Unlocking opportunities for the enterprise: from 4G LTE to 5G for business

It’s been said many times: You need to know where you’ve come from to fully understand what’s ahead. In the world of wireless wide-area networking (Wireless WAN), this philosophy helps us greatly appreciate what organizations have been able to accomplish with cellular broadband to date — while also excitedly making new plans centered on the burgeoning 5G infrastructure.

For network administrators these days, “Are you using wireless broadband?” is no longer a question. Practically every enterprise is benefitting from the flexibility, reach, and reliability of 4G LTE for primary or backup WAN connectivity, whether in fixed locations, vehicles, IoT deployments, or all of the above. Now technology departments are asking themselves how much of their network architecture can be wireless. Also, they’re opening their minds to new technologies that 5G can enable today and for many years to come.

5G is giving rise to the wave of Wireless WAN opportunities within enterprise. Yes, this includes transforming brick and mortar connections, but think beyond that to vehicle fleets and IoT. And think new, industry-shifting technologies that require the fiber-fast speeds, low latency, and integrated edge compute capabilities that only 5G can bring.

Hear George Mulhern, CEO of Cradlepoint, describe Wireless Wide-Area Network (WAN) Edge 4G and 5G solutions for the enterprise market.

For years we’ve seen organizations use 4G LTE to provide WAN resiliency and business continuity to remote branch and store sites that require non-stop availability for critical traffic, such as credit card processing and cloud access. What makes cellular networking the go-to technology WAN resiliency is link diversity – one link in the ground, the other in the air. As a result, Wireless WAN has proven to be a boon for retail stores, restaurants, and many other fixed sites that serve the “customer edge.”

With 5G’s arrival, companies envision a big leap, though. Enterprises are preparing for the ability to fail over all traffic — not just some — in small and even larger buildings. For example, a big-box retail store can now have all of its applications fail over from wired to wireless broadband — everything from payment data to inventory systems, security, and employee systems.

It’s a powerful story: the link diversity of ground-based links plus “through the air” connectivity, but with the bandwidth and performance attributes necessary to fail over all network traffic instead of just one or two applications.

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Extension of the network turns into the latest immersive applications

Wireless WAN is the perfect tool for extending an organization’s reach. Inside stores and offices, LTE enables fast and widespread deployment of kiosks, IoT systems, and even third-party business services such as eateries and tax preparation. Outside the “four walls” of fixed locations, cellular broadband is a vital component of pop-up sites and seasonal storefronts.

With 5G, think extended services plus the latest technologies. Yes, companies continue to find ways to meet their customers where they are and want to be, but now those inventive outreach opportunities include applications that previously weren’t feasible with wireless broadband.

Suddenly, connecting a virtual dressing room via cellular broadband might make sense for your retail business. How about mobile health services such as ambulances and testing vans with the ability to quickly send or receive any size of file between the road and the office — even the highest-bandwidth applications? 5G will help organizations extend their work and services not just further, but better.

Rise of in-vehicle IoT leads to high-bandwidth on-board applications

In the past several years, we’ve seen LTE help agencies and businesses turn their vehicles into rolling hotspots. For example, service and delivery trucks, boats, taxis, and other types of commercial vehicles improve the customer experience with Point-of-Sale systems and guest Wi-Fi. Metro transit buses and trains use GPS data for apps that help passengers track arrivals and departures.

Fleets of school buses, police cruisers, fire vehicles, and ambulances now feature technologies that literally save lives and protect well-being — including streaming footage from both mounted video cameras and body cams. In ambulances, live teleconferencing about a stroke patient aboard an ambulance en route to the hospital can save that person’s life.

LTE is good for streaming footage in extreme situations, but not all the time and not in every situation. 5G allows first responders, and well as transit companies, to confidently stream footage whenever and wherever. No traffic will be too much for 5G to handle, and no connected technology will be off limits in vehicles. Imagine what’s possible.

Remote experiences deepen, broaden with low latency

Remote subject matter experts (SMEs) have become an integral part of the new normal in many industries, enabling highly trained specialists in various fields to provide services from afar. It could be an engineer teleconferencing with on-site workers at a mine, or an IT professional talking to a retail store worker through an in-store tech problem. Mostly, though, we see it in healthcare.

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved in 2020, telehealth — facilitated by live video check-ups and consultations across virtually every form of medical and mental healthcare — quickly became a vital service and a key way to reduce the access gap.

Of course, telehealth is incumbent upon consistent, high-bandwidth connectivity on both ends of communication, which can be challenging in remote areas if the local ISP options less than ideal. Mobile broadband solutions help physicians and other practitioners provide internet-based care now in any area with reasonably strong cellular service.

Connected diagnostic medical devices take remote healthcare deeper. A doctor can view data from IoT tools such as otoscopes, ultrasound devices, and electrocardiogram machines in real time while talking to a patient hundreds of miles away. Either or both of them can be located in rural, hard-to-reach areas.

5G moves the needle even further, enabling haptics for remotely delivered surgeries. It requires ultra-low latency at the edge of the network to make this feasible. It’s the kind of thing we grew up thinking of as science fiction. Today it’s real.

I invite you to learn more about the benefits of Wireless WAN and 5G for business. 

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