A successful use case in the 5G spectrum: “Smart Junctions 5G”
In September 2020 we embarked on what has been our largest endeavour to date at Weaver Labs. We started Smart Junctions 5G in partnership with VivaCity and Transport for Greater Manchester with the objective of building a Private 5G Network that would provide resilient connectivity for city management services. What this really means is to build a network for the public sector whereby city management can be more efficient because it relies on digital infrastructure.
While the core objective was to design a network that would provide reliable connectivity services for the Smart Junctions product, the added value of the private 5G network was to demonstrate we could add other use cases and show how the public sector can obtain a sustainable model for infrastructure ownership.
At Weaver Labs, our core expertise is networks and software. Our skillset was the right one not only to deliver a network that could deliver the objective but to work on the whole strategy setting for the whole region and a new outlook for innovative business models in telecoms. We brought our technical and commercial expertise to the table, a necessary combination to make this project a long-term success, not only for Weaver Labs but also for our partners.
On the technical side, we delivered a pioneering setup, highly innovative, scalable, replicable and affordable. This was surrounded by challenges which we got to dive into in our lessons learned panel at our showcase event, but some of them have been around:
- The use of technology which is in its infancy, and how can we be resilient and adapt our core objectives and ambitions to deliver despite this
- The lack of skills within the public sector to deploy and manage telecoms infrastructure and how up-skilling has been central to this project
On the commercial side, we proved the business case for publicly owned networks. This has been a topic of interest not only for Manchester but also widely discussed in the UK. As we see cities evolving, we must discuss who should be in charge of owning and operating telecoms infrastructure for public services: transport, healthcare, waste management, and emergency services. We demonstrated that a 5G network built the way we did, and operated using Cell-Stack can provide all the value added to the city while showing a significantly improved costing model. Our solution scales, because is based on infrastructure sharing and a collaborative economy.
This has only been the beginning for us and for our partners. We can now replicate this anywhere and bring these innovations to the rest of the UK. We’re now working with the private sector to bring the benefits of infrastructure sharing to the core of the telecoms industry: neutral hosting and service providers. We’re on a quest to diversify the telecoms supply chain and we’re determined to do it by working in an ecosystem of partners who will together solve the challenges of accessing reliable networks on demand.
