TECHNICAL
An interview with Celona To gauge a deeper understanding of the private 4G/5G market from a specialist vendor’s perspective, we interviewed Sajag Chikarsal, VP Marketing at Celona
Can you explain the key trends and recent developments? Sajag: There is a real shift underway. We are involved in daily discussions about when Wi-Fi is good enough, and it is increasingly and rapidly not good enough for much more than just mission-critical applications. Any mine, refinery, warehouse or manufacturing plant that is trying to add automation to their operation, both indoors and out, is quickly running into the limitations of Wi-Fi. You cannot reliably and safely run AGVs and automated forklifts on Wi-Fi. If you can run one reliably in a small section of the warehouse where Wi-Fi coverage is not impeded by racks of goods, you cannot run that AGV down an aisle or into a corner, and network performance plummets as you try to add more AGVs onto the network. We are talking to CIOs who spend $10-15 million on Wi-Fi every four years, and they want to start transitioning this budget to private 4G/5G because they are realising that throwing more money at Wi-Fi is just getting them more APs but not solving their fundamental connectivity problems. In some cases – more than you might expect – we are also talking to customers about providing basic connectivity for data collection tasks where clipboards and pens are being used today. It can be cost-prohibitive to run the cable and power needed to light up Wi-Fi access points in the far reaches of a mine or refinery, but these same areas can easily and cost- effectively be covered by a handful of outdoor private 4G/5G APs. Our CEO Rajeev Shah is calling this the Industrial Digital Divide. How do you expect the market to evolve in the coming years? Sajag: We see three major drivers that will cause the market to explode in the coming years. The first is the maturation of the private 5G device ecosystem. Most private wireless deployments, around 80% by most estimates, are using 4G today. This is because the private 4G ecosystem is mature and robust, and 4G can reliably handle most of today’s use cases. As the private 5G ecosystem matures, which is starting to happen, and as the more advanced 5G features are delivered – like ultra-low latency and precise indoor positioning – more sophisticated use cases like digital twins and machine vision can be supported. The second driver is increased availability of spectrum globally. The FCC recently announced that the areas in the US where shared CBRS spectrum can be deployed are being increased, positively impacting thousands of businesses and millions of people. Globally we also are seeing an increase in countries setting aside mid-band spectrum for local licensing directly by enterprises. There is increasing government recognition of the positive economic impact of making spectrum directly available for enterprises to deploy private cellular
What is your company’s background and involvement in the market? Sajag: Celona was founded in 2019. The Celona founders all come from deep industry experience and expertise in enterprise wireless networking. They recognised a gap in the market where telco and proprietary solutions were causing private 4G/5G network deployments to be complex and costly at the very same time that shared mid-band spectrum was being opened up for enterprise use. There was also growing demand for more deterministic wireless connectivity for critical business applications and vital use cases not met by even the best Wi-Fi. The team set a vision – make private 5G as easy and cost- effective to deploy as Wi-Fi. Their goal was to remove friction from every element of the product, deployment and operation of private cellular networks. Today Celona provides a turnkey private wireless solution uniquely engineered for the enterprise. The Celona 5G LAN platform is designed on an integrated software stack and includes everything needed for building a high-performance private 4G/5G network – from the access points to the core to network orchestration and management. It is delivered with management software to give our enterprise customers complete visibility and control, including policy management, device management and security. It’s built from the ground up to create the best possible experience for enterprise customers at a low TCO. From day one the founders also designed robust security into the platform. A business-critical wireless network requires enterprise-grade security to protect against cybersecurity threats, and the industries that need private cellular most - energy, manufacturing, logistics – are often the very targets of global bad actors. The Celona 5G LAN platform extends the inherently strong security architecture of cellular networks, including support for eSIMs, with tight integration between existing enterprise security systems to safeguard the network from edge-to-cloud. The team continues to whittle away at the areas that cause friction in designing, deploying, and managing a private 4G/5G network, and constantly implement new features to address this friction. For example, our patented MicroSlicing™ architecture enables QoS (Quality-of- Service) and granular device and policy management offered nowhere else, and we were first to improve device provisioning with automated eSIMs that work with common enterprise MDM (Mobile Device Management) systems, such as JAMF and AirWatch.
May 2025 Volume 47 No.2
103
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