Industry 4.0
onboarding partners such as mixed
reality company VRtuoso, which we
continue to do.
“We have a part of BT that is
designed to embrace early technologies
like this, and then accelerate them.
We’re just starting to answer the
question of how we bring these
capabilities in-house, and then put a
service wrap-around on them. That will
be crucial for the exploitation of 5G.”
As the readership of Critical
Communications Today will be aware,
5G holds the promise of any number of
benefits, existing in both the consumer
and business environments. The most
widely known of these, at least among
the public, is vastly increased data
rates, something which is already
observable through the various
consumer offerings now becoming
available across the world.
The other two headline benefits,
meanwhile, are incredibly low latency,
alongside the ability to provide
virtualised network ‘slices’ in order
to deliver bespoke services across a
variety of different contexts. These
latter functionalities in particular will
be crucial to successful deployments
in the verticals mentioned above, for
instance in the operation of completely
autonomous vehicles.
Going back to the subject of
convincing the market, what conditions
will need to be in place for the
technology to live up to its apparent
transformative potential? At what point
does it go from ‘nice to have’ to critical
investment?
“From my point of view, it’s simply a
matter of demonstrating to companies
how the technology will benefit them
in real terms,” says Spencer. “A lot of
organisations certainly are interested
in the potential of 5G, but they
haven’t actually worked out what they
can do with it.
“They obviously want to embrace
innovation, and they’re at the point
where they’re coming to us with
specific problems which they hope
the technology might be able to
solve. That’s really what the Belfast
demonstration sprang out of, as well
as other trials such as our ‘connected
what the investment landscape will
look like post-COVID-19, after all?
And, with 5G now being used as a
political football in the UK, how will
the market respond to certain overseas
governments taking it upon themselves
to dictate the details of individual
national roll-outs?
While Spencer refuses to be
drawn on the impact of what might
euphemistically be referred to as ‘the
Huawei situation’, BT has put out a
statement providing reassurance in
terms of the network itself. It reads: ‘BT
currently estimates that full compliance
with the revised government proposals
would require additional activity,
both in removing and replacing
Huawei equipment from BT’s existing
mobile network, and in excluding
Huawei from the 5G network that BT
continues to build.
‘However, now we have clarity on
the timing by the end of 2027, it
is estimated that these costs can be
absorbed within BT’s initial estimated
implementation cost of £500 million.’
Proximity to explosives
As well as BT, another major company
investing heavily in the Industry 4.0
space is Nokia. An example of this
investment coming to fruition is its
current roll-out of private wireless
services at the Carajás iron ore mine
in Brazil.
Speaking of this, senior vicepresident
of Americas for Nokia
Enterprise, Mike Calabrese, says: “We’re
ambulance’ work with University
Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust.”
He continues: “One clear benefit
when it comes to 5G is the ability to
roll out private standalone networks, as
distinct from the network slicing piece.
Having the ability to put in small cells,
their own packet core and so on could
potentially be hugely beneficial.
“There are a number of drivers for
that, particularly within industries
where they’re looking to automate
machine control. The level of security is
far higher as well, because data doesn’t
have to leave the premises.”
For Spencer, another thing which
may need to be overcome in the
journey towards 5G is potential
reticence from those on the ground,
particularly in the more risk-averse
industries hinted at above. Thankfully,
this doesn’t seem to have been an issue
during the BT trials, with the Belfast
Harbour engineers and the technicians
picking things up “just like that”.
“You always imagine you’re going to
get some resistance, but their attitude
was very positive,” he says. “To have
that kind of support while working
around the harbour was a massive
confidence boost for them, I think.
Again, people will always embrace new
things if they can see the benefit.”
As well as the attitude of those
on the ground, however, there also
exists another – potentially even
more sizeable – elephant in the room,
relating to the current global financial
and political situation. Who knows
BT has been
working with
Belfast Harbour
A lot of organisations
certainly are interested
in 5G, but they haven’t actually
worked out what they
want to do with it
48 www.criticalcomms.com October 2020
Adobe Stock/Caroline
/www.criticalcomms.com