Size and growth of the private wireless market
1. Size estimations for the embryonic private wireless market
The market for private wireless systems and cellular networks in verticals has just emerged. The
market took of when and where country regulators provided access to suitable, affordable spectrum
that enterprises could then establish a network on with their own equipment, vendors, systems
integrators and most of all with the KPI’s that suited their particular processes and automation.
Countries that have been amongst the first to liberate spectrum for these purposes have been for
instance the UK and the Netherlands, with the opening up of private spectrum in 1800 MHz., the so
called DECT/GSM guard band. These bands have been available for around a decade and have led to
respectively 1000 and over 500 systems in the UK and the Netherlands alone. Since then, countries
like Germany and – again – UK have been early starters with the provisioning of 100 or more MHz of
private spectrum in the designated 5G anchor band of 3.5 Ghz. Again, since these frequencies have
been released just years ago, these 2 countries have seen 100’s of applications and wireless industry
networks. France has been another case, with 40MHz in the 26 Ghz band, and recently countries like
Sweden, Finland and Denmark have followed with private spectrum.
