How to Build a Private Network With Cox
Thanks to improved reliability, mobility, and coverage, private networks are the future of connectivity for facilities and businesses of all sizes.
Discover the Utility of a Reliable, Comprehensive End-to-End Private Network Provider
Thanks to improved reliability, mobility, and coverage, private networks are the future of connectivity for facilities and businesses of all sizes. These versatile wireless networks address key connectivity challenges, such as providing reliable coverage to hard-to-reach places while increasing mobility for on-the-go employees throughout the facility.
According to research from Analysis Mason, enterprises will spend $9 Billion on private networks by 2028 — with that number only set to expand with wider adoption across a wide range of industries. With this anticipated long-term growth on the horizon, companies new to private networks need to find a provider that can deliver future-proof, intuitive networks through every step of the process.
Cox Private Networks can help. Read on to discover why private networks are so important, and how Cox Private Networks both makes wireless technologies adoptable for your teams and works with you through all phases of private network design, installation, and maintenance.
How Cox Private Networks Builds Private Networks
- Step #1: Identify Current Infrastructure and Pain Points
- Step #2: Design a Solution-Based Network for Your Use Case
- Step #3: Solution Installation: Deployment, Configuration, and Turn-Up
- Step #4: Maintain Connectivity & Tackle Pain Points With Responsive Network Management
What is a Private Network?
Private networks refer to personalized cellular networks that operate independently from the general, public cellular network. A managed wireless connectivity solution,
private networks are tailored to meet a customer’s specific needs, implemented for use cases that are not effectively solved by traditional network mediums alone. Serving as a logically discrete wireless network, private networks can include network characteristics, infrastructure, and/or spectrum.
Private networks come with distinct benefits for diverse use cases, spanning industries from manufacturing to education. Key advantages of customized private networks compared to other communication networks include:
- Expanded Network Coverage
- Dedicated Network Bandwidth
- Greater Network Reliability
- Increased Network Security
- Better Network Mobility
Private networks provide a tailored mix of wireless technologies for greater network reliability, mobility, and coverage, balanced to address the unique needs and use cases a business is trying to achieve. By providing custom-designed wireless connectivity when traditional methods aren’t a viable option, private networks connect hard-to-reach places and alleviate connectivity challenges.
How Cox Private Networks Builds Private Networks
Cox Private Networks is an end-to-end service provider — meaning we execute all steps of the network process, from design and installation to ongoing network monitoring and maintenance. Here’s a comprehensive look on how we tackle building private wireless networks from start to finish.
Step #1: Identify Current Infrastructure and Pain Points
Our process starts with a comprehensive customer discovery phase where we dig in to learn more about your current infrastructure, unique connectivity challenges, and pain points.
These pain points provide insight into what needs to be done to overcome them within the solution design. Highlighting essential details around the current infrastructure in place or what solutions a customer has tried in the past help our team consider options for fixing these problems.
As part of our discovery, we’ll seek to understand details such as:
- What current connectivity is in place?
- What are your connectivity pain points?
- What type of connectivity are you trying to achieve long-term?
- What use cases are you looking to accomplish?
- Have you tried other means of network connectivity before? Why didn’t those methods work?
- Is your infrastructure already performing well? If so, are there any additional network needs not being solved by your existing solution?
Overall, we take a consultative approach to network design, focused on delivering the best outcomes based on the customer’s needs.
Step #2: Design a Solution-Based Network for Your Use Cases
After a holistic review of your pain points, existing infrastructure, and desired use cases, it’s time for our team to design your network. We closely review your environment, discovering any potential considerations about how it might affect the design. Concurrently, we will consider what technologies will be best fit to meet your desired outcomes. Whatever our customers are looking for — from turnkey technology stacks to the augmentation of a specific capability — we’re here to build your network using the technology that best fits your goals.
Our team also seeks to understand the topology, landscape, and environment that we’d be installing a network into. Whether via conversations, documents, topology tools (such as Google Earth), or an on-site visit, we seek to understand potential barriers (i.e. walls, hills) to network installation, alongside other environmental elements (i.e. dense trees, rainy environments) that will impact the needed design.
Unlike other network providers, Cox Private Networks never pushes one piece of technology for the sake of selling up. Some customers will be best supported via building a private 5G network; for others, wireless network extension with 60 GHz high-capacity spectrum will be a far more efficient solution, while others still will require a combination of multiple technologies from our toolkit. We have a deep toolbox of network solutions and understand no one solution will cover all use cases and pain points. Because we pair the right use case with the appropriate technology and scale, customers often receive a substantial improvement in ROI when working with Cox Private Networks.
No matter what technology we choose, one thing is for certain: Cox Private Networks is renowned for our quick turnaround on proposals and network design, without over-engineering or pushing a single solution.
Step #3: Solution Installation: Procurement, Deployment, Configuration, and Turn-Up
After we secure all of your equipment, our team begins the installation process. Because of our commitment to matching the right technology with the right use case, there is no one-size fits all timeline for installation with Cox Private Networks. However, the scope of our installation process occurs in three phases: deployment, configuration, and turn-up.
Solution Procurement & Deployment
Once we have a cohesive plan and a finalized network design, our team begins procuring & deploying the necessary equipment. Deployment consists of both the steps directly leading to solution installation and the on-the-ground installation of equipment. First, our team will secure the necessary permitting for installation. Then, we’ll arrive at your facility to install the physical technology required to support your network.
Solution Configuration
After the equipment itself is installed, we need to configure technology to actually build a functional network. During this step, we’ll integrate new network elements into your existing infrastructure, or install all new elements if starting a network from scratch. Either way, we’ll make sure that all equipment is properly configured.
Solution Turn-Up
Finally, with equipment installed, configured, and integrated, our team begins testing the network itself. We’ll run speed-tests, diagnostics, and check connectivity throughout your environment to make sure our networks are running as needed. If any issues arise, we’ll tweak them accordingly.
After significant testing, our team hands the network over to you. From there, your network should function as needed. We provide proactive network monitoring and support so that if issues do come up, our goal is to be the first ones to know about it.
Step #4: Maintain Connectivity & Tackle Pain Points With Responsive Network Management
As an end-to-end provider, Cox Private Networks supports networks even after installation. Our network management team proactively monitors networks for issues — often catching and addressing problems before even our customers notice. In cases of any break in the network, we provide speedy, reliable fixes to help ensure network-users can leverage the full benefits of our connectivity sooner rather than later.
Create Your Private Network With Cox Today
From the start of the process through ongoing support, Cox Private Network offers comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for use cases across industry verticals. If you’re looking to create a private network built to last, the time is now; fill out our contact form today and kickstart the first step of our process today.