Red.es awards the development of a 5G pilot in the Barcelona metropolitan area to a consortium led by Cellnex and the MASMOVIL Group

• • The project comprises seven 5G use cases which include developing holographic solutions for the educational sector; autonomous and connected transport vehicles for industrial environments; immersive remote shopping experiences in urban markets; and optimising the mobility, control and management of high footfall areas.

• • It will also facilitate the development of state-of-the-art networks for managing public safety and emergencies in Barcelona, as well as applying 5G to remote television broadcasts using mobile devices.

• The consortium, which comprises Cellnex, MASMOVIL Group, Parlem Telecom, Nearby Computing, Aumenta Solutions, Lenovo, Atos and Nae, has set up as a joint venture to perform the project and has the backing and cooperation of Barcelona City Council and Mobile World Capital Barcelona.

Barcelona, 31st July 2020. A consortium of eight companies led by Cellnex Telecom and the MASMOVIL Group will roll out a 5G pilot (“Piloto 5G Catalunya”) in the Barcelona metropolitan area to test and develop innovative solutions based on this new technology in sectors that include education, industry, commerce, tourism, transport, and safety and emergency management. The project will launch in September and run until December 2022.

This consortium — which also involves Catalan operator Parlem Telecom; Aumenta Solutions, a company specialised in augmented reality for the industry; Atos engineering; Nae consultants; Lenovo technology and the Nearby Computing start-up, a spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center — was one of the successful bidders in the second call for grants to develop 5G pilots launched at the end of 2019 by Red.es, an entity of the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation under the National 5G Plan. The initiative is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The project has an overall budget of €5.4 million — 40% of which will be financed by Red.es — and will be performed in collaboration with Barcelona City Council; Mobile World Capital Barcelona through the 5G Barcelona initiative; Fira Barcelona; i2cat; Intel and the IESE business school.

Seven differential use cases for key sectors

Through this 5G pilot, the consortium will work to test, develop and implement holographic solutions conceived specially for the education sector and distance learning; flexible systems for optimising logistics using autonomous and connected vehicles for industry 4.0; autonomous, connected and sustainable vehicles for passenger transport in large venues — especially exhibition sites — to improve mobility; new remote purchasing solutions using immersive experiences, designed specially for remote shopping in urban markets; improving control and management of high footfall areas, such as beaches in summer; or applying this new technology to remote television broadcasts using mobile devices.

This project will also be a way to work on developing the new generation of mobile networks specially dedicated to managing public safety and emergencies in Barcelona, in collaboration with Barcelona City Council and the Guardia Urbana local police force.

All of this will be made possible by using the capabilities of 5G technology such as greater bandwidth capacity, higher transmission speed — especially for data —, and lower latency in the response of any type of application compared to current mobile technologies.

As the main operator in the initiative, the MASMOVIL Group will temporarily cede the 5G spectrum in the 3.5MHz band that is needed to perform these usage cases, in addition to the radioelectric certifications associated with commissioning the sites for the pilot.

About Cellnex Telecom

Cellnex Telecom is Europe’s leading operator of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures with a portfolio of 61,000 sites including forecast roll-outs up to 2027. Cellnex operates in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal.

Cellnex’s business is structured in four major areas: telecommunication infrastructures services; audiovisual broadcasting networks; security and emergency service networks and solutions for smart urban infrastructure and services management (Smart cities and the Internet of Things (IoT)). The company is listed on the continuous market of the Spanish stock exchange and is part of the selective IBEX 35 and EuroStoxx 600 indices. It is also part of the FTSE4GOOD and CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) and “Standard Ethics” sustainability indexes.

About MASMOVIL Group

The MASMOVIL Group is the fourth largest telecommunications operator in Spain and offers fixed, mobile and broadband internet services for residential customers, companies and operators, through its main brands: Yoigo, Pepephone, MASMOVIL, Lebara, Hits Mobile, Lycamobile and Llamaya. The Group offers fixed fibre/ADSL and 3G and 4G mobile network infrastructures. At present, it has 25.2 million marketable fibre homes and reaches 18 million homes with ADSL. The companies’ 4G mobile network covers 98.5% of the Spanish population. The Group has more than 10.7 million customers in Spain.

The MASMOVIL Group was awarded the ADSLZone 2019 prize for the best broadband operator and for “Best Fibre Operator” by Grupo Informático. It was also named “Revelation Company” at the Vocento Group Business Awards. Furthermore, it was the operator with the fastest fibre network in Spain in 2019 according to a study by nPerf. For more information: http://grupomasmovil.com/en/

About Parlem Telecom

Parlem Telecom is a Catalan telecommunications operator created in July 2014 that focuses on a close relationship with the customer with its own identity. The company led by Ernest Pérez-Mas responds to the telephone, Internet and television needs of individuals and companies alike in the Catalan-speaking territories. Since it acquired Lemon Telecom in 2019, it has been developing a new business line dedicated to the corporate sector, called “Parlem Empreses”, through which it offers multiple innovative technological solutions tailored to each company. In 2020, the Financial Times ranked Parlem Telecom 200th in its annual list of the fastest-growing companies in Europe.

About Aumenta Solutions

Aumenta Solutions offers solutions based on Augmented Reality technology aimed at professionals in industry, engineering and architecture. Its developments provide solutions to aspects that have not been resolved using conventional technologies, increasing productivity and efficiency in the fundamental processes of the company. Aumenta Solutions has a team of highly-qualified professionals and technology partners. Further information: www.aumentasolutions.com

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 110,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of €12 billion. Atos is the European leader in Cloud, Cybersecurity and High-Performance Computing, the Group provides end-to-end Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, Big Data, Business Applications and Digital Workplace solutions. Atos is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos|Syntel, and Unify. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

For more information, visit https://atos.net/spain

About Nae

Nae seeks seek to provoke change by challenging and accompanying the transformation of organisations, personally and closely, through consulting from start to finish.

Founded in 2004 and with a global turnover of over €50 million, it has offices in Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Costa Rica, and drives MedUX, an innovation factory that turns ideas focused on customer experience into transformative solutions.

https://nae.global

About Nearby Computing

NearbyComputing is a spin-off of Barcelona Supercomputing Center, with its proprietary technology oriented to the orchestration of multi-domain networks, and specifically to networks that incorporate computing at the point of origin of the data (Edge Computing). NearbyComputing meets all the operational needs for deploying and managing servers located in streets, roads, buildings, etc. thereby facilitating the implementation of new and better applications for managing cities, industries and infrastructures.