Private 4G/5G and edge computing are key enablers of enterprise digital transformation
Seeing a big opportunity in enterprise adoption of 5G and complementary solutions, Dell Technologies has invested heavily in establishing and growing its Telecom Systems Business. The group works with operators, who themselves are eager to capture new enterprise service revenues, and with the end customers around system integration and otherwise bringing cellular into an IT environment and applying it the OT side of the house.
In a blog post, Dell Technologies’ Marco Castanheira, lead for Services Edge Marketing in the Telecom Systems Business, called 5G “a revolutionary communications upgrade that bridges IT and telecom infrastructures under a horizontal cloud-based architecture that enables unprecedented economies of scale.” Noting faster speeds, lower latency and support for a massive number of internet of things devices, he wrote of 5G, “It promises to drive the development of game-changing applications at the edge, enabling much more widespread use of [IoT], artificial intelligence and real time data analytics for effective decision making.”
Castanheira calls out the limitations of private Wi-Fi as a potential prompt for the transition to cellular, both 4G and/or 5G. Specifically, he notes “drawbacks” around access point density requirements and attendant management issues, interference, handover, device volume support, and security exposure.
Bottomline, he writes that “5G is essential to the enterprise digital transformation journey.” More enterprise-focused features baked-into current and future 3GPP releases will help 5G better meet the needs of vertical industries.
“Many 5G-enabled use cases are emerging, and 5G implementations will live alongside existing and new generations of Wi-Fi and 4G for some time,” Castanheira concludes. “Right now, adopting a flexible infrastructure that is ready to adapt to future use cases — many of which cannot be predicted today — is a solid approach that will prepare you for mainstream adoption of 5G and what comes next.”
Earlier this year around Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Dell Technologies provided a product roadmap update, including reference architectures with support for VMware, Red Hat and Wind River on Dell infrastructure, updates to its Bare Metal Orchestrator software package for automating and provisioning the lifecycle management of open network infrastructure, Open RAN-focused development, and its SI strategy. For a deep dive on that, read this piece from our sister site RCR Wireless News.