CTS 266: Private Cellular Demystified

We welcome Brian White, Director of Systems Engineering at Celona. He handles customer deployments and interactions and provides initial education consulting of the product with the customers.



One of the primary reasons for using private cellular is the promise of reliable mobility. It lends itself to specific use cases.









We’ve had Celona on the show previously. You can find those episodes below:



* CTS 245* CTS 232



When it comes to Private LTE, we have to stop thinking about traditional cellular and change our mindset into thinking of it as an alternative wireless data network that uses different protocols to accomplish similar functions. Certain conditions and environments shine for Private LTE where it’s challenging for Wi-Fi.



Some of the possible use cases are:



* AGVs* Forklift operations* Healthcare



Private LTE will provide a regimented scheduling for communication leading to improved roaming/handover methods. Cellular infrastructure controls the handover compared to Wi-Fi, where the client device controls roaming. Predictability is key and can be achieved. QoS can be enforced, even under a network load.



Do you need a device that supports SIM? The SIM is just the chip that holds the authentication credentials which can be moved from device to device. Cellular will now have eSIM (embedded SIM) where the network credentials are electronic, stored on the device. eSIM will grow in popularity due to simplicity in onboarding.



What about device support? How do you approach it?Private Cellular devices in two buckets: native support for the frequencies or devices that allow other networking technologies to be the connectivity method. For example, using private LTE as a backhaul. Vendors such as Cradlepoint have handled similar use cases.



Is it difficult to deploy private LTE and does it come with a high learning curve? Not very much if you look into using the solutions from Celona. Much of the complexity is abstracted and made as simple as possible for the network operator.



Listen in on the rest of the episode to find out how Private LTE can be used on your network infrastructure.



Here are some resources:– Celona website; https://www.celona.io/– Celona APs: https://www.celona.io/access-points– Celona setup demo: https://www.cleartosend.net/celona-edge-architecture-live-demo/– CBRS capable devices: https://docs.celona.io/en/articles/3484781-cbrs-capable-devices-in-the-market– Celona documentation (deployment guides, best practices…): https://docs.celona.io/en/