Telenor Group has been chosen to coordinate a new EU project to accelerate the rollout of 5G across Europe.
The 5G Verticals Innovation Infrastructure initiative, or 5G-VINNI, is a conglomerate of 23 partners, including telcos such as BT, Telefónica, Altice, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, as well as academics from across Europe. The three year project will have a budget of €20 million.
The project will use the likes of advanced network virtualisation, slicing, radio and core technologies. Participants will hold automated tests to see how 5G performs using various combinations of technologies and under different kinds of requirements. Open APIs will be used to ensure participants have easy access to the trials.
[Read more: Nokia leads telcos in 5G network slicing trials]
5G-VINNI will operate across Greece, Norway, Spain and the UK. Temporary sites will be established in Germany and Portugal.
Telenor said it would establish a new site in Kongsberg, its existing home for 5G trials, as well as another in greater Oslo. Ericsson and Huawei will supply the 5G radios and core equipment, Nokia a virtualisation platform and end-to-end orchestration and Cisco will deliver its distributed IoT data fabric service.
Patrick Waldemar, Vice President of Telenor Research and the manager of the 5G-VINNI initiative, said: “We are proud to be given the opportunity to coordinate the 5G-VINNI project and to explore valuable future solutions for the vertical industries.
“Being one of three large-scale test platforms for Europe, 5G-VINNI will help propel the development of 5G. Our aim is to make it as easy as possible to utilise and test the platform and we now call on industry players in Europe to engage with the project.”