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According to a 2019 study by Capgemini on the benefits of 5G in industrial operations, 44% of companies identified connectivity as a major challenge for digital transformation. Five years later, one of the report's predictions largely holds true: not all the features customers wanted have materialized within the expected timeframes.
However, recent innovations in 5G Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) promise to close many of the technical and market gaps that have hindered important transformational innovation and investment in industrial automation. SyncMetra® bridges the wireless latency gap by providing a deterministic, low-latency solution for mission-critical industrial applications.
Why the Appetite for 5G in Industry?
The desire to introduce 5G in industrial environments like ports, manufacturing, and logistics is well understood across key segments. With features such as guaranteed quality of service (QoS), ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and enhanced security, 5G’s potential to improve operations on the shop floor and across supply chains remains highly attractive.
Yet while the exciting, value-rich applications of 5G are easy to envision, finding viable ways to deploy the technology—let alone encourage widespread adoption—has proven much more challenging. The challenges stem from the gap between cost-effective Wi-Fi solutions that lack reliability and expensive, overbuilt 5G deployments.
A Third, Better Choice – Finally
Until recently, industrial customers and their partners had to choose between two unsatisfactory options: underbuilding with Wi-Fi or overbuilding with traditional 5G. Wi-Fi is easy to deploy, affordable, and effective for best-effort connectivity but fails to guarantee critical timing and low latency.
On the other hand, purpose-built 5G networks for factories, while offering deterministic performance, have been prohibitively expensive to build, program, and maintain. Only the largest corporations could justify such investments, and even fewer could attract the engineering expertise needed to implement these systems.
SyncMetra® 5G TSN changes all that by delivering a programmable, expandable, and affordable alternative to Wi-Fi and overbuilt 5G for industrial automation.
Transformative Value
While the reasons for delays in innovation and closing the wireless latency gap—such as misalignment between IT and telecom or market allocation issues—can be debated, the benefits of 5G TSN technology in industrial settings are clear.
Reduced Cabling Costs
Until recently, cabling was the only practical way to ensure guaranteed QoS and TSN in latency-sensitive applications. However, Ethernet and fiber connections can account for 20-40% of total setup costs in industrial environments and between 10-30% of maintenance costs for cable inspection and replacement.
Enhanced Mobility
Cabling is not viable for vehicles, mobile devices, or accessing real-time data from the many devices in large-scale Industry 4.0 operations. A programmable, less fixed solution like SyncMetra® 5G TSN offers long-term utility and value, enabling greater flexibility and adaptability.
Economic Advantages
The economic benefits of 5G TSN are significant. The inability to move and repurpose industrial equipment has historically restricted the adoption of transformative technologies. With SyncMetra’s more programmable, scalable, and affordable connectivity, medium- and smaller-sized businesses can now justify the capital investments needed for transformation, re-evaluating their possibilities for automation, robotics, and beyond.
SyncMetra® enables businesses to eliminate the trade-offs between affordability, performance, and scalability, empowering industries to fully embrace the digital transformation required to stay competitive in an Industry 4.0 world.
