The state of enterprise connectivity

Almost any business these days needs its own network to function – whether it’s for internal comms, interaction with the internet, or for controlling complex environments such as smart factory floors, business networks keep the wheels spinning at an enterprise level.

But promises and delivery haven’t always lined up in the networking space, with the likes of 5G and gigabit broadband coming in later than planned and developments such as widespread, real-time edge computing emerging as more important than they might have been expected to be.

In what directions are business networks headed, and which growing trends should we expect to define enterprise connectivity in the coming years?

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Kerry Baker, lead industry analyst North America at Ookla, to explore the current network picture for enterprises.

Highlights

“It’s like the Three Body Problem issue – we can't quite get all of the planets to last long enough, to come up with the right use cases where the spectrum and the enterprise and the device ecosystem all get in the right place to where we can actually see some kind of adoption that has growth and traction, instead of just something we can still count in the tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of private networks now. It should be tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands at some point”

“We always like to say ‘it's so early days’, and even just like the private networks that also sounds like five years out. Except with AI, it just seems to be moving so much faster that it doesn't feel five years out anymore. And it's something we're going to try to figure out. ”

“Maybe millimeter wave is just going to always be one of those sort of cool tools that we'll keep in our toolkit. But, really, the CBRS thing is far more interesting: it's got a global standard built around it, and we can use unlicensed spectrum. That's where now – back to what I was saying earlier about all the pieces that need to come together to drive that private network – the unlicensed spectrum is certainly a great one to have because then you don't have to have the carriers involved in it. ”

Footnotes

• What are private 5G networks and can they transform the workplace?
• Why businesses are turning to private 5G
• Ofcom approves 5G mmWave, but what are its benefits?
• What is 6G and how far are we from rollout?
• UK government to run Starlink trials in Snowdonia, Lake District
• SpaceX given FCC nod to provide Starlink Wi-Fi to moving vehicles
• Nokia and Google score breakthrough in Android 13 network slicing

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