By James Blackman

More detail has emerged about NTT’s new private cellular as-a-service platform, launched last week for enterprises to deploy private LTE and 5G networks anywhere in the world. The firm has confirmed California-based private LTE/5G startup and CBRS champ Celona is providing the key LTE/5G componentry in the bundle, with in-house brands NTT Transatel and NTT Data providing the global roaming and IT services functions alongside.

Celona dubbed NTT’s private 5G service, which goes under the P5G brand, a “convergence of enterprise networking, old-school telecom, and cloud native infrastructure.” Curiously, the firm will make its own announcement this week about its part in the P5G service. But NTT confirmed Celona as the key network provider. It said further partners for devices, applications, and network integration services will be announced in due course.

It said a number of industrial IoT applications will be integrated with the service. “We are working with a number of IoT application partners to bring high value use case applications to market such as AGVs, AR and VR based digital worker platforms, and video analytics using machine vision,” the company told Enterprise IoT Insights.

The core network in the P5G offer is offered as containerized microservices to operate on Microsoft Azure and AWS, confirmed NTT. The service is currently available in “just over 20” countries, it said, where public spectrum is available or through NTT’s own spectrum partnerships.

The Japan-based firm said the platform does not include partnerships with mobile network operators, at launch. “But we are open to working with mobile network operators in various markets,” it said, adding: “We can support neutral host capability to integrate with operators if the enterprise use case requires.”

Celona provides a core network stack for LTE and 5G that uses ‘edgeless architecture’ in the form of cloud software and analytics, with cloud-based network management and control to allocate and automate services for industrial applications. It claims a dedicated “express lane” for mission-critical business applications, including crowded outdoor venues, industrial IoT applications, and campus-wide connectivity.

“NTT’s P5G service is really just the beginning of what we see as the emerging and rapidly growing 5G local-area networking (LAN) market. We expect this market to grow faster than the wireless LAN market at its inception,” commented vice president of marketing at Celona, Ozer Dondurmacioglu.

He added: “Our ‘edgeless architecture’ approach to the 5G local-area networking space disaggregates many of the core network service functions, as well as RAN functions, into software that can be deployed closer to users and applications to give companies greater agility and flexibility.

“For instance, we have virtualized RAN functions, such as signaling and data packet processing, MAC layer packet scheduling, protocol conversion, and encryption so they can then be pooled into a common computer framework with the ability to dynamically allocate different resources efficiently and effectively. This essentially allows businesses to treat network services like cloud applications.”