Betacom, a veteran in the wireless telecommunication industry for over 30 years, last year launched its 5G-as-a-service (5GaaS), which it describes as the industry’s first fully managed private wireless service. The company aims to provide organizations with fast and secure, low latency connections to support their businesses.

In this episode of TFiR Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya sat down with Johan Bjorklund, CEO of Betacom, to discuss how private networks are helping to give enterprises control over their processes while giving them the bandwidth to innovate. Bjorklund says, “It’s an evolution so it’s going to take time. But we’re absolutely part of that in beta coming and working with a lot of manufacturers right now. We have a lot of proof of concepts where we’re trying out the different solutions for how to automate their business processes and taking critical business processes, business applications, and moving it off of wifi or ethernet and into private wireless instead.”

Key highlights from the video interview are:

• IoT devices are driving connectivity but require 5G because of its ultra-fast connectivity and low latency. 5G also makes it possible to put the logic of the devices in the edge cloud rather than building the logic into the devices themselves.
• 5G was created for massive IoT, with capabilities that set it apart from previous generations of connectivity. 5G is intended to help enterprises drive IoT solutions and make business processes more efficient.
• The U.S. government’s allocation of 3.5GHz spectrum for private wireless networks has been pivotal in allowing enterprises to own and control their own private networks. Data is kept within their own firewalls, protecting it from cybersecurity threats.
• Wi-Fi and private networks have different capabilities but there are times when a Wi-Fi network would not be the best option for an enterprise and its business-critical applications.
• Carrier solutions although providing wide coverage areas may not be a preferred solution for enterprises compared to what private wireless networks can offer.
• Global supply chain challenges are driving private networks as companies look to automate processes and bring manufacturing back onshore, offsetting the labor arbitrage.
• Automation is an integral part of industry 4.0 but 5G connectivity is needed due to the large amounts of data being processed and low latency requirements. There are a variety of good use cases for industry 4.0.
• AI/ML are playing an important role in manufacturing. For instance, with wireless devices being connected to machinery to measure efficiency which are connected to a backend device in the edge cloud with the capability of machine learning.
• Another vertical that is discussed is aviation, with airports and airlines starting to look at private wireless to offload some of these business-critical applications.

Guest: Johan Bjorklund 
Company: Betacom (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk
Keywords: Private 5G, Private 5G Network, Industry 4.0

About Johan Bjorklund: Johan is a senior executive leader combining rich telecommunications industry experience with a strategic and operational focus on building and growing the business. Having previously held a number of leadership roles in his 18 years at Ericsson, Johan has gained broad international market expertise leading business success in the US, APAC, and EMEA with a record of creating profitable business models in emerging business segments. His broad functional background includes executive P&L management, business development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, customer service, vendor management, and integration and business optimizations. Johan took the helm of Betacom as Chief Executive Officer in September of 2019.

About Betacom: Betacom offers the first fully managed private 5G network, building on its long history as a primary outdoor and indoor DAS vendor to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., the company has offices in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Boston, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Mobile, New Orleans, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston. Its private 5G wireless service is the first managed service of its kind in the United States. For more information, visit http://www.betacom.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.