months, according to the study.
“Due to the eliminated downtime for critical operations, the report also reviewed the cost of acquisition for different technologies evaluated,” the study said. “This acquisition cost model included hardware and software components of wireless access points, LAN switching, cabling and labor costs associated with access-point installation, and cable pulls to the access points.
“The findings showed that a fully integrated Celona system can deliver up to 30 and 200 percent cost savings when compared to enterprise Wi-Fi and carrier vendor infrastructure system costs, respectively.”
A lot of the cost savings from private LTE/5G are the result of wider-area cellular not needing as many cell sites to connect production environments, warehouses and industrial facilities, Enterprise IoT Insights reports.
“It requires four-to-six times fewer indoor and outdoor access points than Wi-Fi,” the study, which compared private LTE/5G with Wi-Fi 6 specifically, said.
“CBRS-based wireless infrastructure can deliver some fairly profound cost savings and return on investment across industrial environments such as manufacturing and warehousing,” Mobile Experts principal analyst Kyung Mun said. “Using the Celona solution, one steel manufacturer was effectively able to save up to $2.7 million a year in labor and material costs by avoiding operational disruptions they experienced using Wi-Fi.”
“With private cellular wireless proving to deliver a quick and compelling ROI, we believe industrial enterprises will increasingly seek Celona to augment Wi-Fi networks and take on digitizing more of their business-critical process workflows,” Celona Vice President of Strategic Accounts Özer Dondurmacıoğlu, said in a statement. “As a result, accelerating how they do business and how fast they serve their customers.”
