Anyone in the WAN business—from the carrier or end-user side—knows that local access can present some of the biggest challenges in corporate networks.
There's a physical geography problem that's not easy to overcome. We're talking about pulling and maintaining wires to all corporate sites, which is especially challenging when customers need physical diversity and protection.
Wireless has long been a backup of last resort for many users, but 5G has presented the promise of relieving this pain point.
Let's talk about it. Greg welcomes Inseego Senior VP and GM of Enterprise Ritesh Mukherjee to TeleGeography Explains the Internet. The pair chat about 5G as a local access game-changer, get into some use cases, and look to the future of wireless in the WAN.
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Key Takeaways
5G is Emerging as a Game Changer for Local Access Through Fixed Wireless Access
Traditional wired local access presents difficult challenges due to physical geography, requiring wires and boxes to be pulled and maintained at every site. Historically, wireless (3G/4G) has been primarily a "backup of last resort" for WAN connections.
However, 5G, with its increased tower density, available bandwidth, and improved technology, is now seen as a viable alternative that can truly replace wireline connectivity for enterprises. This shift is driven by operators becoming more comfortable placing large data traffic on 5G networks and offering new data plans, often without overage charges, that make it feasible to use 5G as a primary connection without worrying about costs. The requirement for users to have flexibility and mobility to work or use devices anywhere is also driving adoption.
Enterprise Use Cases for Fixed Wireless Access and the Future of Mobile Access Edge Compute
Beyond consumers, enterprises are using devices for managing connectivity in challenging locations. Examples include lending hotspots from libraries, providing connectivity for ATMs, kiosks, and vending machines where wired connections are difficult or expensive, quickly deploying temporary sites for construction, oil/gas, or emergency services during events, and streaming non-stadium sports games.
A significant area of growth is supporting work-from-home employees by providing a corporate-managed network connection at home, separate from the employee's personal network, offering enhanced security, performance, and remote troubleshooting capabilities that address the challenges of relying on unmanaged home broadband.
Looking ahead, after FWA becomes widespread, the next significant phase for 5G is anticipated to be Mobile Access Edge Compute (MEC). MEC will bring computing services closer to the user at the network edge, enabling low-latency applications such as video analysis for surveillance, augmented/virtual reality, and gaming, by localizing traffic and reducing the need to backhaul everything to distant cloud data centers.
Greg Bryan
Greg is Senior Manager, Enterprise Research at TeleGeography. He's spent the last decade and a half at TeleGeography developing many of our pricing products and reports about enterprise networks. He is a frequent speaker at conferences about corporate wide area networks and enterprise telecom services. He also hosts our podcast, TeleGeography Explains the Internet.
