Industrial 5G campus networks in the 3.7 to 3.8 GHz frequency range are currently being tested at over 85 locations in Germany. According to the industry associations VCI, VDA, VDMA and ZVEI, this shows the great potential and underlines the opportunity to develop Germany into a leading market and leading provider for industrial mobile communications-based applications.

One year after the award conditions for local industrial and agricultural mobile networks came into force, the Federal Network Agency has already received almost 90 applications. While commercial 5G technology is already available for end customers in some regions, industrial 5G is still in the standardization phase and is being brought to market maturity in automation technology.

Local campus networks give companies complete control over their own data, customized coverage of the company premises and a network implementation that is independent of existing networks (such as WLAN). This opens up enormous potential for technological development and innovation in Germany. The basis for the realization of the Industry 4.0 vision is thus created. "For companies in the automotive industry, 5G campus networks enable the networking of plants and systems in production and thus create a new, very efficient form of flexibilization," says Dr. Joachim Damasky, Managing Director of the VDA.

Companies have the option of building and operating their 5G mobile networks themselves or having them planned and operated by public network operators and the network equipment industry. From the perspective of the industry associations VCI, VDA, VDMA and ZVEI, this competition in the field of 5G networks is an important step for the successful establishment of 5G technology in Germany.

Associations issue statements

"In mechanical and plant engineering, 5G campus networks in combination with an edge cloud are an important building block for new technical solutions for mobile and stationary machines. The high security and low latency of 5G campus networks coupled with the scalability of computing power in the cloud drastically reduces development costs. Real-time applications or other very compute-intensive systems, such as image processing or AI algorithms, benefit from this in particular," confirms Ansgar Bergmann, Technology & Innovation - CTR, Project Manager CTO, KION Group/Still GmbH and member of the VDMA 5G User Group

Martin Schwibach, Industrial Connectivity & Industrial Mobility at BASF and VCI committee member for digitalization, also sees 5G campus networks as an important prerequisite for driving forward the digital transformation in the chemical industry: "Together with various providers, we are currently setting up a test environment in the production environment to pilot 5G in various application areas. The entire process industry is breaking new ground with 5G. Close cooperation with partners is therefore particularly important in order to continuously learn from each other. This will enable us to fully exploit the technology's potential in the future."

"Industrial 5G campus networks are opening up completely new fields of application with automation technology, for example in flexible, networked production or system monitoring. The diverse fields of application are future-proof for the electrical industry," adds Herbert Wegmann, General Manager Digital Connectivity and Power at Siemens Digital Industries, Process Automation, and Chairman of the ZVEI Steering Committee for Industrial Communication.