- Stanford tapped Celona for a neutral host network — and got private 5G, too
- AT&T and T-Mobile are onboard to support the network
- Verizon signed a similar neutral host deal with Cummins when Ericsson installed a neutral host/private network
- at a Cummins plant but hasn't joined Stanford Health Care's neutral host network yet
Stanford Health Care gained private 5G as part of its contract with startup Celona to deploy a neutral host system to support AT&T and T-Mobile. Whether Verizon will join in on the neutral host system, which currently supports calls from the two major operators to be supported within Stanford buildings, is still a burning question.
Neutral host is an alternative to expensive and wire-heavy distributed antenna systems (DAS) to provide cellphone coverage in a building, which is obviously crucial in a healthcare situation. The Celona system uses an Multi-Operator Exchange Network (MOXN) unit, where the mobile subscriber traffic is aggregated and tunneled to the mobile network operator’s core network.
"For Stanford Health Care, they have been interested in private 5G but then once we brought in the neutral host, suddenly the ROI and business case totally made sense, because they said, 'Okay, now you can solve my doctor's connectivity problem, my patients, my visitors — you solve their problem.' Because it doesn't matter what operator," Mehmet Yavuz co-founder and CTO at Celona, told Fierce Network this week at ConnectX in Chicago.
"Because it's BYOD, they bring their phone — and now with the same infrastructure, same radios, [they] can also do their private IT, their clinical communications and other use cases that they want to move from Wi-Fi to a more reliable, higher-quality-of-service network." Yavuz continued highlighting how Celona's neutral host solution helped Stanford address connectivity challenges across their facilities.
Mover over DAS
Stanford Health Care’s CTO Christian Lindmark told Fierce in a call that the organizations move away from traditional DAS came about after the company bought a community hospital in the East Bay area “that didn’t have any distributed antenna infrastructure in the facility,” Lindmark said.
Physicians had been complaining about the lack of cellphone coverage in the hospital and Stanford found that it was too expensive to set the facility up with its own DAS infrastructure. The organization examined around 18 DAS alternatives, and — after the usual round of competition — settled on the Celona system. “They offered a neutral host solution for about half the cost of a traditional DAS, and in addition to that we got a private 5G network we can utilize as well,” Lindmark said.
“Right now its just in our one community hospital, and as we look to have to upgrade any of the existing DAS systems, we would put this in as well [as well] as any new facilities we build,” the CTO continued.
Although Celona was chosen mainly as a less-costly DAS alternative, the CTO also sees promise in the included private 5G system. “My goal is to take our clinical workflows and move those all over on the 5G network,” be that on patient monitoring video systems, desktops, or laptops, Lindmark stated.
The CTO also expects that the private 5G network will lessen the reliance on Wi-Fi and allow the reduction of Wi-Fi access points in the facility.
The neutral host menage-a-nah?
Who's in so far? Well, T-Mobile signed onto Celona's neutral host system in September 2023. AT&T officially joined in April this year. Verizon is currently the odd operator out.
“I think we were the first organization in the world to have AT&T on the Celona system,” Lindmark said. He noted that Stanford switched on AT&T on the Celona system around six months ago, way before the official launch.
So AT&T and T-Mobile are onboard, why not Verizon? “Obviously, now we’re working to put some pressure on Verizon to get that,” Lindmark said.
Verizon has already signed a neutral host deal with Cummins when a similar cellular coverage and 5G private network system was installed at that firm's engine plant in upstate New York, Ericsson was the vendor. Then, the Tier 1 was very noncommittal about onboarding onto other operator's neutral host networks. “In any given scenario, we'd evaluate the setting, circumstances, setup, etc., and make a decision based on what we think would deliver an optimal experience for our customers,” Verizon had said.
What do the analysts think?
“We’ve been hearing both from enterprises and educational institutions that they are looking for neutral host support by the major U.S. carriers on private infrastructure and T-Mobile and AT&T have already stepped up,” noted Roy Chua, principal at AvidThink noted in an email to Fierce.
“Stanford may be an educational institution, but Stanford University School of Medicine's facilities, including the Medical Center, is one of the leading healthcare providers in the nation. With 613 beds, it's a relatively large hospital serving the public. I think the brand should be of value to a major carrier, and more importantly, the use case is one that is relevant to most healthcare facilities in the nation, which should provide added weight to their request to Verizon,” he added.
“I’m hoping we’ll get some announcement from them in 2025,” Lindmark said. “If Verizon’s not going to come onboard, then we’re just going to stop...giving those phones to our staff,” Lindmark stated