Ericsson and Singtel have partnered to accelerate 5G adoption across several industries and leverage industry partnerships to develop and deploy advanced 5G solutions in Singapore.
The partnership uses Ericsson’s networking expertise and Singtel’s 5G network, test facilities and capabilities, and also involves collaboration with global industry partners across various industries such as oil and gas, maritime, pharmaceutical, aerospace, financial services, retail and construction.
The global partners are ABB, Axis Communications, Bosch, Bosch Rexroth, DHL Supply Chain, Hexagon, PTC and Rohde & Schwarz as well as Cradlepoint, which is part of Ericsson and provider of enterprise 5G wireless edge solutions.
“Our partnership with Ericsson have been key to our 5G roll out and offers us a unique opportunity to come together to build an open platform for enterprises to ideate, co-create, test and eventually go-to-market,” said Bill Chang, CEO of Singtel’s enterprise group.
“We have seen some encouraging outcomes from our early trials and key to that success is our common goal of transforming the future of business operations by harnessing the power of 5G,” said Chang. “These trials are the springboard to more innovation and we welcome more enterprises to come on board with their ideas.”
Martin Wiktorin, head of Ericsson Singapore, Brunei and Philippines, said 5G will enable a further shift towards digital transformation, accelerated by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
ABB, Axis Communications and Hexagon are among the first companies to have started their trials. The trials span across advanced manufacturing, logistics, smart city development, analytics and industrial automation.
ABB has successfully tested the potential of 5G in the industrial manufacturing space, supporting the low-latency operation of an ABB collaborative robot. The test was conducted in ABB’s workshop, where ABB’s single-arm YuMi cobot was connected to Singtel’s 5G GENIE to access an on-site Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) platform.
Also, Singtel and Ericsson are working with Hexagon on rolling out large-scale autonomous shop floor measurement with 5G connection that can have potential benefits in the aerospace, oil and gas, construction, automotive, shipyard and wind energy industries.
With a laser tracker device, non-contact, 3D precision measurements can be done easily, quickly and accurately on large pipes and aerospace parts, with the measured data then transmitted to the control centre.
Further, trials have started using high performance Axis devices and cameras connected through Singtel’s MEC network. The trials demonstrate the ease and cost-effectiveness of deploying Axis devices with edge-based analytics for cities in areas that have previously been off-limits or too costly to do so.
