Recently, the delayed auction of 5G spectrum in India has made waves again. India's telecom regulator said it intends to reserve some spectrum resources for companies to deploy 5G industry private networks. The proposal has faced stiff resistance from Indian operators, threatening not to participate in the 5G spectrum auction, asking regulators to scrap the plan.

This is not the first time operators have resisted the allocation of spectrum for 5G private networks. In 2019, when German regulators consulted on 5G spectrum allocation, Germany's three major operators expressed strong opposition to the 5G private network spectrum allocation plan. The GSMA, the industry body for global mobile operators, has also repeatedly stated that the practice of reserving spectrum for local or vertical industry applications in 5G-priority frequency bands (such as 3.5GHz, 26GHz or 28GHz) could jeopardize public 5G services and potentially create spectrum Waste of resources.

The operator camp believes that the allocation of 5G private network spectrum may not only limit the long-term development space of 5G public networks; it is also not conducive to 5G industry applications using the scale effect of public networks to reduce deployment and use costs; it is also easy to cause adjacent frequency interference and reduce spectrum usage. efficiency.

However, despite strong opposition from operators, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland in Europe, Japan, South Korea in the Asia-Pacific region, and Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong in China have or will soon become 5G industry-specific networks. Allocate dedicated spectrum. Although the United States does not allocate dedicated frequency bands, its CBRS frequency band adopts a hierarchical sharing licensing mechanism, which also allows enterprise users to flexibly deploy their own networks.

The clear needs of industry users are the primary driving force for promoting 5G private network spectrum allocation. For example, when Germany launched the 5G spectrum allocation process, large enterprises and industry associations expressed their urgent needs for private network spectrum. Since November 2019, when the regulator opened the private network spectrum application, to March this year, 201 enterprises or organizations have applied for and obtained the license for the use of the 5G private network spectrum. Japanese regulators opened up applications for 5G private network spectrum in batches at the end of 2019 and the end of 2020. As of the end of March this year, 106 companies or organizations have been approved for spectrum licenses. It includes a large number of advanced manufacturing companies or information service companies that we are familiar with. It can be seen that the characteristics of 5G private network deployment are fast and flexible, and the operation is manageable and controllable. It is indeed attractive to industry users, which is conducive to the promotion and popularization of 5G industry applications.

At the same time, 5G private network spectrum allocation can also be used as a means to promote market competition. When formulating the 5G private network spectrum plan, the South Korean regulator made it clear that it hopes to take the opportunity to introduce new market players to enhance the level of competition in the 5G industry application market, thereby promoting the development of 5G industry applications. After South Korea opened its 5G private network spectrum application at the end of last year, local Internet giant Naver Cloud announced its entry into this market. Obviously, the regulatory agency's policy has achieved initial results.

The allocation of 5G private network spectrum does make mobile operators face the pressure of competition and substitution in the industry market, but this does not mean that mobile operators completely lose their competitiveness in this market.

German operators quickly adjusted their strategies after opposing private network spectrum allocation to no avail, and began to provide network deployment and operation and maintenance services for enterprise users who obtained private network spectrum. At present, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BASF and other large enterprises have chosen mobile operators as their private network deployment partners. NTT East has also launched its own 5G private network service in Japan and offers a "zero down payment" model to lower the threshold for enterprise users. Mobile operators' experience in deployment, operation and maintenance, comprehensive service capabilities and network infrastructure have become the fulcrum of their competition in the private network service market. At the same time, industry private networks have also created new opportunities for operators to expand globally. Both Verizon in the United States and NTT in Japan have begun to use 5G private networks to expand their global enterprise service market, and have now respectively obtained 5G private network service contracts at the Port of Southampton in the United Kingdom and Cologne/Bonn Airport in Germany.

It can be seen that in the 5G private network market with obvious "long tail characteristics" and diverse user needs, operators are expected to achieve good results by virtue of their own advantages, and even have the opportunity to expand their business globally and expand their service scale.

Radio frequency spectrum is a national scarce resource with important strategic significance and an important carrier to promote the development of informatization. It has become a social consensus to promote the digital transformation of thousands of industries with 5G network capabilities. For India and other regulators that have not yet decided whether to allocate private network spectrum, I believe that as long as they keep their original intention of promoting the development of social informatization, they will surely find a win-win solution for all parties, and transform the dispute over private network spectrum into promoting the 5G industry. Opportunities for application development.