Ammar Sabbagh on Private 5G Networks

"First thing you need to connect the assets first and get the data. So that's we call it like static digital twin, and then you can use it for simulation. Then you move to the second version, which having like a shadow, digital twin, which you have an image of what's happening, but you can monitor. But the truly digital twin is monitor and control."

In this episode, I’m in conversation with Ammar Sabbagh who is the Vice President Industry and Partnership for Private Networks for Oil and Gas at Ericsson. 5G networks are a huge step forward for telecommunications, offering a step change performance boost over 4G. If you want to run an industrial-grade, resilient, and secure network for your digital devices, you need to be on 5G. 

Here are some of the key questions addressed in the episode: 

1. What is 5G, and why is it better than 4G?

2. What is a private network? 

3. What kinds of problems does a private network solve?

4. What kinds of innovations are enabled by 5G?

5. What are some of the use cases that 5G unlocks?

6. How do you deliver 5G networks where there are no towers?

Ammar Sabbagh is a technology professional specializing in 5G private cellular networks, cloud, decentralized cloud, and IOT solutions for business and industry.

Currently, Ammar serves as vice president of industry & partnership at Ericsson for energy and ports, where he leads business development and global partners management.

Ammar holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Portland State University and an MBA in Management, and has completed various executive leadership training courses, including Design Thinking for Innovation from the London Business School.

AMMAR's QUOTABLE QUOTES 

With 4g, you're getting 100 megabits per second. With 5G you are getting one gigabit per second and even 20 gigabits pers second planned for next year or after. So 20 gig per user device.

A single 5G radio station can connect over a million connected devices at one radio station. 

With WiFi 6, you can stream one gig, but the reliability of the Wi Fi is a concern, because Wi FI struggles to penetrate metallic structure [common] in the industry, for indoor.

You can trust 5G for robotics, for autonomous gantry vehicles, for assets moving.

With 5G we are not planning to replace any [SCADA] wiring.

5G [latency] operation, we are talking about 20 millisecond max. We are dropping it to one millisecond in the next version updates… But the requirements from our Oceaneering partner is only 100 millisecond.

The first question we ask what are the use cases or application you want to use? And then it's a journey. It's like you start today with one thing, and later, you move to other applications as needed.

If you have a worker with a mobile phone or connected, you know, worker, you will know exactly where they are. And you can communicate with them and support them during that session.

We like to call it dynamic  digital twin. We believe the 5g will be you know, hugely valuable, because you don't want to run all these cables connecting all these sensors to the main data center, you're just wirelessly spread them. And they're connected, and sit and analyze and collect all the data and take actions from there.

Wind turbines are virtually autonomous. I mean, we connect them with cellular network, we have several references. With a cellular network, they connect the operator connect cameras and control functionality. And they remotely see what's happening on the outside and inside and adjust accordingly.

first thing you need to connect the assets first and get the data. So that's we call it like static digital twin, and then you can use it for simulation. Then you move to the second version, which having like a shadow, digital twin, which you have an image of what's happening, but you can monitor. But the truly digital twin is monitor and control

CONTACTING AMMAR

ammar.sabbagh@ericsson.com