From the newsletter (sign-up if you want it sooner): Private 5G is maturing, clearly, and the market is changing shape: Nokia is in retreat, slipping to fourth in the rankings, while industrial deployments build, AI-driven apps promise surging value, and defense is confirmed as a powerful growth engine.
Something about private 5G to close the week. We might, once, have written about these items separately; as it is, we have a Friday think-piece to pull them all together, and wrap-around other conversations. Firstly, Nokia has slipped to fourth in the private 5G rankings. Analyst house Omdia (Pablo Tomasi), always a good judge, reckons the Finnish firm has dethroned itself by putting its ECE (‘campus’) unit on the block. Nokia, if we recall, used to be (even 12 months ago) the bonafide heavyweight ‘champ’ of the world among private 5G vendors. As it is, Omdia doesn’t think any of them are worth the title, and Nokia’s reputation has plummeted. The group’s credentials, based on a mixed-up ECE unit and its macro-scale mission-critical portfolio, don’t cut it.
And Ericsson and the rest have not improved enough to take the title, it seems. That’s the read – having not seen the full report. “Nokia’s strategy is quite messy at the moment for obvious reasons,” Tomasi responded to RCR; we will catch up properly next week.But there are kind words about the ECE unit, apparently, which soldiers on while it waits for a new parent/guardian. The official blurb for the analyst report states: “The private 5G market still needs education, but this huge effort has historically been carried out largely by Nokia. With Nokia now focusing heavily on other markets – including optical fixed networks and AI – the burden of educating the market, lobbying for spectrum, and engaging with telcos and systems integrators must be shared by the wider ecosystem.” So there we have it.
In the meantime, if we recall, STL Partners said this week that global revenue “from” private 4G/5G will grow from $2.3bn in 2025 to $22bn in 2030 – at a CAGR of 58%. Manufacturing will remain “by far” the largest vertical in 2030, it says, followed by logistics, presented as the “fastest-growing” vertical, with a CAGR of 86% in the period. The reason? AI automation, of course. Note: these are both campus sectors, and not where Nokia will continue to play (as ‘Nokia’, at least). But note as well: the logistics sector, especially, wants easier off-the-shelf solutions – which are not what the big vendors have typically sold (their opponents would argue). So swings and roundabouts. Note also (!!!): STL says apps on top of networks will overtake the infrastructure as the largest source of value in the period.
Apps will take 25% ($5.5 billion) of total ‘private 5G’ revenue in 2030, it says – rising from 15% in 2025. So interesting times. As a footnote here: there are a couple of news items today (this week; included today) that might be sieved into this market matrix. As updates on older deployments, the Port of Valencia in Spain says its €6.9m private 5G work with Orange, 75% funded by the EU, is gathering a head of steam: the fibre optic transport ‘ring’ around the site is finished, and six of 17 5G towers are in place. The port expects to connect over 25,000 devices onto the system. The project has developed from a virtual / hybrid system, hived off Orange’s public network; it is now all-private. The vendor for the project has never been confirmed (as here and here); RCR will follow-up, time permitting.
Besides Tampa Electric Company (TECO) in the US, one of the first investor-owned utilities to deploy private LTE for operational use, says it has “selected” Ericsson and OneLayer to deploy, manage, and secure its growing cellular infrastructure. Burns & McDonnell is providing integration and engineering. What is new here? Ericsson, at least, has been engaged with TECO on the project for several years. So really, the news is about device management and security, which is why OneLayer is involved (as it is across the US utilities space, and TECO’s plan for a “growing number of connected devices”. Burns & McDonnell said “the right” management and security platform is what “determines whether a network scales cleanly or creates operational debt down the road.”
So we have stories, then, about big-profile industrialists growing more confident with private cellular, whose strategies are maturing. The days of tests and trials are done. There is a third story below, as well: Ondas has won a $50m (plus) order from the US Army to supply “lethal” attack (LUS) drones as part of a multi-year contract worth up to $982m. Which is about the other growth sector for private 5G: warfare. Ondas makes no reference to 5G, but unmanned weapons require command links, edge processing, AI autonomy, and secure networks – and private 5G is a candidate tech, as RCR has reported (lots). Plus, Ondas knows mission-critical networks very well; Ondas Networks sells private networks, albeit IEEE 802.16 and not 3GPP 5G ones, for the government sector (plus others).
And finally, related to the apps dialogue above: NTT Data – which sells private 5G from Celona (which has a big announcement about private 5G and physical AI next week) and Ericsson (and used to sell Nokia here and there) – has a new software platform for insurance companies that uses AI agents to automate underwriting, claims handling, customer service, and other parts of insurance work – while keeping humans in control and across regulatory requirements. So what? Well, it is just that integrator companies are swooping for that 25% on top. Some vendors, including Nokia’s ECE unit, have been doing the same, for some years. Not sure what the big story is; but it links together, and there’s a passage through all the narrative threads that takes you into the future.
