Private 5G networks are transforming America’s factory floors. Multiple recent studies, including independent analysis by Analysys Mason commissioned by the American-Made 5G Coalition and CTIA’s report "How 5G Is Modernizing Manufacturing," point to the same conclusion: private 5G is becoming a foundational technology for U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.
U.S. manufacturers are already using private 5G to solve real operational problems on the factory floor. According to Analysys Mason, private 5G enables applications like autonomous mobile robots, real-time quality inspection and predictive maintenance that can reduce costly downtime — estimated to cost U.S. manufacturers roughly $50 billion annually. In one example cited in the study, a U.S. automotive manufacturer reduced downtime by 30% using private wireless connectivity to better monitor and manage production systems.
These are not experimental use cases. They are delivering measurable improvements in efficiency, reliability, and output today. Companies like John Deere are building on this foundation, using CBRS-based private wireless networks across their U.S. manufacturing facilities to support automation, connectivity for equipment, and more reliable operations in environments where traditional wireless solutions fall short.
But there is a critical detail that connects these findings and is often left out of the conversation: what makes these networks possible in the first place.
According to Analysys Mason, 75% of private 5G networks in the U.S. today run on the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), with that number expected to rise to 86% in U.S. factories by 2032. In other words, the majority of the private 5G success stories now being highlighted across the industry are built on CBRS.
CBRS is the three-tier shared spectrum framework the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established in 2020. It allows an automaker, a university research lab, a food processing facility and the U.S. Navy, for example, to operate in the same band without interference. It is, quite simply, the spectrum foundation that made private 5G viable in the U.S. And many of the deployments CTIA highlights are running on CBRS today.
Given the reliance on CBRS to make these outcomes possible, the American-Made 5G Coalition supports preserving the 3.55–3.7 GHz band and maintaining current CBRS power levels. Proposals to convert this band into a traditional high-power, exclusively licensed model would not improve these networks. They would dismantle them. The result would be immediate and severe: manufacturers would be pushed onto less reliable, more congested networks not designed for indoor industrial environments.
Andrew Clegg, an architect of CBRS and former spectrum lead at Google, recently estimated that changes to the existing CBRS framework would degrade throughput at American manufacturing facilities by 1,000-fold, wipe out nearly a third of network capacity at a major international airport and cause rural broadband outages. John Deere's own Technology Architect has called the potential impact of proposals to increase power levels "catastrophic." That's the same John Deere that automates its Illinois and Iowa plants with CBRS. This is not a marginal adjustment. It is a direct threat to infrastructure already in operation.
CTIA and NAM recognize private 5G as essential to America's manufacturing resurgence in their report. Our factories need enterprise-grade, secure, deterministic wireless and they need it built on American-designed, American-made equipment supplied by the robust U.S. ecosystem that CBRS has uniquely enabled, companies like Federated Wireless, JMA, Cambium, Tarana, Skylark, Keysight, Nextlink and dozens more. That ecosystem is a genuine strategic asset in a telecom market otherwise dominated by Chinese and European suppliers.
To be clear, this is not an argument against licensed spectrum. High-power macro networks, CBRS-enabled private networks, and Wi-Fi each serve different purposes. The strength of the U.S. approach has been its flexibility, matching the right technology to the right use case.
There is also no shortage of spectrum options for licensed, full-power use. The Upper C-band, spectrum assets entering the market through Echostar, and bands under study by NTIA all provide pathways for expansion.
But private 5G in manufacturing depends on something different: controlled, local, high-performance wireless built for indoor and campus environments. That is what CBRS delivers, and there is no substitute.
CTIA and the National Association of Manufacturers are right to highlight private 5G as essential to America’s manufacturing resurgence. But recognizing its importance must be matched with policies that allow it to function because 75% of these networks rely on CBRS today.
If we want to keep powering American manufacturing, we need to protect the spectrum that powers private 5G.
John Puskar is CEO of the American-Made 5G Coalition, a group of U.S. manufacturers, technology companies and rural providers working to strengthen America’s wireless and industrial leadership. The coalition supports a strategy for spectrum and infrastructure, centered on CBRS-powered private 5G networks that are driving U.S. manufacturing, innovation and reshoring.
Opinion pieces from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff do not necessarily represent the opinions of Fierce Network.