by Rowan Litter | 11/23/2024

Earlier this month, private wireless solution provider, GXC, announced that the company was acquired by Motive Companies, a systems integrator and leader in renewable energy and infrastructure solutions. As one of the fastest-growing providers in the private wireless market, GXC quickly caught the attention of Motive executives. Motive aims to leverage GXC’s leading private wireless mesh network approach to serve and expand its extensive customer base with network transformation capabilities. Regarding the acquisition, CEO of Motive Companies, Bob Istwan noted, “We’ve had industrial and enterprise customers for 10-30 years that are now in need of a private cellular solution and with the GXC platform, we can build on these relationships.”

Since the commercial launch of the CBRS Band 48 in 2020, the private wireless market in the US has received a lot of excitement. While network technology and innovation has progressed immensely over the last four years, the rollout of operational private network deployments in the industrial space has been slower than anticipated. The factors behind this slower-than-expected growth have included a lack of certified end-user devices, inefficient and costly spectrum sharing initiatives, extensive testing phases, and a lack of understanding of the overall complexity of cellular technology management in the enterprise. The first three of these factors have been sufficiently addressed by the market, leaving the educational and managerial component as a barrier to accelerated growth. Over the past year, the ecosystem has come together and agreed that systems integrators are the key to opening the floodgates to private wireless adoption in the industrial sector. These companies have existing relationships with enterprises and industrial organizations that already know the business and are trusted to be a reliable solution provider. In addition, they have the resources to help private wireless providers scale markets and manage their solutions for customers.

In comes Motive Companies, an organization that began as a provider of batteries and energy storage solutions. Today, Motive Companies has expanded its business to include solutions for solar photovoltaic, lithium-ion batteries, EV and forklift charging, and telecommunications infrastructure. Through this business, the company has brought on large-scale customers with industrial facilities, including Amazon, Walmart, and Coca-Cola. As these customers look to modernize their facilities and infrastructure, private wireless is a key component of their roadmap, and they look to trusted providers (Motive) in the installation and management of these solutions.

As a result, Motive has created a business segment for managed services to help organizations with IT tasks that include installation and management. With GXC as part of this managed services division, CEO Allen Proithis will be focused on execution and development of the platform going forward. Motive is all-in on the GXC Onyx solution and has no intention of changing the technology behind GXC. “The only platform Motive touches for private wireless is GXC and we have no plans to interfere with their engineering group as part of this acquisition,” said Istwan. As enterprises and industrial organizations undergo business transformation initiatives, private networks will make up a key piece of infrastructure strategies. VDC Research will explore these industry strategies as part of the upcoming report: The Evolution of Enterprise Wireless Networking: Capabilities of Existing Networks and Requirements to Support Next Generation Applications.