Schneider Electric installs a private 4G/5G network in a factory

With origins dating back to 1836, Schneider Electric specializes in automation and power supply systems (particularly for data centers). Present in the CAC40 index, the company generates a turnover of more than 27 billion euros thanks to its 135,000 employees worldwide.

In the business park located in Le Vaudreuil, in the Eure department next to the new town of Val-de-Reuil, Schneider Electric has built a factory with the “Showcase Industry of the Future” label. It has just been equipped with a private 4G/5G mobile network by Orange Business Services using Nokia solutions.

Slicing and use cases

The deployed network supports network slicing, ie the ability to create isolated sub-networks within the mobile network, to provide specific speeds and QoS. Nokia’s slicing solution supports existing LTE (4G), 5G Standalone (5G SA) and 5G Non-Standalone (5G NSA) devices. By using these technologies, the indoor network remains reliable and secure in an industrial environment.

The partners have been working on private 5G for a few months. In September 2020, Orange and Schneider Electrics had experimented with different use cases. In particular two: augmented reality applied to the activities of maintenance technicians and the implementation of a telepresence robot for remote visits. Nokia had then installed five indoor 5G antennas inside the factory, thus covering nearly 2,000 m2 within the production space with downlink speeds beyond Gbit/s.