Expeto CEO Says Evidence-Based Business Cases Will Drive 5G Innovation

WASHINGTON — 5G technology is already in the business of saving lives through tangible examples of its deployment improving health and safety measures and efficient automation, said Expeto CEO Michael Anderson during Fierce Wireless’s E5G Show’s second day.

While enterprises may be aware of the benefits of 5G technology, the risk of potential disruption to their operations can make them hesitant to deploy these private mobile networks, Anderson said.

Despite there being no doubt about the return on investment in enterprise 5G deployment, “minutes of downtime can cost millions of dollars,” Anderson warned. A global leader in private mobile networking for enterprise customers, cloud-based platform Expeto’s approach is to think big, he said, but start small. 

“Aim small, miss small, and really [focus] on brand new capabilities that have a meaningful business case but that are not initially too big of a leap,” he suggested. 

“Demonstrated results,” he explained, will “earn you that seat at the big table” without disrupting the playbook that these enterprise customers operate on. There needs to be a “shift to…the practicality of how we’re starting to implement 5G, no matter how compelling the use case is,” he warned, and it starts with the customer’s perspective.

“Respect the way they do things,” he charged, noting these customers have decades of experience receiving the yields by operating the way they know how. Show them the way in which their own unique approach and technology will “fit seamlessly into what [the enterprise is] doing.”

These smaller scale projects will prove how 5G will expand the operation’s reach and allow for productivity gains and better safety merely from the real-time insights gained from data speedily collected. That, he said, will allow for scalable projects in the long run. It will also eventually be saving lives in terms of “reducing waste, reducing the use of energy, using less materials,” he added.  

Expeto itself has begun with pilot programs in autonomous mining and connected utilities – huge industries that he said had not had the benefits of 5G’s speed, reach, and scale. These projects, he explained, have high value and low risk, but have provided tangible results. So much so that in the next 18 months, he added, “we’re going to start to see recognizable brands…doing bigger and better things…starting small, but yet starting to scale faster.”

In the connected mines, Expeto has been able to eliminate service disruptions for autonomous vehicles, as well as trackable and real-time safety diagnostics for workers and assets. In connected utilities, he explained, they’ve been able to reduce technical losses and improve forecasting. 

The last few years, the U.S. has become increasingly aware of what happens when it comes to natural disasters affecting utilities. As we look at climate change and those disasters, Anderson said, being able to give out-of-state emergency responders tablets or trackable devices that are still connected out in the field “was a huge win.”