Private 5G (CBRS) vs Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 on the Factory Floor

The decision in context

A modern plant asks its wireless network to do many jobs: handheld scanners, tablets, autonomous mobile robots that must roam without dropping, cameras feeding vision inspection, sensors reporting machine condition, and the occasional guest or contractor laptop. Operational technology teams have lived with unreliable Wi-Fi in metal-heavy environments for years, and private cellular networks are the response many vendors offer. The decision is not ideological. It rests on the traffic, the layout and the people who will run it.

What CBRS is and what Part 96 requires

In the United States, the common private 5G option is the Citizens Broadband Radio Service. Its rules are in 47 CFR Part 96. The band is 3550 to 3700 MHz. Priority Access Licenses use 3550 to 3650 MHz and General Authorized Access users may use the whole band; grandfathered wireless broadband licensees may continue in 3650 to 3700 MHz. There are three tiers. Incumbents, which are federal users, fixed satellite earth stations and grandfathered licensees, are protected: CBRS devices must not cause harmful interference to them and must accept interference from them. Priority Access Licensees hold a 10 MHz channel in a county-based area for ten years, with up to seven PALs assigned per area and up to four channels aggregated by one licensee; licensees must show substantial service by the end of the term. General Authorized Access users may use channels not in use by higher tiers, with no protection from other GAA users.

A Spectrum Access System, run by a Commission-approved administrator, registers and authenticates the base stations, called Citizens Broadband Radio Service Devices, and decides which channels and maximum power each may use at its location. It enforces protection zones around incumbents and protection areas around PAL users. An Environmental Sensing Capability detects federal radar signals near the coast and reports them to the SAS, which must suspend or relocate affected devices within 300 seconds. For a plant inland this is usually invisible; near a coast or a federal facility the available power and channels can be limited.

Part 96 sets power limits by device category. Category A devices may transmit at up to 30 dBm EIRP per 10 MHz, with outdoor antennas no higher than 6 meters above average terrain. Category B devices may use up to 47 dBm per 10 MHz, must be professionally installed and are outdoor only. End-user devices are limited to 23 dBm. For a plant, indoor Category A radios placed on the ceiling or on poles are the typical building block; roofs and yards may use Category B. A private network without a PAL still operates under GAA, so the design must tolerate neighbors on the same channels. In busy metropolitan areas that matters; the SAS helps by assigning channels but cannot guarantee quality.

What Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 bring

Wi-Fi 6E extends Wi-Fi 6 into the 6 GHz band, and Wi-Fi 7 adds wider channels and the ability to use several links at once. The band is attractive because it is wide and, for now, quiet; clients that use it are recent and well behaved. In the United States the FCC opened 1,200 MHz of 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use in 2020, with indoor low-power operation and standard-power operation under automated frequency coordination. We did not retrieve the FCC order for this article, so those details are from general knowledge. Throughput per client is high, hardware is inexpensive and widely available, and no license or SAS is required.

The costs are range and access. 6 GHz signals attenuate faster than lower bands, so more access points are needed to cover a large floor. Access is contention-based: stations listen and transmit, which works well at moderate load and degrades with many devices competing. Newer Wi-Fi features, such as scheduled access and multi-link operation, improve latency for those clients that support them, and roaming between access points depends on client behavior, which is uneven across robot and scanner vendors. Many industrial devices are older and support only 2.4 or 5 GHz, so 6 GHz helps only the new ones.

Where private 5G is structurally different

A cellular network is designed from the start to manage mobility and many simultaneous devices. The base station schedules radio resources for each device rather than letting them contend. Handover between cells is controlled by the network, which is why a robot moving at speed across a large facility can keep a session. Devices authenticate with SIM credentials, which gives a stronger, central identity model than a shared Wi-Fi password and makes it easier to enforce which device may do what. Quality-of-service classes let the network reserve capacity for control traffic over bulk video. The lower frequency of CBRS also travels farther through a building than 6 GHz, which means fewer radios for the same area.

The price is complexity. A private 5G network needs a core network, either an on-site core or a managed one, SIM provisioning, a SAS subscription, radio planning and engineers who understand cellular. Devices need cellular modems and CBRS band support; many tablets, scanners and robots now offer them, but not all do. Upgrades come at the pace of the vendor. It is a better fit when the site is large, the traffic is mobile and critical, and an organization has the skills or a partner to run it. Cloud-hosted cores shift some of that burden, and where a provider's service has been discontinued, as one major cloud vendor's managed private 5G offering was, the lesson is to prefer open interfaces and avoid lock-in.

A comparison for the floor

• Mobility: private 5G handover is network-controlled and predictable for fast-moving robots and vehicles. Wi-Fi roaming depends on client behavior and can be tuned, but remains the main source of drop complaints.
• Capacity and latency: Wi-Fi 6E and 7 give very high peak throughput in clean spectrum; 5G gives more predictable latency under load because the radio is scheduled.
• Coverage: CBRS reaches farther per radio than 6 GHz; large open plants usually need fewer 5G radios than 6 GHz access points. Dense racking or metal may need either system to add radios.
• Spectrum risk: 6 GHz is unlicensed and shared by anyone nearby. GAA CBRS is also shared but coordinated by the SAS; a PAL gives protection, at a cost and subject to availability.
• Devices: Wi-Fi is nearly universal on laptops, phones and tablets. Cellular CBRS support in industrial devices is growing but must be checked per device.
• Security and identity: SIM-based identity and a managed core versus 802.1X certificates on Wi-Fi. Both can be done well. Both need segmentation behind them; see our article on microsegmentation.
• Cost and skill: Wi-Fi is cheaper to buy and easier to staff. A private 5G network is a larger project with more moving parts.
• Lock-in and exit: Wi-Fi is multi-vendor in practice. Private 5G depends on core, radio and device compatibility.

Operations after go-live

Whichever technology wins, the wireless network is now part of production, and it needs the same operational discipline as a line. Monitor it: for Wi-Fi, channel utilization, retry rates and roaming events; for cellular, signal quality, handover failures and core health. Record the robot stoppages and scanner timeouts that users report and tie them to radio events, so that a complaint becomes a measurement. Keep spares and a documented procedure for replacing a radio or access point. Plan for change control, because a new rack of steel, a relocated conveyor or a neighboring tenant installing their own CBRS network can alter coverage overnight. For CBRS, keep the SAS registration data accurate and know who at the provider to call; for Wi-Fi, keep the channel plan under version control. Finally, test the failure of the wireless network itself: what does a robot do when it loses the link, how long before a human is alerted, and is there a safe state? Safety functions should never depend on a wireless link without a reviewed, standards-based design for it.

How to decide

Start from the traffic. If the key users are people with tablets, scanners and laptops in defined areas, Wi-Fi 6E with a good survey is usually enough. If the key users are fleets of autonomous mobile robots, forklifts with vision, or cameras that must stream reliably from anywhere on a large site, a pilot of private 5G is justified. If the site is partly both, the answer in many plants is Wi-Fi for people and offices and private 5G for machines. Treat the wired network as the foundation: access points and radios still need switching, power over Ethernet, timing for some applications and segmentation for security, as in our articles on microsegmentation and VRFs.

Then measure. Survey the actual floor with the actual devices, including the worst places, such as aisles between steel racking and areas near welding or motors. Run a pilot with the real robots for a few weeks, log drops, handover times and application stalls, and compare against the target, for example the stoppage rate of the robots. Datasheet figures for throughput and latency are laboratory best cases. The decision should rest on the pilot, on total cost over five years, including skills, and on the vendor's interfaces. Clayton Cybernetics designs and tests both kinds of wireless in plants and warehouses, and is vendor-neutral about the radios.

Sources

• 47 CFR Part 96 - Citizens Broadband Radio Service (eCFR)

This article is general technical information, not a radio design or a legal opinion on spectrum licensing. We read 47 CFR Part 96 through a summarizing fetch tool of the eCFR page; only part of the long page was summarized, so confirm section details and the current rules, including any changes to the CBRS band, in the eCFR. The FCC 6 GHz order could not be fetched (access error); the 6 GHz and Wi-Fi 6E/7 statements, the cellular architecture comparison, the point about a discontinued managed offering and the decision advice are general engineering knowledge, not quoted from sources. Equipment support for CBRS and 6 GHz varies by vendor and device. Last reviewed November 8, 2026.

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