Own, Hybrid or Subscribe? The Real Economics of Private 5G for Industrial Sites
When industrial companies evaluate private 5G, the first question from finance teams is almost always about cost. It is a fair question, but it often leads to the wrong comparison. Epignosis Insights analysis shows that for a typical industrial site, the five-year cost of owning, co-managing, or subscribing to a private 5G network is surprisingly similar. What differs is who controls the network, how the spending is phased, and how much internal expertise the business needs.
Three Deployment Models, Similar Price Tags
Three commercial models dominate industrial private 5G today:
• Enterprise-owned dedicated networks, where the site owner buys the radios, core, and edge infrastructure and operates the network, often using locally licensed spectrum.
• Operator-managed hybrid networks, where a mobile operator or integrator provides on-site infrastructure backed by service-level agreements.
• Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), where connectivity, and often edge compute and applications, are delivered as a subscription with little upfront spending.
Figure 1: Indicative five-year total cost of ownership by deployment model for a ~100,000 m² site
For a typical 100,000 square meter industrial site, Epignosis Insights modeling puts five-year total cost of ownership between roughly USD 1.36 million and USD 1.50 million across the three models, a spread of less than 10%. The modeling is anchored to benchmarks cited by the GSA's research lead in September 2026, of around USD 150,000 in capital expenditure per dedicated network and annual operating costs of USD 150,000 to 200,000.
The cost structure, however, differs sharply. Owned networks concentrate spending upfront on hardware and integration. NaaS spreads almost everything into operating expenditure. Hybrid models sit in between. In 2026, Epignosis Insights estimates that owned networks account for about 41% of spend, hybrid models 38%, and NaaS 21%, with NaaS expected to grow fastest through 2033.
Choosing the Right Model
Because costs converge, the decision should rest on operational priorities:
• Choose ownership when production data is highly sensitive, the site already has an OT networking team, and local spectrum is easy to obtain, as it is in Germany, the UK, and the US.
• Choose a hybrid model when you operate several sites and want a single accountable partner for uptime and support.
• Choose NaaS when you need to prove value quickly, capital budgets are constrained, or the network is part of a wider automation project with a defined payback period.
Spectrum costs themselves are rarely a barrier. In the UK, Ofcom's Shared Access framework charges £80 per 10 MHz per year in the 3.8–4.2 GHz band, while India's 2026 captive network rules carry no authorization fee. Higher costs come from design, integration, and operations.
Why So Many Pilots Never Reach Production
If costs are manageable, why is adoption slower than early forecasts suggested? GSA recorded 76 new private network customer announcements in the first half of 2026, compared with 241 in all of 2025 and a peak of 321 in 2022. Existing customers keep adding sites and devices, but many new projects stall between trial and production.
Figure 2: Industrial private 5G adoption funnel, indexed to 100 evaluating sites
Epignosis Insights estimates that out of every 100 industrial sites that formally evaluate private 5G, only around 15 reach single-site production and about six scale across multiple sites. The steepest drop happens between pilot and production, where four practical problems tend to surface:
• Integration effort. Connecting the network to PLCs, manufacturing execution systems, and safety systems takes more work than connecting test devices.
• Device availability. GSA tracked 26 RedCap modules and 33 RedCap end-user devices in March 2026, a growing but still limited catalog compared with Wi-Fi.
• Unclear ROI ownership. Benefits often land in operations while costs sit with IT or engineering, leaving no single budget holder.
• Equipment cycles. As Siemens noted at MWC 2026, factories do not replace presses and robots simply because a new network is available.
Partner Stability Is Now a Cost Factor
Vendor churn has become a hidden cost in private 5G economics. AWS retired its Private 5G service, and Microsoft discontinued its Azure private 5G core in September 2025. Nokia, which reported about 960 private wireless customers at the end of September 2025, has placed its Enterprise Campus Edge unit into a portfolio segment earmarked for sale, while retaining its focus on mission-critical networks. Ericsson, by contrast, says it continues to operate a dedicated enterprise wireless business serving hundreds of private 5G customers.
For buyers, a change of network owner can mean renegotiated support terms, re-certified devices and delayed expansions. Due diligence should therefore include a supplier's product roadmap commitment and the strength of its integration partners, not just the headline price.
Contracts should also spell out what happens if the supplier exits, including data portability, core software licensing and continued access to spare radios, so that the network remains supportable throughout its expected lifetime.
The Bottom Line
Private 5G economics are less about finding the cheapest option and more about matching the deployment model to the organization's skills, risk appetite and growth plans. Buyers that define a clear owner for return on investment, secure certified devices early, and choose partners with long-term commitment are far more likely to move from pilot to production.
Want the complete picture? The full Epignosis Insights report on the Private 5G Networks Market covers country-level forecasts, component and deployment-model splits by vertical, supplier benchmarking, and the full EI-BRI buyer screening framework. Request a free sample to see how the analysis fits your growth plans.