Juha Remes’ 4-part blog series discusses the current situation in the electricity market. The last part of the blog series focuses specifically on industrial data transmission infrastructure.

Blog 4: The world is like one huge mainframe

Data is always either in motion or stationary, stored. Moving data back and forth always takes a lot of electricity. The delay in data transmission can be critical if, for example, a car or train travels at 100 km / h, moving 36 centimeters per hundredth of a second, and is controlled from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. In a mobile infrastructure, it is necessary to be able to predict how quickly a car weighing thousands of kilograms will stop, or turn – it can take several kilometers to brake a heavy train.

In industry, the tolerances, that is, accuracy requirements, can be in micrometers. In these cases, the data cannot be moved to global cloud solutions on the other side of the world.

Communication must be lag-free. In various industrial applications, an uninterrupted, properly authorized connection of a huge number of devices is required. Traffic volumes may be small, but it must be possible to serve the entire number of devices uninterruptedly. Communication must be uninterrupted for high device density. Remote operation requires increasingly accurate 3D visuals, better image resolution. Here, the speed of data in both directions easily becomes critical. Speed and larger amounts of data are required. There are three different types of data needs, the combination of which creates even more combinations for telecommunications requirements.

5G makes it possible to bring telecommunications and data capacity close to the customer’s area of use, “at the edge of the network”. In the past, network technology has always been entirely managed by telecom operators, but 5G enables private networks. A private network may be implemented or owned by the user himself or by another actor specializing in the field. The model can be provided by a telecom operator, perhaps with new service models, or it can be created in cooperation with network equipment manufacturers and cloud service providers. There will be a lot of new options available.

This creates the possibility that the data no longer needs to be transferred to the centralized cloud and back.  Cloud solutions can be implemented in an optimized manner. New communication solutions can be offered to different equipment suppliers via a local area network, and data is not always transported thousands of kilometers away. 5G technology enables the deployment of private networks, which means that the telecommunications infrastructure, wireless, applications and cloud services as a whole are located inside an industrial plant or shopping center.

An analogy can be drawn from the computer revolution of the 1980s, which went from a “stupid mainframe terminal terminal” to a decentralized personal computer. The central computer infrastructure utilized the services of the common network: printers, plotters, scanners, recorders, databases and other common applications. PCs became more common and eventually intelligence was both decentralized and centralized.

Next, the companies’ services moved from their own clouds and servers to global cloud solutions. At the same time, the range of terminals became more diverse, and the cloud service could be utilized with both simpler and more complex terminals.

Now, with 5G, this is happening on a global scale, returning to the transformation of the PC and decentralizing centralized cloud infrastructures. Some of the centralized services operate on-premises and some rely on centralized cloud infrastructures, which offer a wider range of services. 5G local infrastructure can utilize suitably optimized service packages that take into account the special requirements related to the movement and processing of data. At the same time, some IoT  devices will be connected to a local cloud infrastructure that serves devices like a central computer from the 1980s: devices are like terminals, and the near cloud like a central computer.

At the same time, some IoT devices will be connected to the local cloud infrastructure, which will serve the devices like a central computer of the 1980s, the devices will be like terminals, the near cloud like a central computer.

Telecommunications network solutions must be able to be optimized from unnecessary back-and-forth data traffic by developing new business models for data processing. There is a need for artificial intelligence and new business models to solve the problem of “roaming” between private networks and to find out how to operate from them to public networks. At the same time, the pricing reform of telecommunications features and the verification of quality must be resolved. In the future, the costs of telecommunications cannot only be based on the “APRU=Average Revenue per User” model currently in use, but pricing must include pricing metrics based on the qualitative measurement of telecommunications. Industrial equipment cannot rely solely on “by the best effort” traffic in production.

Electricity and data are like air and water to humans

If the data does not flow seamlessly and qualitatively in the production of a corporate customer, meeting the requirements, the end result can be catastrophic in terms of business continuity. A supply problem arises, as in the energy crisis. Socially critical activities are entirely dependent on electricity and data.  It is not about the price of a single gigabyte, but about the qualitative availability of telecommunications. This can be compared to a person: we need blood and oxygen in the blood to circulate to the brain. Electricity is the blood of continuous business operations, data mobility is the oxygen of digitization, necessities for the functioning of society and the maintenance of business operations. The physical and digital worlds are integrated and their integration will accelerate in the future. At the same time, the number of devices based on the Internet or other network connections is growing at an unprecedented rate. The economic impact of 5G is estimated to settle at $13.2 trillion for the next few years globally.

In reality, however, it is about much more than that: the viability of the digitization of the whole world.

Eliminating risks means realizing opportunities

Many things have failed when there has been a lack of risk assessment. The risk assessments have been prepared as just an Excel spreadsheet. Risk management is often organisationally separated from operational and strategic activities into its own isolated island of a small group. Risk management has been seen as a burden, an expense item.

What if that risk turns into an opportunity? What is changing in the company? This new opportunity arouses new interest and concerns the management, board and owners of the entire company. Behind every risk there is always an opportunity. The eliminated risk opens up a new opportunity for which implementation can be planned.

The opportunity turns into success when investment entities are outlined, the availability, trust, quality, overall security, regulatory changes and adaptation to all of these are taken into account, dynamically. Risk management must not remain a one-off assessment, a measure, but must be integrated into the continuous business operations of the entire company and organization.

We are in an energy crisis, and we are heading towards a telecommunications crisis if we do not make the necessary changes in time.

Crises are just challenges that need to be addressed. Their effects are predictable and at the same time eliminated. We have the technology and know-how to eliminate these. Finland has the most advanced 5G networks in Europe, and we have above-average self-sufficiency in electricity. The availability of these critical elements that maintain the vital functions of the company is at the best level in the EU in Finland. Above all, Finland also has ready-made and predictable legislation now for the utilization of 5G. Finland is one of the first countries in the EU to allocate 5G private network frequencies, where each company can acquire its own private spectrum. Finland is a country where it is possible to create competitive breakthroughs in digitization, responsibly and energy-saving.

We can proactively identify a risk and turn them into opportunities.

John Remes

PwC: 5G and Risk Assurance Services