The first industrial 5G router for private networks
30 June 2020
Phoenix Contact, Quectel and Ericsson have worked together to develop and deploy the first industrial 5G router for local industrial applications in a private 5G network.
With the help of the newly developed 5G Router, industrial applications, such as machines, controls and other equipment, can now be connected to a private 5G network and thus be orchestrated in their resource usage, priority and behaviour. They therefore offer a decisive advantage compared to previous mobile radio solutions, which can only use all – mostly license-free – radio bands with a best effort principle and which have to accept performance losses in equal measure when the radio spectrum is heavily occupied.
To achieve this, all three companies brought their strengths together: Phoenix Contact as the supplier of WLAN, Bluetooth and mobile radio routers for industrial applications, Quectel as the supplier of cellular and GNSS modules and Ericsson supporting the product development as a network supplier and advocate of 5G technology development. By starting to interact at an early stage, the three companies have been able to rapidly develop a solution that provides industrial-grade performance over private 5G networks. The collaboration between Quectel, Phoenix Contact and Ericsson has seen extensive interoperability testing at the Ericsson lab to ensure the reliable commercial performance of the 5G router. The experience made is highly important for Ericsson following the strategic approach offering 5G solutions jointly with mobile network operators towards the industry. In addition, all three companies cooperated closely to enable Industry 4.0 applications with this 5G standalone private network.
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