By James Blackman

Qualcomm is teaming up with Capgemini to “unlock” private 5G for Industry 4.0, based on its new Release 16-capable 5G RAN platform and radio modem. Qualcomm and Capgemini will develop an off-the-shelf private network system, “tested and validated”, to provide clients a faster route to leverage 5G-geared industrial IoT solutions, they said.

Capgemini will play the role of systems integrator in the partnership, offering an easy-to-deploy private 5G system from Qualcomm to its sundry industrial clients. It will combine the cellular componentry from Qualcomm with its own enterprise systems, edge compute solutions, cloud and data analytics, and its industrial domain expertise.

The work will also layer-in undefined “bespoke elements”. The objective is to be able to deploy private 5G, plus over-the-top Industry 4.0 architecture, at scale, they said. There was no word about partnering for the supply of radio and core equipment.

But a press statement from Qualcomm about its new Release-16-level RAN platform for small cells and 5G modem-RF system, geared notably for private 5G in Industry 4.0, quoted support from luminaries in the open RAN ecosystem, including Airspan Networks, Altiostar, Radisys, Rakuten, and Sercomm.

Separately, Capgemini has an existing deal with Ericsson on RAN to offer network operators support in supplying private LTE and 5G network solutions to enterprises.

Qualcomm and Capgemini said in a statement they will provide organizations with “increased end-to-end carrier-grade interoperability in a wireless 5G industry ecosystem environment of connected devices, connected equipment, and private 5G network infrastructure.”

Qualcomm’s new FSM200xx product, also announced this week, is the company’s second 5G RAN platform, and the first in the industry to be based on Release 16. It brings support for all commercial global mmWave and sub-6 GHz bands, including the new n259 (41 GHz), n258(26 GHz) and FDD bands.

A statement said: “This platform is primed to take powerful mmWave performance to more places, indoors and outdoors, and around the globe, while, in parallel, introducing new sub-6 GHz opportunities with small cell densification in public and private networks.”

It cited opportunities in “homes, airports, stadiums, hospitals, offices, and manufacturing facilities”. Importantly, for the Industry 40 sector, its Release 16 capabilities brings support for ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), a key enabler for wireless automation in ‘factory-of-the-future’ scenarios. It offers so-called ‘six-nines’ (99.9999 percent) reliability for mission critical control of of industrial equipment and machines.

Qualcomm’s new modem-RF solution, announced at the same time, offers data speeds of up to 8 Gbps with 1 GHz bandwidth support on mmWave and support for wider 200MHz carrier bandwidth. The new 5G RAN platform for small cells supports spectrum aggregation of 200 MHz of sub-6 GHz spectrum across FDD and TDD. It delivers data speeds of up to 4 Gbps, said Qualcomm.

The FSM200xx platform supports open and virtualized RAN, with support for “key 5G functional split options” to allow for the disaggregation of the RAN into standards-based and interoperable modular components. This will provide greater flexibility in deployment for manufacturers and operators. It will accelerate the transition to ‘infrastructure 2.0’ and adoption of private 5G, said Qualcomm.

Senior director of product management at Qualcomm, Gerardo Giaretta said: “Small cells have been at the heart of the global 5G proliferation and Qualcomm is leading the charge as the industry transitions to open and virtualized 5G RAN networks.”

On the subject of the new go-to-market deal with Capgemini, Qualcomm focused on the task to scale private 5G beyond large corporations. “Our collaboration… can help them to deliver private networks… to many more customers globally across a broad range of industries and sectors,” said senior vice president and president of Qualcomm in the EMEA region, Enrico Salvatori.

“In leveraging Capgemini’s scale and implementation expertise, we are confident that many more companies globally will start looking at what private networks can do for their businesses. We believe there are powerful benefits and exciting use cases already available in private networks, especially when you integrate 5G functionality, enhanced privacy, and all the other features which arrive with 5G standalone.”

Group leader of 5G and edge computing at Capgemini, Fotis Karonis commented: “This collaboration aims to… provide a simplified yet powerful end-to-end private network solution for clients in all industries. We expect clients to leverage this to implement solutions across a large variety of potential sites and use cases… We envision that more and more companies will be able to benefit from cellular private networks to increase efficiency and speed of innovation.”