The ecosystem of companies providing private wireless networks is vast – “It’s a lot of Legos to put together for every unique market,” according to Mobile Experts’ Joe Madden
The ecosystem of companies providing private wireless networks is vast and can include any combination of telcos, network equipment vendors, software platform providers, systems integrators, hyperscalers, neutral host network providers, satellite operators, industrial automation vendors, IoT module developers and device manufacturers, among others. “It’s a lot of Legos to put together for every unique market,” says Mobile Experts’ Madden.
Early on, telcos expected to take the lead in providing P5G to enterprises. They already controlled spectrum and had decades of experience building and running cellular networks.
Control and customisation
Instead, as the private 5G market began to mature, enterprises made it clear that they needed more control and customisation than most telcos could provide. In addition, the rise of locally licensed and shared spectrum such as CBRS in the US and dedicated enterprise spectrum in countries like Germany and Japan allowed businesses to deploy private 5G without an operator to supply spectrum.
Enterprises turned to the network equipment providers themselves to lead many of the world’s largest private wireless network deployments. Indeed, at the end of 2025 Nokia reported that it surpassed 1,000 private wireless network contracts, and GSA estimates that the equipment provider has about 50% of the market.
Even so, Nokia announced in November that it is designating its Enterprise Campus Edge (ECE) business as a non-core asset to be reviewed and possibly sold or divested. Many analysts took that to mean that the company was planning to exit the private 5G business. Confusingly Nokia later said that isn’t the case.
When asked by Mobile Europe about the future of its private wireless business, a Nokia spokesperson said via email: “At Nokia, we will continue to reinforce our leadership in advanced connectivity for mission-critical applications worldwide. Team Nokia will keep developing and selling its industry-leading radios for private networks with either Nokia or third-party core platforms, to ensure maximum flexibility and access to optimal ecosystem solutions.”
It takes a village
Simply put, successful deployments require an ecosystem of partners Nokia states. “There’s no one magic combination, where local spectrum & mission-critical SLAs [service level agreements] dominate or enterprise policy or national frameworks favor one model or others,” the spokesperson wrote. “It depends on the deployment scale, planned scalability, compliance and roadmap & blueprint support.”
Nokia looks to telcos to provide access to spectrum, national outreach, managed services and co-selling opportunities into enterprise accounts. Hyperscalers deliver cloud-native platforms, standardised app deployment and observability, and they support hybrid edge-cloud solutions. Systems integrators and industrial software providers also often have an ‘in’ with customers and can reduce risks around integrating OT.
Some of the other ecosystem partners with unique roles in P5G are described below. In some cases, they lead the deployments, working with a RAN vendor. In other cases, they’re the supporting partner.
• 5G core platform providers – companies like Druid Software (sponsor of this report) supply the software intelligence that manages how devices are authenticated and how they communicate and receive prioritised connectivity inside a private 5G network. These platforms typically offer features such as traffic steering, security enforcement and low‑latency routing, which industrial environments rely on. Some core vendors also focus on edge architectures that let enterprises run time‑critical functions closer to where data is generated.
• Device manufacturers – they contribute specialised hardware like sensors, handhelds, robots, rugged tablets and machine controllers. In many deployments, these devices provide telemetry, status data and operational insights.
• Neutral hosts – neutral host network providers like Boldyn Networks supply shared infrastructure, which helps enterprises cut costs and speed deployment while still giving them control of their own networks. Neutral hosts also simplify multisite expansion, allowing organisations to scale coverage (across campuses, for example) without rebuilding the network every time.
• Satellite operators – they extend private 5G where terrestrial coverage is lacking, offering backhaul or direct connectivity for remote, offshore or rugged environments. By integrating satellite links with 5G core networks, satellite operators can ensure consistent performance, even during natural disasters or infrastructure outages or in geographies where fibre and microwave links aren’t practical.
This fragmentation and positioning P5G as infrastructure – rather than a valuable, accountable platform that includes connectivity – is why, according to Sebastian Barros’ post in February, “in many campus deployments, the effective telco capture is below $150k annually, even though the network underpins operations with orders of magnitude higher value.”
This is an excerpt from Mobile Europe‘s research report, Solving the profit puzzle of private 5G networks – we delve deeper into economic models in the Conclusion. The report is free to download.
China has lessons for rest of the world
China leads the world in private 5G deployment, with roughly 64,000 networks although the ecosystem model there is different than in other parts of the world as most P5G networks are virtual private networks (VPNs) delivered via network slicing.
The large number of deployments is due to a combined effort by regulators, telcos and other ecosystem players to expand private 5G, according to Sam Bao, Deputy Head and Director of Technical Services for China Mobile International (CMI), the global arm of China Mobile. Bao spoke recently during the Industrial Wireless Forum.
China even has an annual competition, the Bloom Cup, to find the most innovative P5G applications. “From the regulatory perspective, from China Mobile’s and all the industrial peers’ perspectives, we are bringing a big effort to push private 5G,” Bao said.
CMI provides global systems integration services, supported by the larger operator group. “We are responsible for all the international business, including support for Chinese businesses settling abroad as well as for international businesses going into China,” Bao explained.
In China, enterprises cannot obtain their own industrial spectrum licences, so the country’s private 5G model is driven by the mobile operators. As a result, private 5G deployments rely on either network slicing on public networks or hybrid models where key functions like the user plane are deployed locally while other elements remain shared.
“Carriers lead the private 5G market in China because of the spectrum licensing,” he said. “Many countries in the world at the moment have industrial spectrum. However, most countries are still relying on the carrier to enable the private 5G deployment.”
“I think the model we’ve adopted can be mimicked in many countries, even in those countries that have industrial spectrum available… We work with many European carriers – they are very active in private 5G deployment.”
Sam Bao, Deputy Head and Director of Technical Services for China Mobile International (CMI), the global arm of China Mobile
