5G LAN Accelerates the Development of Industrial Internet

On July 3rd, 2020, the International Standards Organization 3GPP announced the freezing of the 5G R16 standard, which includes a definition for 5G LAN as an important accelerator for expanding 5G into vertical industries, opening the way for the integration of industrial IT and OT.

The inherent characteristics of 5G, including easy deployment, low latency, high reliability, large bandwidth, and wide connectivity, provide significant advantages in solving the pain points encountered by traditional manufacturing industries during their transformation, such as complicated wiring, complex communication environments, susceptibility to interference, and sensitivity to latency and stability. However, in the early stages of 5G application in the industrial manufacturing field, it also faces challenges of high cost and difficult scalability. It was not until the R16 standard further supported the introduction of 5G LAN functionality that the road to convergence between Industrial IT and OT was opened, enabling 5G+Industrial Internet to move towards low-cost, easy deployment, and accelerating the scale popularization of 5G.

During the R15 era, the 5G network relied on the three-layer protocol of IP addressing, which did not directly support the second-layer protocol. The 5G industry terminals also only supported three-layer IP network access. To achieve 5G wireless access for industrial equipment, it was necessary to introduce AR routers to configure virtual second-layer networks. After entering the R16 era, the private mobile LAN service provided by 5G networks - 5G LAN, no longer requires additional tunnel equipment such as AR routers, allowing 5G to directly enter the factory Intranet. At the same time, it supports user mobility, subnetting, and subnet-based management capabilities, achieving a minimal network and flexible configuration, forming integration with industrial networks.

5G LAN builds “groups” for enterprise terminals and bypasses business servers to provide flexible communication services such as terminal intercommunication or isolation for terminals in the group. The LAN can support point-to-point and point-to-multi points communication modes based on IP or Ethernet.

As more and more companies launch products and solutions that support 5G LAN, such as base stations, CPE devices, terminal equipment, and IoT cards, 5G will promote the acceleration of industrial internet and usher in the era of “Industry 5G”.