Over 80 percent of (more than four in five) chief information officers and “senior leaders” plan to deploy private 5G networks within the next 24 months. So says a new survey of 200-odd “top executives” by global business solutions provider NTT. Their motivation to deploy private 5G, it finds, is to improve security, reliability, and speed.
The survey, by Economist Impact for NTT, quizzes execs in Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US. Ninety percent of executives expect private 5G will become the “standard network choice”, it says. Over half of companies (51 percent) plan to deploy a private 5G network in the next six to 24 months, with a further 30 percent having already started down the road, it finds.
This figure rises to 40 percent among respondents in Germany, 28 percent in the UK, 26 percent in Japan, and 24 percent in the US. Most executives (80 percent) agree that Covid-19 has made it easier to secure the budget needed for 5G deployment. This attitude is strongest in Germany (93 percent), followed by the US (83 percent), the UK (77 percent) and Japan (65 percent).
The report finds that 69 percent of executives agree that the security of their current infrastructure is not strong enough; other pain points include the control of enterprise data (48 percent), coverage and speed (43 percent) and the response time (latency) of their current service provider (40 percent). When compared with technologies such as Wi-Fi and public 5G, they reckon private 5G networks provide “significantly more security capabilities”.
A statement said: “With ransomware on the rise, CIOs and CISOs are looking for ways to shore-up defences against increasingly sophisticated attacks.” Eighty-three percent of executives rate improved data privacy and security as a very important outcome they expect to achieve with the implementation of private 5G networks. “CIOs want security and control while also enabling digitalization – and believe private 5G will enable these critical requirements.”
The most common barrier to deploying private 5G networks, according to 44 percent of execs polled in the study, comes with integration with legacy systems and networks. Complexity around the deployment and management of private 5G networks is cited by 37 percent of respondents. A lack of technical skills and expertise to manage 5G networks is the third most common barrier, facing 30 percent of firms, the report suggests.
All of which makes the case for a managed service provider – like NTT (!) – to step in, of course. A statement said: “This is one of the reasons why outsourcing to a managed service provider is the preferred approach by 38 percent of CIOs when it comes to implementing private 5G networks. Buying private 5G network ‘as-a-service’ can accelerate time to adoption and offer a better end-user experience and return on investment.”
Shahid Ahmed, group executive vice president of new ventures and innovation at NTT, commented: “The research highlights that the adoption of private 5G is happening now. The companies leveraging private 5G will have an unprecedented competitive advantage. Whether a company owns a factory floor, distribution centers, storefront or office space, private 5G can dramatically help digitize their businesses securely.”
