5G industry virtual private networks are advancing with the times

5G breaks through the limitations of communication between people and expands communication between people and things, opening up an era of the Internet of Everything. The technical characteristics and application scenarios of 5G make it an important engine for the development of the digital economy.

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According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, 5G is expected to drive China's digital economy to grow by 15.2 trillion yuan from 2020 to 2025, of which 5G technology is expected to contribute to other industries by 11.9 trillion yuan. It can be seen that the integration of 5G and industry will become the main battlefield for the development of the digital economy in the future. According to IHS forecasts, by 2035, the potential global sales across industries driven by 5G will reach 11.6 trillion US dollars. From the perspective of vertical industries, the industry with the largest economic output driven by 5G is manufacturing, reaching 4.7 trillion US dollars, accounting for 5.4% of the total output. Survey data on 806 industry companies around the world show that in the next 1 to 2 years, more than half of the companies hope to use 5G, among which the willingness to apply 5G in industries such as aerospace and defense, semiconductors and high-tech manufacturing, airports, ports, railways, medicine and life sciences exceeds 70%.

Why can 5G produce a "chemical effect" with so many industries and promote their digital transformation and upgrading? For traditional industries, 5G is equivalent to the "central nervous system" in industry digitalization, connecting the underlying equipment with the information "brain" of the enterprise, and providing enterprises with high-speed, high-stability, and low-latency information transmission channels, enabling them to open up the vertical data circulation channels between the enterprise, and also to build a horizontal data flow system between enterprises and between enterprises and customers, so that other ICT infrastructure such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence can play the greatest role, and jointly build a new type of information and communication infrastructure for various industries to support the digitalization, networking, and intelligent transformation of vertical industries.

Industry virtual private networks have become the only way for my country's 5G industry integration development. At present, the integration of 5G and the industry is still in its early stages, and meeting the business needs of the industry has become the premise of all integration work. Industry enterprises have used Ethernet, Wi-Fi and other network technologies within the enterprise to carry out a variety of production, operation and other services, and have shown differences from individual consumer needs in terms of network usage requirements, operation models, and ecological construction methods. When introducing 5G, industry enterprises mainly consider the following five special needs.

First, the need to carry multiple domains and multiple types of services. 5G must be able to carry different types of services within and outside the enterprise park, such as production and management services within the park, logistics between parks, and supply chain collaboration.

Second, the need for system integration. 5G must be able to be smoothly integrated into existing business systems, preferably "plug and play", without making major changes to existing business processes, and be able to interconnect and deeply integrate with existing systems.

Third, data security protection is achieved through domain isolation. It ensures the secure isolation of public network services and enterprise services, and can meet the security management needs of the core services within the enterprise, such as core services within the park, and secure isolation of IT and OT.

Fourth, the network is exclusive and the construction cost is low enough. Industry enterprises hope that the 5G network can be designed and used individually for them. Under the premise of ensuring the security and stability of business data, the construction and use costs of the 5G network should be as low as possible, and the expected benefits should be significantly higher than the investment costs.

Fifth, simple and independent operation and maintenance of 5G networks. Industry enterprises hope to have the right to operate and manage the internal 5G network of the enterprise, so that they can open accounts and check the status of the network and terminals independently, and adjust the network at any time according to their business requirements to maximize the continuity of production. Network operation and maintenance should be simple to reduce the cost of enterprise network operation and maintenance.

At present, the existing 5G toC network is not suitable for industry enterprises. On the one hand, the existing 5G toC network is planned and designed for consumer services, and does not take into account the 5G network construction architecture of the park and the deterministic transmission of different types of services, nor does it take into account the security isolation requirements such as the business does not leave the park; on the other hand, the existing 5G toC network is uniformly operated and maintained by operators, and industry users do not have the right to operate and maintain the network independently for the time being. The 5G private network using industry-specific frequencies cannot meet the requirements in terms of simple independent operation and maintenance, low cost, etc. At present, the operation and maintenance of 5G networks are too complicated, and the cost of human and material investment is high, which industry enterprises cannot afford and do not need to bear; in addition, the private network industry chain needs to rebuild the industry chain due to the use of dedicated frequencies. To what extent it can borrow the advantages of the public network scale industry remains to be tested by time. From the current situation in my country, since the 5G industry private network frequency has not yet been issued, the main promotion of 5G industry virtual private networks is to provide 5G services to industry users and meet various industry requirements.

5G industry virtual private network refers to a high-quality dedicated virtual network provided to industry users based on the 5G public network that can meet their business and security needs. It is the core carrier for providing industry users with differentiated network services that can be partially operated independently.

To meet industry needs, 5G industry virtual private networks mainly customize and improve toC networks in five aspects.

First, network deployment takes into account the exclusivity of campus coverage and network services. Virtual private networks provide two types of network deployment architectures: wide area and campus local area, to meet the business carrying and management needs of different enterprises in different scenarios; in addition, the core network elements are sunk to the campus, and base stations are specially planned and deployed to ensure that 5G networks provide exclusive experience for enterprises, and different business carrying needs are met by using network slicing, deterministic guarantee and other technologies.

Second, it guarantees the security isolation requirements of services. Virtual private networks achieve the security isolation and independent transmission of the park's public network and industry services through various means such as physical isolation, logical isolation, and service diversion, and also guarantee the security isolation requirements of different services within the enterprise.

The third is the customization and lightweighting of network equipment. According to the different scales and usage requirements of enterprises, network equipment with different functions and performances are launched, such as customized UPF/MEC equipment, hierarchical customized 5G modules, etc., so that enterprises can build and use 5G networks at a lower cost.

Fourth, it provides simple operation and maintenance service capabilities. By providing an external service platform, the virtual private network provides industry users with functions such as 5G network account opening, network monitoring, and network parameter modification, allowing industry users to manage the campus network independently, simply, and conveniently.

The fifth is to provide the ability to integrate with the original system. Through technologies such as 5G LAN and 5G TSN, the virtual private network can be integrated with the existing industry network to build a unified integrated service network.

The industry virtual private network presents a good situation of joint promotion at multiple levels. The ultimate goal of 5G industry virtual private network is to realize the low-cost and high-value sinking of 5G network to industry enterprises, and make 5G network "affordable", "good", "convenient" and "safe". The integration and implementation of industry virtual private network also presents a good situation of joint promotion at multiple levels of national, local and industry.

In terms of national policies, in 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly proposed in the "Notice on Promoting the Accelerated Development of 5G" to organize research and pilot projects on 5G industry virtual private networks to connect key links such as standards, technologies, applications, and deployment.

In terms of cross-industry research, 5G AIA, as a national 5G application research organization, established the "5G Industry Virtual Private Network Research Project Group" in March 2020, and jointly conducted research with more than 20 companies from IT and OT to comprehensively promote the key technology research, standard formulation, testing and verification, and actual deployment of 5G industry private networks. At present, the working group has continued to promote technical research and standard formulation in areas including 5G industry virtual private network network architecture, external service capabilities, lightweight UPF, and 5G and industry LAN integration. In July 2020, at the "2020 China Internet Conference-5G Ecological Forum", the "5G Industry Virtual Private Network Network Architecture White Paper" was released to the public.

In terms of promoting pilot demonstration and large-scale commercialization, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly organized and implemented the "Broadband Network and 5G Field" 2020 New Infrastructure Construction Project, which set up a 5G industry virtual private network project to support enterprises in key areas such as data localization, user management and network monitoring autonomy to carry out research and pilot projects, forming a replicable and popularizable model. The three major operators are also actively promoting the 5G industry virtual private network. China Mobile and China Unicom have both released 5G industry virtual private network white papers, formed their own industry service brands, and actively promoted the implementation of virtual private networks in various projects. According to the statistics of the Blooming Cup, more than 70% of the national finals projects adopted the 5G industry virtual private network deployment model.

The industry virtual private network industry ecosystem shows a trend of integration and customization. Since 5G industry virtual private networks are optimized for the needs of industry enterprises, their industry ecosystem will gradually break through the original toC 5G industry ecosystem, showing a trend of integrated development of CT and vertical industries. The industry ecosystem is more independent and richer, with the development characteristics of customization, integration and low cost.

Network products are showing a development trend of customization and multi-category. The service objects of 5G industry virtual private networks are industry enterprises. Affected by factors such as enterprise scale, security demands and application landing rhythm, network product design should fully consider the application needs and affordability of the enterprise itself, and classify and customize the products. It cannot use unified toC network products to serve, such as UPF equipment. The capacity of consumer-oriented equipment is above one million, and the price is about one million yuan. General industry enterprises do not need such a large capacity, nor can they afford the construction cost of such equipment. Therefore, in the future, 5G industry virtual private networks need to develop hierarchical and classified customized network products according to the scale of enterprises and application landing steps, provide enterprises with different service "menus", and enterprises can choose network equipment on demand.

Chip modules are showing a trend of lightweight and low cost. Industry applications and consumer applications are very different in scope and characteristics. For example, industry applications are fragmented, have limited geographical scope, low mobility requirements, and are cost-sensitive. This requires lightweight and customized transformation of toC 5G chips and modules, such as reducing the frequency band and bandwidth support to achieve lightweight chips and modules, so that different application terminals can choose different chip modules and reduce application costs as much as possible.

Terminals are showing a trend of customization, fragmentation and industrial integration. There are relatively few types of terminals in the consumer field, mostly mobile phones, tablets, etc. In the industry field, 5G will be integrated with various terminal devices in the industry, resulting in a ubiquitous trend of terminal types, with many types of terminals and relatively small shipments of each type. The main body of terminal research and development has also changed from ICT companies in the traditional consumer field to industry companies.

Applications are showing a trend of customization and ecological integration. 5G converged applications are a new type of application formed by the integration of 5G and specific industry applications. Considering that there are many industry categories, a large number of enterprises in each category, and different application methods and original systems in different enterprises, 5G converged applications need to be customized according to the needs of each enterprise, resulting in the development trend of customization, fragmentation and integration of applications. The main body of application ecosystem construction has also changed from being dominated by ICT in the consumer field to a situation of joint competition among emerging application solution providers, operators, IT companies and original industry system integrators.

5G industry virtual private networks have the advantages of customized network coverage, high security, precise performance optimization, and autonomous operation and maintenance management. They can meet the application needs of enterprises of different sizes in different industries. Their industrial ecology also reuses the public network industrial chain to the greatest extent and forms an industrial ecology with its own characteristics, which can meet the needs of the industry for low-cost use and public management of 5G networks. In my country, 5G industry virtual private networks have formed a unified industry service network of operators. The three major operators have also built their own service brands. ICT and industry enterprises have accepted the virtual private network service model. It is believed that 5G virtual private networks will show a booming development trend in various industries in the future.