5G has been applied to vertical industries at the beginning of its vision formulation, so there is a saying that "5G changes society", which also pinned the hope of telecom operators to expand the industry market with the help of 5G, and 5G private network is undoubtedly entering this industry. A stepping stone to the market.  With the help of the 5G private network, especially the integration with the traditional OT network, it will provide a good opportunity for telecom operators to further provide cloud computing, Internet of Things, and intelligent applications for vertical industries, and open another door in addition to the public user traffic dividend. The gateway to growth for industrial digital transformation.

At the national level, the digital transformation of the industry has become the main choice in the face of the uncertainty of economic growth and the uncertainty of the external environment in the era of great changes. The digital base of digital transformation has a "multiplier effect" " on the economy, so it has been highly valued, and a series of policies have been introduced to promote the integration of 5G and the industry.

After two years of commercial use of 5G in China, 5G independent networking has also been commercialized for one year, and has achieved world-renowned achievements. By the end of June 2021, 961,000 5G base stations have been built and 365 million 5G terminal connections have been built.  In the industry field, the three major operators have launched their own 5G private network service products and built a large number of commercial 5G private networks.  This paper makes a brief summary and analysis of the current development status and challenges of private networks.

01 5G application "sail" action plan

The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of 5G. In order to implement the requirements of the 2021 "Government Work Report" to "intensify the construction of 5G networks and gigabit optical networks, and enrich application scenarios", and in the "14th Five-Year Plan", "construction based on 5G" The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with the Central Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 9 departments, issued the "5G Application "Sailing" Action Plan (2021-2023)".

The "Action Plan" proposes 8 special actions from the aspects of standard system construction, industrial foundation strengthening, information consumption upgrading, industry application deepening, social and people's livelihood services, network capability strengthening, application ecological integration, and security enhancement. In order to further promote the implementation of the "Action Plan", four key projects have been set up in the special action, including the implementation of the 5G application standard system construction and promotion project, the 5G product attack project for industry needs, the 5G application innovation ecological cultivation demonstration project and 5G application security capability forging project. Through 8 special actions and 4 key projects, the integration of 5G and the industry will be effectively promoted.

The "Action Plan" focuses on the three major areas of information consumption, the real economy, and people's livelihood services, and clarifies the focus on promoting 5G applications in 15 industries, and initially forms a 5G innovative application system within three years. From the perspective of promoting information consumption, focus on cultivating 5G+ new information consumption and converged media, stimulate new products and new content consumption, and accelerate the application of 5G in the media field; from the perspective of promoting the real economy, focus on promoting 5G in the industrial Internet, In-depth applications in 9 major fields, including Internet of Vehicles, Smart Logistics, Smart Ports, Smart Mining, Smart Power, Smart Oil and Gas, Smart Agriculture and Smart Water Conservancy, accelerate the digital transformation process of key industries. From the perspective of improving people's livelihood services, the focus will be on 5G application innovation in four areas: smart education, smart medical care, smart cultural tourism, and smart cities. These 15 key industries are also the main directions of current 5G application innovation.

In order to implement the "Action Plan", on July 24-25, the National 5G Industry Application Scale Development On-site Conference was held in Shenzhen and Dongguan, Guangdong, and an in-depth interpretation of the "5G Application "Sail" Action Plan (2021-2023)" was carried out. .

02 Main indicator system of 5G application development

The Action Plan also proposes a quantitative indicator system for the development of 5G applications:

Among them, 1, 2, and 5 mainly measure the development level of public-oriented services, and the other 4 mainly evaluate the development level of vertical industry applications. It is believed that after three years of development, the realization of these goals will promote 5G industry applications to a benign stage of development.

03 Operator 5G private network service product system

China Mobile

In July 2020, China Mobile released three major systems of 5G private network products, technology and operations. Launched three modes of 5G private network, namely "preferred, exclusive, and exclusive", and released a number of 5G private network capabilities such as edge computing, super uplink, and network services. Provide 12 major capabilities in three aspects: basic capabilities, network deployment, and service support: basic capabilities include network slicing, QoS enhancement, edge computing, and dedicated uplink; network deployment includes dedicated network elements, service offloading, wireless public-private integration, and frequency coordination; Service support includes unified entry, self-service operation and maintenance, capability opening, and order-based networking.

In 2021, for the commercial use of R16, China Mobile has planned the 2.0 evolution of the 5G private network technology system, adding "industry enhancement" to the original 3 categories and expanding it to 4 categories. TSN (Time Sensitive Network), NPN (Non-Public Network), high-precision positioning, secondary authentication (application-side authentication) and access security. To meet industry application requirements, ultra-low latency and ultra-reliable capabilities have been added to the basic capability category; equipment customization, disaster tolerance and self-healing have been added to the network deployment category. The service support category has also been enhanced accordingly, expanding the original 12 capabilities in 3 categories to 24 capabilities in 4 categories. Further meet the network needs of vertical industries.

China Telecom

In November 2020, China Telecom released the 5G customized network solutions of "network customization, edge intelligence, cloud collaboration, and application on-demand" and the "China Telecom 5G Customized Network Product Manual", providing "Zhiyuan", "Neighbor", "such as "Wing" three types of customized network service model. That is, the "Zhiyuan" model for wide-area-priority industry customers, the "Nearby" model for government and enterprise customers in latency-sensitive regions, and the "Wings" model for security-sensitive customers. In terms of customized services, the 5G customized network will provide customized traffic, customized number cards, service isolation, service acceleration, data out of the field, local service guarantee, dedicated line access, wireless enhancement, dedicated macro station, dedicated room distribution, dedicated frequency, dedicated 5GC 12 other abilities for flexible combination.

The Zhiyuan mode mainly matches wide-area access and cloud-network integration. Based on 5G network resources, through QoS, DNN customization, slicing and other technologies, it provides end-to-end differentiated guaranteed network connections, industry applications and other services for wide-area priority industry customers.

Proximity mode, local processing, cloud-edge collaboration. Through multi-frequency coordination, carrier aggregation, super uplink, edge node, wireless resource reservation and other technologies, it provides bandwidth-enhanced, low-latency, and local data offloading proprietary network services for delay-sensitive government and enterprise customers. Cloud, maximize the advantages of cloud-side synergy, and empower the digital applications of industry customers.

Such as wing mode, regional exclusive, safe and reliable. For security-sensitive government and enterprise customers with high security and high isolation, by customizing special network equipment and network services such as base stations, frequencies, and campus-level UPFs, and fully matching key components such as MEC, cloud, industry capabilities, and industry applications, it provides industry customers Provide end-to-end, customized exclusive solutions.

China Unicom

In August 2020, China Unicom released three 5G private network products and two 5G private line products: 5G virtual private network, 5G hybrid private network, 5G independent private network, 5G smart private line, and 5G premium private line.

Based on 5G public network coverage, 5G virtual private network provides customers with a private network with guaranteed latency and bandwidth, and data isolation. It has the characteristics of wide-area networking, priority guarantee, customer self-service and out-of-the-box use.

The 5G hybrid private network is a 5G private network with exclusive resources for some resources. The user plane network elements are deployed to the campus side. It has the characteristics of customization, resource sharing, and data leaving the campus.

The 5G independent private network has the characteristics of physical isolation, independent operation, flexible self-management, etc., and can provide network capabilities with super uplink bandwidth.

At the same time, China Unicom has also built a 1+1+1 private network operation system, standardized service standards, an intensive service platform, and a professional service team to provide industry users with exclusive customization of wireless resources, ultra-low network latency guarantee, and local offloading of campus data. , flexible and open interface capabilities and other ten customized services.

04 Operator's 5G private network development goals and progress

2021 is generally considered to be the first year of large-scale commercial use of 5G private networks. Under the guidance of the "Action Plan", all operators have clarified the development goals of 5G private networks. By the end of June 2021, some progress has also been made.

China Mobile

In 2020, China Mobile launched a series of 5G private network products, released the "excellent, specialized, respected" service model and the BAF multi-dimensional business model, and relying on the 5G private network operation platform, it provided industry customers with "self-service, self-operation and maintenance, self-service". "Develop" network services, create 100 high-quality private network benchmarks, and form industry demonstrations. In 2021, China Mobile plans to build a service-centric network based on digital operation and maintenance, systematization of assurance, templated solutions and online operations, helping thousands of industries to build digital twin networks, and actively promoting 1,000 commercial private network projects Landed to form a scale effect.

On August 12, 2021, China Mobile released its semi-annual report, announcing the achievements of 5G private network and industry applications: in the first half of the year, the entire network signed a total of 900 provincial-level regional special projects, expanded 452 5G private network projects, and the contract amount exceeded 1,000 million, 122 DICT orders, driving DICT incremental revenue of over 6 billion yuan, and the number of government and enterprise customers reaching 15.53 million; in terms of industry applications, China Mobile has created more than 4,000 commercial cases for more than 100 key industry scenarios.

China Telecom

At the beginning of the year, China Telecom set the development goal of 5G customized network: China Telecom will accelerate the development of 5G customized network business, and create a hundred customized network benchmark projects with influence, scene, value, synergy, ecology and display. Landed 1,000 commercial projects to enhance industry influence.

On July 12, 2021, at the China Telecom 5G Convergence Application Open Lab (5G Open Lab) conference, the China Telecom Government and Enterprise Information Service Group introduced the achievements in 5G industry applications, saying that up to now, China has Telecom's 5G customized network has accurately covered more than 1,600 leading government and enterprise customers, provided 5G customization capabilities for more than 4,500 customers, and implemented more than 360 customized network commercial projects.

China Unicom

China Unicom is also developing the 5G private network market in 2021. Although it has not announced specific goals and progress like other operators, it is estimated that the number of commercial 5G private network projects will be between 250 and 300.

Overall benchmarking

Based on the market progress of the 5G private network projects of the three major operators, the following rough conclusions are drawn from the main indicator systems for benchmarking 5G applications.

The number of virtual private networks in the 5G industry is 3,000: According to the above data, the three major operators have deployed a total of 1,060 to 1,110 5G private networks, and there is still a big gap between 3,000.

The penetration rate of 5G in large industrial enterprises is 35%: According to the statistics of 2018, the number of large industrial enterprises in the country is 9,103. The target of 35% means that 3,186 large industrial enterprises need to carry out 5G applications. Considering the application, this gap is larger than the number of private networks.

100 benchmarks for 5G applications in each key industry: 15 key industries require 1,500 benchmark applications. Currently, there is a lack of data. Only China Mobile mentioned building commercial cases in more than 100 key industry scenarios. The corresponding target is obviously still in its infancy.

05 Challenges and opportunities for 5G private network development

Although the three major operators have released products, planned goals, and established promotion systems on 5G private networks and industry applications, and promoted product maturity and program reproducibility by creating benchmark projects/lighthouse projects, the actual effect From this point of view, there are generally some deficiencies and challenges.

The rigid demand for 5G in business scenarios is insufficient, and the value of 5G in most scenarios is weak. According to HMS statistics, despite maintaining rapid growth in recent years, the proportion of wireless networks in industrial networks in 2020 is only 7%, of which 4% is industrial WiFi. At present, the application of 5G in the industry is mainly concentrated in video/image-based applications, such as machine vision, unmanned inspection/maintenance, video surveillance, etc., and the business expansion of in-depth production business has just started.

The product capabilities are insufficient, and the public network-based architecture and products are not well matched to the industry. The current private network architecture and products are mainly based on public network standards and centralized procurement products. However, due to its deployment environment and cost requirements, such as the unique deployment scenarios in underground mines, industrial high reliability and high security requirements, the industry requires such as Miniaturized core network, intrinsically safe equipment, cloud-network integration products, etc.

Large differences in projects and insufficient product standardization make the project cycle longer. There are two problems in expanding the industry. On the one hand, the needs of industry projects are quite different. Although the three major operators have proposed a combination of capability systems and product systems, it is difficult to quickly build solutions and quickly activate them for specific projects.

Lack of industry standards, even if technically feasible, there are barriers to commercial deployment. Due to the inertia of existing business system planning and construction, although some 5G applications have proved technical feasibility, due to the lack of corresponding industry planning, construction, deployment, maintenance, safety standards, and the lack of upgrading equipment to support 5G, industry deployment lack of enthusiasm.

The industry chain and business model are immature, and industry customers are not willing to pay. Low scenario value, poor 5G capability and product matching, and incomplete industry chain lead to a small number of 5G applications that can be deployed at this stage, resulting in a higher overall cost of ownership.

Although there are so many challenges, based on the advantages of 5G basic capabilities compared to other wireless technologies, the rapid evolution of 5G standards and products, the gradual maturity of the industry chain, the formulation of industry standards based on application pilots, and the support of 5G upgrades in industry equipment, the above Most of these issues will be resolved. The most important point is that 5G uses a flat network to simplify the level of digital control in the factory and directly promote the integration of IT/OT. It can not only break the closed ecology of existing foreign manufacturers in the underlying industrial network and system, but also help It lays the foundation for the high-quality and low-cost digital transformation of my country's industry. This is in line with the new stage that China's industry is facing the transition to high-quality development, and the 5G private network will play an important role in this process.