Of all the announcements made at the Mobile World Congress which concluded yesterday (2 March), in Barcelona, Spain, none, arguably, was as potentially disruptive as the one made by telecom service provider Vodafone.

The company unveiled technology it had developed that  effectively shrunk the size of the hardware required for a private 5G network,  to something one could hold in the palm of one’s hand.

And that was just the prototype.

Vodafone suggested that the final version could be even smaller — since the heart of the system was the widely-used Raspberry Pi computer, which was the size of a credit card.

To this, Vodafone had attached an even smaller circuit board, containing what is known as a Software Defined Radio (SDR) made by its partner Lime Microsystems, which provided all the functionality of a 5G receiving-transmitting station. 

Mobile Private Network

Vodafone calls its product a 5G “Mobile Private Network (MPN)” — effectively creating a new subclass within the broad area of private 5G networks.

Why is this both exciting  and potentially disruptive  to the just-emerging business of  providing enterprises  with their own  captive or private 5G networks, which Swarajya  recently surveyed?

Because, for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the consumer 5G connection  is insufficiently  secure  and swift, while a dedicated  private 5G network may be too pricey an option. Yet they, as much as the larger players  see 5G as a critical  business accelerator if only  it was within their reach.

Now, it is.

Shrinking complexity and cost

By shrinking both complexity and cost of setting up a small private 5G network, Vodafone’s mobile avatar, or MPN can potentially  level the playing field for lakhs of MSMEs and place  a custom 5G network within their reach.

“We looked at what Raspberry Pi did for computing, in terms of making it more accessible to people of all ages, and we wanted to do the same with 5G”, says Vodafone’s announcement of its Lilliput-sized entry into the private 5G business.

Experts who have seen the MPN product agree. 

John Marcus, Principal Technology Analyst at Global Data said the most “provocative piece of Vodafone’s announcement” comes with the highlighting of a whole “new and large market segment” for private 5G, that is small businesses, “which would represent an exponentially larger number of potential customers than today’s target market of large industrials”.

Wag the dog

In other words, when it comes to the private 5G network business, the MSME tail could soon wag the large-enterprise dog.

Vodafone suggested this week that its tiny 5G solution is a way of “democratizing” private 5G networks. 

When the  prototype shown this week eventually morphs into a commercial product, it may do just that.