Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
What's the current landscape of Private 5G? Well, let's explore with Simon O'Donnell, America's GTM, leader of ANet and HPE Acquisition.

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
Great to be here.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
There's been a lot of interest in private cellular networks. What's behind the demand and why would operators and enterprise want a private network?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
That's a great question. Really, it falls down to three areas. That is coverage, mobility, and device level security. When it comes to coverage, we get a lot more coverage out of a cellular radio than a traditional wifi radio. That doesn't mean that we are going to replace wifi. We augment the wifi solution because in a lot of occasions there is a need to have both private cellular and wifi, and our solution augments that.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
So what is different about the ethernet approach? What are the use cases?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
So number one, the ethernet approach has been designed for the ground up to support enterprise. And when I say designed from the ground up, I mean you don't need to be a telco engineer to deploy a cellular network, an ethernet cellular network, right? And what that means is we have designed a solution. Yes, all the network functions are there in the background to manage a network like a traditional telco network. However, we've overlaid that with simple portals that can manage the network, that anyone can support that network.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
One of the interesting things is that when you think about equipment for something as important as communications, it's really very small. What does it look like?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
Yeah. Our starter kit has been designed to support POCs where customers are interested in testing the waters of a private cellular network before they deploy. Typically, they can take our small farm factor starter kit, deploy that test it, ensure that they've got the coverage that they need, that the devices are supported and they can perform it and test them before really having to go out and purchase a larger private network.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
So that one that we just saw is stationary, but is there a portable version of it?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
Yeah, absolutely. We've designed a solution in a backpack actually that's used with various militaries around the world, and it allows the militaries to deploy a bubble network or a network in a bubble to support multiple users in remote environments. It includes the radio, the Athonet core, and battery backpacks or narrow battery so that you can support mobility within that solution. What's unique to our solution when it comes to our backpacks is that we can support a federated network. What that means is you can have multiple backpack bubbles that can connect to each other and then back haul over whatever satellite link is available or internet link that's available for the customer.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
Are there industrial use cases as well?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
100%. We have a lot of industrial scenarios, and now we're seeing that we're moving beyond the POC stage and into actual production solutions. And we've got some scenarios here that we can show today because it's not only about the network, it's what we can put on top of that network. Right? And network's fine, but it's the applications that we provide on top of that that are supportive.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
So the robot that we're seeing, how is that work into the private 5G network?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
Fantastic question, and it's one of the key areas in which we can really demonstrate the effects and the capabilities of a private 5G network. What we're seeing now is a robot that is moving around an industrial setting. What's very important and what's critical to a private cellular network is we support mobility. And when I say mobility is the ability to roam between access points or e node bees, gen bees as they're called in the industry, but it's roam seamlessly between those. Why is that important? Robots need to be constantly connected to their management system to ensure that they are where they're supposed to be and that they have the control areas that are needed, right? And it's very important that we have that connectivity and mobility. Our solution today can support mobile units that are moving from access point to access point, gaining speeds of up to 75 miles an hour. And it's very important to see that

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
Across all verticals. Everyone is really concerned about security. Does the solution actually add to making companies or businesses, or even events safer?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE:
Yes. We have device level security included as part of our solution where we have the SIM identity, it's an actual physical sim or an EIM that's connected in to that end user device and it's managed by the ANet portal. We can enable and disable based upon what the user inputs.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV:
So Simon, what is the coolest place you've seen Private 5G?

Simon O'Donnell, HPE
Oh, we've seen some fantastic deployments all over the world. I think one that's really cool is we deployed a private cellular network in Antarctica that required the rugged needed to support a deployment in a really, really cool and challenging location. We set up a network that allowed any travelers and researchers to communicate effectively. We added our IMS for voice capabilities. It was just a fantastic solution. We're really excited to be part of that and we look forward to many more.

Clarence Reynolds, TelecomTV
If it'll work there, it'll work anywhere. Simon, thank you.

Simon O'Donnell, HPE
Thanks so much. It's been great.