UK 5G is hitting the ground running

The arrival of coro­n­avirus and lock­down has been no less tur­bu­lent for tele­coms than for many oth­er indus­tries. Among var­i­ous activ­i­ties, we have con­tin­ued to progress the selec­tion and deliv­ery of the Depart­ment of Dig­i­tal, Cul­ture, Media and Sport (DCMS) 5G Test­beds and Tri­als (5GTT) pro­gramme, and to sup­port the more than 1,500 organ­i­sa­tions involved in UK5G.

The gov­ern­ment announced an update to the tele­coms sup­ply chain review rec­om­men­da­tions, a chal­leng­ing regime for tele­coms secu­ri­ty, with high-risk ven­dor equip­ment to be removed from 5G net­works by the end of 2027. This will be fol­lowed by a bill in the autumn focused on secu­ri­ty. This dri­ves us to focus on the nur­tur­ing of UK and less-estab­lished ven­dors, as well as open­RAN solu­tions, and presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to accel­er­ate inno­va­tion in the tele­coms space and sup­port a diverse and inter­op­er­a­ble sup­ply chain

DCMS and UK5G have been col­lect­ing feed­back to improve with each iter­a­tion of 5GTT and in response to this have estab­lished the UK5G Sup­pli­er Direc­to­ry as a first step in sim­pli­fy­ing the ven­dor tech­nol­o­gy land­scape. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful as the major­i­ty of tri­als are user and appli­ca­tion rather than tech­nol­o­gy led and so need sup­port to under­stand what part­ners they may need in their con­sor­tia. The direc­to­ry is grow­ing and lists sup­pli­ers from glob­al giants to spe­cial­ist small and medi­um-sized providers, and we invite sup­pli­ers not list­ed yet to par­tic­i­pate.

UK becoming a 5G expert against the odds

In con­trast the growth of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries around 5G has led to sig­nif­i­cant amounts of abuse for wired and wire­less tele­coms engi­neers work­ing to deliv­er and main­tain vital ser­vices across the coun­try, with arson attacks on sev­er­al masts. Ofcom and the DCMS have pub­lished a guide explain­ing how 5G tech­nol­o­gy is to pro­vide clear and sim­ple infor­ma­tion. There remains fur­ther work to be done to com­mu­ni­cate the ben­e­fits of the tech­nol­o­gy more wide­ly.

But it’s no secret that the UK is now expert in pio­neer­ing the uses of 5G tech­nol­o­gy. 5GTT pro­vides an impres­sive and grow­ing show­case of trans­for­ma­tive use-cas­es, from sup­port­ing dis­ad­van­taged cit­i­zens in their homes via pri­vate 5G net­works, dri­ving effi­cien­cy, qual­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty in man­u­fac­tur­ing, bring­ing high-speed mobile con­nec­tiv­i­ty to rur­al areas, and explor­ing immer­sive real-time appli­ca­tions in aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty. These are just a few of the impres­sive projects cel­e­brat­ed by researchers, engi­neers, busi­ness­es and pub­lic sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions hap­pen­ing across the whole coun­try, all brought togeth­er in projects which are sup­port­ed and par­tial­ly fund­ed by the gov­ern­ment. 

Real life 5G use cases on the go

This DCMS pro­gramme is now accel­er­at­ing through the £30-mil­lion 5G Cre­ate fund­ing com­pe­ti­tion boost. Six projects were announced on June 30, with appli­ca­tions includ­ing traf­fic lights con­trolled by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, vir­tu­al real­i­ty for live sports, autonomous trucks at the Nis­san fac­to­ry and cost sav­ings for the RAF’s Tem­pest fight­er. The remain­ing cohort of 5G Cre­ate projects will be revealed lat­er in the autumn fol­low­ing a record num­ber of entries, which proves inno­va­tion in this sec­tor is alive and kick­ing.

It will be fas­ci­nat­ing to dis­cov­er the new use-cas­es they’ll be explor­ing and to watch them devel­op. We are work­ing hard to make sure they can ben­e­fit from the lessons learnt by their pre­de­ces­sors and by work­ing with each oth­er to over­come obsta­cles. The UK has a very impres­sive and increas­ing num­ber of trans­for­ma­tive 5G projects locat­ed across the whole coun­try and cov­er­ing a wide vari­ety of sec­tors, from social care to man­u­fac­tur­ing.

These 5G inno­va­tion projects are all focused on deliv­er­ing a bet­ter way of life for busi­ness­es and cit­i­zens, a bet­ter way of work­ing, liv­ing, com­mut­ing, car­ing and enter­tain­ing, which is so impor­tant in the unusu­al times we are liv­ing through.