To hear Brian Watkins say it, the telecommunications industry’s private managed wireless network offerings aren’t all they are, once you dig into the details. Maybe they’re not designed in-house, or the construction of the network is outsourced, or the offering is sewn up on the fly, and then management and operations fall to the business owner.

It’s a bold statement, admits Watkins, to say that you are the first company to deliver on a solution that other companies claim to already offer. But that’s exactly what Betacom says announces 5G offering as a private and managed service.

“What makes us super unique is that the whole solution – the design, the build, the operation – every part is completely internal,” Watkins said. “It gives us the opportunity to have better margins. This gives us the ability to have higher levels of control over what we do, as they are our own employees. … We operate our own tools to manage the deployment of these processes, they have been combat tested on all carriers across the United States, ”he continues. “We can actually say with a real and high level of certainty – because I speak to everyone in this space – that only we are truly, truly fully managed private wireless service.

Betacom has several decades of history as a builder of network infrastructure for US telecommunications operators and has built around 800 cell projects over the past eight years, deploying carrier networks at convention centers, outdoor stadiums, hotels, airports and other venues – including DAS for the last two Super Bowls, according to Watkins, who is the senior vice president of business development for Betacom. The company designs and builds the systems, then delivers them to the operators to make them actually work. Now Betacom is taking the next logical step and will run similar systems as private cellular networks – and it not only has its expertise in designing and building networks to draw on, but $ 15 million in funding from private investors to boost its pursuit of the market, and a special relationship with Microsoft, with Betacom’s combined network operations center / security center hosted on Microsoft Azure.

Among those investors is former T-Mobile US CFO Braxton Carter, who said in a statement about the launch of Betacom’s private wireless offering that “5G private networks have incredible potential to revolutionize the way. which a number of industries including transportation, manufacturing and logistics are conducting their business and accelerating their progress. But the design, deployment and management of these complex networks can be significant barriers to realizing the benefits. Betacom is exactly the right company to remove these barriers for businesses of all sizes, and I am extremely excited to be able to partner with and support them as they bring this much needed new offering to market. “

The company expects CBRS to be the backbone of US private wireless (“We’re seeing huge interest in GAA,” Watkins says), and Betacom only works with providers of network that have 5G in complementary roadmaps. He set up a network operations center – or rather a combined NOC and security center, says Watkins – in Seattle, Washington, to manage the management of the private network. Betacom also plans to leverage Azure’s artificial intelligence / machine learning capabilities for predictive network operations and maintenance, and it says the cloud-based architecture will allow remote troubleshooting as well.

The company, which had long been headquartered in Florida, moved its headquarters to Seattle and also set up NOC private networks in Seattle, to be closer to some of its major partners and customers – including Microsoft, with whom it s ‘Aligns Tightly for Edge and Host Its Cloud-Based Architecture Betacom Says It Will Provide Network Design and Deployment at “Similar Costs, But with Much Higher Reliability, Performance and Security to those of Wi-Fi ”. Then, its corporate clients will retain ownership of their networks and local control of their data, while Betacom will take care of the actual operations.

Customers of private wireless companies tend to fall into two camps, says Watkins: those who want the solution, but don’t want to add costs or staff to manage it; and those (often oil and gas or utility companies) who already run their own private networks and are interested in how cell phones can work for them. Betacom believes it has a strong offering to target verticals including airports, manufacturing, logistics etc. by offering a turnkey network solution that can be combined with specific applications that will bring value to the company. “If you look at an airport today, this thing is a smart city,” he suggests. “They have retail, they have a parking garage, they have security cameras, they have… operations, they have logistics and transporting people faster, they have cargo going in and out of the area. same thing plane. And so, just like a warehouse wants to run a truck faster, airlines are desperate to run planes faster. If I can make a plane run faster, I can get a lot more. So we’re starting to see that the use cases span the spectrum of video, asset tracking, end user devices, and even ultimately consumer broadband in communities. ” he said.

Watkins says Betacom’s network-as-a-service approach could also underpin system integrator or operator offerings, and that the company is in conversation with ISs and operators. Such an arrangement could leave ISs free to develop complex retail application solutions for national retailers, Watkins says, or security solutions that integrate technologies such as facial recognition and run on built and operated networks. by Betacom. Further, he confirms: “We are in talks with the carrier community about what white labeling would look like and what this partnership would look like” and even some are discussing with a carrier the pursuit of a joint first customer. But he also adds: “This is not a quick conversation. They have a pretty well-entrenched history and methodology when it comes to building a mobile network and the business teams that work with that network. “

What he plans to spend the rest of the year doing, however, centers on growing Betacom’s business as a private network provider – and the real deal.

“I’m not here to disparage the people within this private wireless ecosystem, but I know enough about what’s really going on. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors, ”says Watkins. “There’s a lot of it, we’re going to tell people we’re doing it, hoping someone buys it and then we’re going to figure out how to do it. … You can’t just walk into an airport and say, “I think we can do it. Yeah, we can do it. ‘ Because an airport is a very secure one, [Transportation Security Administration]-secure location. We have visited airports many times to be able to say that we are able to provide the solution.

“We’re really, really the first to offer this fully managed in-house service,” he says. “We are really convinced that the real value we can bring is that we will also stay behind and manage this network. … I can say that what we have here is actually very real.

“Today’s announcement is the culmination of years of planning, testing and working with our telecommunications partners and their customers, all of whom clearly see mutual benefits in the addition of the first private network service. Fully managed 5G to the growing number of stand-alone networks. offers on the market today, ”said Johan Bjorklund, CEO of Betacom, in a statement. “Our long experience in this market, our unmatched national presence and the technological advancements represented by our cloud native NOC which provides comprehensive services and security give us and our customers significant advantages in delivering on the promise. of 5G, owned by them and operated by us. We look forward to leading the way in this exciting new space.

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