What is a private 5G network and why do they improve security and privacy?

Companies are receiving more and more attacks and are looking for new solutions to defend their infrastructures and protect their businesses. Cybercriminals in an increasingly digital world have focused their attacks on both small, medium and large companies. Their goal is to carry out ransomware and other attacks for profit. Organizations are turning to network segmentation and other strategies to protect their networks. In this article we are going to see how private 5G networks are being adopted in companies to improve security and speed.

What is a private 5G network

Private 5G networks are on the rise

An Economist Impact survey found that there is great interest in private 5G networks. In that aspect , 90% of executives expect the private 5G network to become the standard network option . An interesting fact is that the report shows that 51% of organizations planning to implement a private 5G network will do so within the next six to 24 months. Its purpose is to improve security, reliability and speed. In addition, 30% of these respondents are already implementing or are in the process of implementing their private 5G networks.

As for the most interested are the German companies that with a percentage of 40% have already implemented private 5G networks. Next, with 28% are companies from the United Kingdom, those from Japan with 26% and then with 24% those from the United States. On the other hand, 80% of the executives agree that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it easier to manage the necessary budget for the implementation of private 5G networks. You may be interested in knowing everything about 5G technology.

security concern

Concerns about the rise in ransomware attacks and demands for ransom payments have CIOs and CISOs looking for new ways to defend against increasingly sophisticated attacks. Thus, the research reveals that 69% of executives think that the security of their current infrastructure is not solid enough.

On the other hand, weak points include control of business data at 48%, coverage, speed at 43%, and response time from your current provider at 40%. In this aspect, if we compare them with Wi-Fi and public 5G, we find that private 5G networks provide superior security capacity. 83% of executives highlight the improvement of privacy and data security as a very important point to highlight and that they hope to achieve it thanks to the implementation of their private 5G networks.

Challenges, strategies and transformations

As for one of the most important challenges identified in the research with 44% of those interviewed, it is the difficulty of integrating technology with legacy systems and networks with private 5G networks . Also another important challenge for 37% is the complexity surrounding the deployment and management of this type of network. To this must also be added that for 30% of companies, their employees lack the technical skills and experience necessary for the administration of 5G networks.

For these reasons mentioned above, 38% of CIOs tend to outsource to a managed service provider to implement this type of network. In that regard, purchasing a private 5G network as a service can speed up adoption time and offer a better customer experience. Finally, according to Shahid Ahmed, Executive Vice President of NTT, the adoption of private 5G is happening now and organizations that take advantage of private 5G networks will have a very significant competitive advantage. It also adds that it can drastically help to digitize their businesses safely.