Celona’s latest product announcement, AerFlex, marks a major architectural shift and signals a significant strategic evolution in the private 5G market. The company is responding directly to one of the biggest challenges facing the enterprise sector: the simultaneous need for advanced edge computing capabilities and the business trend of reducing on-premises IT support staff. Rather than introducing new hardware, Celona’s new distributed solution addresses this by shifting network control to the cloud while keeping user data on premises and secure with local traffic breakout on the access point (AP). This approach simplifies deployment and substantially reduces operational overhead for companies.
AerFlex’s innovative AP-only, cloud-based architecture offers a compelling solution for enterprises seeking to adopt private 5G for Industry 4.0 applications without the complexity of traditional network hardware. By streamlining their technology footprint, AerFlex positions Celona as an industry disruptor by providing a more accessible path to modernization, particularly for businesses facing the practical constraints of limited technical resources or a decentralized workforce.
Technical Details
AerFlex is built on a key architectural innovation: moving the core network’s control plane to the cloud while keeping the data plane—where all data traffic flows—at the edge, completely contained within the AP. This provides a significant advantage over other vendors whose solutions often require user data to be backhauled to a cloud-based core, a process that can introduce latency and security risks. The foresight in this design is evident in Celona’s AP2x product line, which was engineered from the start with the processing power to run the necessary network functions locally on the AP.
The company’s patented MicroSlicing™ technology further enhances the technical capabilities, allowing for dynamic Quality of Service (QoS). This provides deterministic performance for business-critical use cases. Additionally, the multi-mode 4G/5G APs are software-configurable to operate as either 4G or 5G, providing a seamless migration path and investment protection for customers.
Impact to IT Practitioners
AerFlex will be particularly effective for existing Celona customers looking to deploy private 5G at smaller sites where a full-scale, on-premises core is impractical. The reduction of a local hardware component for the IT team to manage streamlines operations, while the dynamic placement of cloud-based controls at a point of presence closest to the deployment site ensures latency remains low. This strategic architectural choice demonstrates Celona’s commitment to building a scalable and operationally efficient solution that meets the diverse needs of enterprise customers.
Analysis
This “edge-in” approach stands in stark contrast to other vendors who struggle with true cloud-based management due to their reliance on a multi-vendor, multi-component ecosystem. The fact that the AP2x product line was built with the necessary processing power to run local network functions on the AP demonstrates a forward-thinking, long-term product strategy on Celona’s part.
This approach directly addresses key barriers to private 5G adoption, namely high cost, complexity, a lack of specialized telecom expertise within enterprise IT teams, and scarce local IT resources. By providing a unified, single-vendor solution—from APs to cloud orchestration—Celona eliminates the integration risk that comes with fragmented, multi-vendor approaches. This also simplifies troubleshooting and accountability, as there is one vendor responsible for the end-to-end solution.
From a competitive standpoint, the AerFlex approach puts pressure on legacy telco vendors like Ericsson and Nokia, who have traditionally offered complex, proprietary solutions. It also differentiates Celona from other private cellular players who simply “lift and shift” the 5G core to the public cloud, thereby increasing latency and introducing data sovereignty concerns. By making private 5G as simple and approachable as Wi-Fi, Celona is poised to capture a larger share of the small-to-medium enterprise market and distributed enterprise locations that were previously out of reach.
Advice to Buyers
For organizations evaluating private 5G solutions, AerFlex delivers a value proposition that is currently unmatched in the industry. The competitive landscape is vast, but most vendors offer a traditional model that requires a significant on-premises hardware footprint and a dedicated team for management and support. This often creates a barrier to entry for many companies, especially those that are not telco-savvy or have a limited number of IT professionals. Celona’s focus on a distributed solution is a game-changer, addressing a major pain point by reducing the physical infrastructure and the associated operational overhead.
AerFlex is particularly well-suited for use cases where low latency is critical, as it ensures user data remains on premises. Applications such as robotics in manufacturing, AI-driven process control, or real-time video analytics benefit from this architecture by avoiding the latency of routing data back and forth to the cloud. While other vendors may offer similar cloud-managed features, their solutions often fail to handle the core network functions at the edge, which can compromise performance and security for latency-sensitive applications.
When considering alternatives, buyers should be cautious of solutions that are simply “cloud-managed.” The key differentiator is whether the solution keeps all user data on premises while still providing centralized, cloud-based control. Currently, no other vendor has a comparable solution that truly divides the workload in this way, offering both a simplified management experience and robust, on-site performance. Celona’s approach is designed for the future of enterprise networking, where operational simplicity and performance at the edge are equally important.
