The recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), highlights the federal government’s commitment to modernizing and securing the nation’s infrastructure. In a recent conversation with Government Technology Insider, Kurt Schaubach, Chief Technology Officer at Federated Wireless, commented that there has not been much evolution in infrastructure security in the past 100 years. Therefore, at the federal level, several programs have been created for investment into our infrastructure in order to make it “more robust, more resilient, and more secure.”
The most obvious way in which this lack of investment in communications is seen is that every day, individuals experience loss of connectivity and poor bandwidth due to inadequate network connection, explained Schaubach. Now, imagine these challenges at the enterprise level. A drop in coverage can lead to severe consequences. Schaubach explained how, “in a warehouse environment, Wi-Fi has traditionally been used to provide automation to robotic pallet movers. In certain locations, the pallet movers would be in an area with poor Wi-Fi coverage. Here, the pallet mover would stall and stop moving, because it didn’t have a network to connect to.” This creates bottlenecks within the infrastructure that can lead to disrupting processes. For instance, a warehouse could supply emergency responders when natural disasters occur. A stall in the warehouse may lead to hampering the distribution of medical equipment when it is needed most.
This is an instance where private 5G wireless networks are able to provide greater connectivity and solve this issue. A private 5G network assures that the coverage and bandwidth are consistent and provide a higher quality service to the enterprise, all while establishing great security measures. Since a private 5G network is completely on-premise and is owned and operated by the enterprise or user, it creates “greater levels of security and data privacy at a much lower cost with more efficiency on the network,” said Schaubach.
Private 5G networks greatly support the continued expansion of telemedicine, especially in rural and tribal locations, and emergency response. Users can benefit by employing these networks when traditional forms of connectivity are not readily available. Private 5G networks connect “medical care and resources to patients in the field. It improves triage and diagnostics through real-time communication with medical professionals in remote locations. These networks provide a capability that has never been available before,” commented Schaubach.
Private 5G networks are transforming how organizations can effectively function by bringing scalability, rapid deployment, continuous integration, and more to wireless connectivity. According to Schaubach, it dramatically reduces costs and “opens up an ecosystem of technology for developers to build applications on top of.” When looking to the future, private 5G networks are going to revolutionize how developers can tap into and build applications like never before.
To learn more about private 5G wireless networks, click here.
