In sum – what you should know
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Multi-operator support: Celona’s neutral-host solution is approved by T-Mobile and AT&T in the US; Verizon is pending. It supports up to five carriers, including private enterprise networks in CBRS spectrum.
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Quick and cheap coverage: Multi-tenant neutral-host cellular systems are easier and cheaper (nearly half the cost) of traditional DAS systems for indoor venues.
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Light-touch enterprise focus: Celona’s product is geared for environments like healthcare and retail, with early success at Stanford Health Care.
Private cellular specialist Celona has had its neutral host solution certified by AT&T in the US. The product, which offers public coverage on choice carriers in the shared 3.55-3.7 GHz CBRS band, has already been approved (late 2023) by T-Mobile in the country. Verizon approval is still pending; Celona is working on it. The product now works “immediately”, it said, to extend general network coverage for customers of both operators to private venues and campuses where coverage may previously have been unreliable or unavailable. Enterprises can deploy the same neutral-host infrastructure to support private 4G and 5G networks, as well.
Celona’s system supports (“is capable of concurrently advertising”) up to five different mobile network operators – “as well as a discrete private wireless network signal for specific enterprise use cases”, it said in a statement. The new certification from AT&T, long pursued by Celona, followed interoperability and regulatory testing in both lab and live environments; the latter covered a “large-scale live production trial with Stanford Health Care”, part of Stanford University Medical Center, one of the very first customers to take the product after the original T-Mobile certification.
It had to pass the “highest levels of service integrity”, including support for emergency e911 calls, and other subscriber services. It meets stringent metrics (KPIs) for both operators, said Celona. The AT&T certification further validates its “light-touch private/public model” for neutral-host CBRS services, it said – as a coverage-booster for mobile operators and a crowd-pleaser for staff and visitors inside enterprise venues. The California firm is pitching the product (as “ideally suited”) to healthcare environments, large retailers, offices, hotels and universities. The opportunity is considerable, it said – quoting Mobile Experts (see image below).
The solution uses a cloud-based, multi-site multi-operator software exchange (MOXN) that creates a “secure tunnel” to the operator public network. It stated: “Data and voice sessions are seamlessly aggregated and routed to the operator’s core network. Completely transparent to users, [the service] appears exactly like each carrier’s regular public cellular services – allowing subscribers to automatically connect and authenticate to the service on their cellular devices with excellent quality. No special setup is required from either the user or the operator.”
Celona reckons a neutral-host system can be deployed and operational in a “fraction of the time at nearly half the cost” of legacy distributed antenna (DAS) systems. It works for businesses of all sizes, it said – “from the smallest retail store to the largest hospital”. It said: “The solution is under enterprise IT’s control, without the burden and cost of additional on-site equipment. Celona offers enterprises flexible deployments and pricing… on existing Celona private wireless networks, or discretely as a standalone solution for neutral-host only services.”
Stanford Health Care plans to expand its private 5G / neutral host deployment to multiple buildings across several sites throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Christian Lindmark, chief technology officer at Stanford Health Care and Stanford School of Medicine, said: “Beyond ensuring reliable public cellular connectivity within our facilities, we envision utilizing this platform to establish a secure private wireless network dedicated to essential medical technologies, including clinical communication, patient monitoring and clinical video streaming.”
Mehmet Yavuz, co-founder and chief technology officer at Celona, said: “Celona Neutral Host represents a significant advancement in enterprise connectivity and is an even more compelling solution now that AT&T has joined. Due to their rigorous test and certification process, AT&T can ensure their customers receive the superior cellular service they expect. And enterprises simply sign one contract with Celona. It’s fast, simple and cost effective.”
