Industrial 5G is coming

1. Speeds 10-20 times faster than with 4G – this scenario is called enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB)
2. Highest Reliability with lowest guaranteed latencies below 10 ms with Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URRLC)
3. Up to 1 million devices can be connected per square kilometer thanks to Massive Machine-Type Communication (mMTC)

But you won’t be able to fully enjoy all these benefits at the same time in a single network: Users must decide what their application needs, and structure their network accordingly. For example, if you need maximum data rates, the network can’t also provide extremely low latencies at the same time. If your focus is on the lowest possible latencies, you need to make sacrifices in terms of data rates or the number of participants connected.

In most cases, consumer applications need high data rates, for example to stream videos in 4K while traveling. Reliability and ultra-low latency are the most important factors for industrial applications. That’s why industrial customers will choose a different focus when setting up their 5G networks. Because of these different focuses, we get two different demand profiles: Public vs. industrial.

Spectrum must be made available for the use of private networks. In Germany, the federal government has reserved 100 MHz bandwidth (from 3.7 to 3.8 GHz) for local use, such as in industrial companies. That gives businesses in Germany the opportunity to lease spectrum for an annual fee and use it exclusively within their own business premises. Applications must be submitted to the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).

The fee is broken down as follows:
fee = 1,000 + B x t x 5 (6a₁ + a₂), where

• 1,000: Basic fee of €1,000
• B: Assigned bandwidth from 10 MHz to 100 MHz
• T: Length of allocation in years or parts of a year, based on each month or part thereof
• a₁: Coverage area in km² based on residential land and transport infrastructure
• a₂: Coverage area in km² based on other types of land

• … is 5G communication that meets the demands of industrial applications.
• … is based on Release 16 (or later) of the wireless standard* that supports the URLLC scenario.
• … runs on hardware designed for industrial environments that differ from consumer-based applications.
• … is run in a local private network and supports industrial protocols (OPC UA, PROFINET, Safety, etc.).

Depending on the application, not all four of these aspects may be satisfied. For remote access via mobile wireless 5G networks, for example, Release 16 or a local private network are not essential. To operate a mobile robot, however, all four aspects must be covered.

_{* The Standard is generated by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), a grouping of mobile telecommunications standards organizations, www.3gpp.org}