Private 5G networks: a survey on enabling technologies, deployment models, use cases and research directions

Today’s modern enterprises are adjusting to new realities of connectivity. As companies become more distributed and autonomous, emerging applications demand more bandwidth, low latency, more spectrum, and higher reliability. 5G technology can aid many industries or enterprises to make quicker and better business decisions. Private 5G networks, also called 5G Non-Public Networks (5G-NPN), is a 3GPP-based standalone 5G network positioned for a particular enterprise or use case that delivers dedicated network access. It sets to transform industry landscapes with networks capable of rapidly deploying modern use cases and the scalability to meet constantly increasing demands of data capacity and speed. They help generate more revenue for operators who can partner with enterprises to build and manage networks on-premise or in the cloud. The objective of this work is to offer a thorough summary of private 5G networks to assist academicians, researchers, and network developers to quickly grasp their functionalities without needing to go through the standards, specifications, or documentation. This paper discusses various key private 5G network design goals and requirements, examines its deployment scenarios, and explores spectrum considerations and security aspects. The paper presents several enterprise use cases to illuminate how the networks can deliver the demands and services expected by the industries. It also provides an overview of some of the open-source projects considered by various organizations for private network deployment. Finally, several research directions are introduced, emphasizing enterprise challenges to deploying 5G networks.