Joe Madden, Mobile Insights
Henry Ford could not succeed until oil companies had developed petroleum products. Bill Gates could not succeed until Intel made microprocessors. Every successful business relies on other business infrastructure to achieve profit at scale.
The Private Cellular market is a great example of this…it’s not enough to have spectrum and a radio. Enterprises are looking for multiple factors to come together. This is not easy, because every vertical market comes with different business dynamics. Every use case comes with different IT/OT integration challenges. Every country has different spectrum.
The fragmentation in the Private Cellular market can cause problems. Some applications have a great ROI for the enterprise, but the unique IoT device needed doesn’t exist because the volume is not high enough for the IoT suppliers to develop a special module.
Mobile Experts has come up with a tool for visualizing this. We call it the “Readiness Wheel”. Each spoke of the wheel represents an element that’s essential for enterprises to use Private Cellular. Each vertical market and application can be evaluated individually in this way, and it’s easy to see the markets and apps that are most mature. Essentially, if the ‘wheel’ is round, the market can ‘roll’.
In these two examples, we look at two illustrations:
In the mining market, companies like Rio Tinto have been automating trucks and excavators for more than 8 years using LTE and have very highly developed IoT devices, Edge Computing, and IT/OT software integration. This market has “crossed the chasm” so that more than 30% of mines now include Private LTE networks.
In Transportation, the maturity of IoT devices and integrated network management software is lagging behind some other markets. The business case is not as clear, and entanglements with union workers (at seaports) or with regulatory agencies (in airports) can get in the way of adoption.
By looking closely at each individual market and application, Mobile Experts has put together a very detailed and accurate view of the total Private Cellular market, as well as forecasts for Edge Computing, IoT Devices, and other key aspects.
