DENVER–It’s quite clear that service provider 5G revenue will largely be derived from enterprise investment in cellular as a driver of digital transformation and organizational change. But adoption is challenging, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises that don’t have the same resources as the Fortune 1000. This puts the onus for helping potential 5G adopters map their desired business outcomes with the right technology on carriers and their vendor partners.
This question was taken up by a panel at the Big 5G Event this week. Following that discussion, Cradlepoint Vice President of Product and Solution Marketing Donna Johnson talked to RCR Wireless News and reflected: “As an industry are we doing a good job of setting expectations with enterprises, helping them understand where their value in 5G is? No, I don’t think we’re doing a good job. There’s confusion on when and why they should go to 5G. And there’s a little bit of confusion on what 5G is. It’s not a panacea but it’s also not a single thing.”
Another issue is around the highly-variable level of sophistication in the market. Johnson shared a story about a leader at a school district in Utah who “conceived of, sourced, worked with an integrator, and built out a private CBRS network initially to connect things like school buses, sporting venues, and cameras…He went around the city and mapped where the coverage from his private network was, overlaid that with the income level of his students,” and strategically deployed connectivity assets. “That’s an incredible level of vision and sophistication.” But that’s not indicative of overall vision and sophistication. “I think that’s the role that Cradlepoint and Cradlepoint resellers can provide. You’ve really got to meet enterprises where they are…What’s it’s value, how can it transform you and where should you start? Not just say, ‘Here’s 5G.’”
In November, Ericsson closed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Cradlepoint. Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm said the addition will be a “key building block” for the network equipment vendor’s strategy to capture new business and revenue from the enterprise space.
Johnson said Cradlepoint has seen significant, double-digit growth post-acquisition. She said joint go-to-market activities fall into four buckets: private networks, wireless office, IoT and IoT platforms, and 5G. “From a business perspective, we’ve been able to engage with carriers around the world because of Ericsson that maybe we wouldn’t have been able to engage with as quickly on our own.” Cradlepoint’s growth and global expansion also comes with a personnel scale that Johnson said is “across the board,” including sales, distribution, marketing, and other functional groups.
During the Big 5G Event, Cradlepoint announced its E3000 Series 5G Enterprise Router for both primary connectivity and failover for other WAN configurations. The new router supports LTE and 5G in low- and mid-band, and can be joined with a millimeter wave adaptor. To that millimeter wave point, Cradlepoint also announced this week that its outdoor W4005 Wideband Adapter for millimeter wave has been certified by AT&T.
