5G IRL: proving the commercial benefits of 5G at Cambridge’s private testbed

• New 5G-enabled business models set to increase revenues for an eSport provider

• Lower cost of deployment versus wired network connections, saving £thousands per installation for a road safety equipment supplier

• Positioning an autonomous robotics company to take scalable opportunities in a combined agriculture, transportation & logistics and defence market worth £60bn+

Three innovative companies recently completed an independent, 12-week, fully-supported development cycle programme at a specially-constructed private network testbed in Cambridge. Yet importantly, this programme is not about the high-end engineering. 

The CW 5G Testbed, now working with its second cohort of companies, has paired exciting UK start-ups with commercially-astute business minds to help move their product cycle forward and optimise their business cases sooner than normally considered.

“At the end of the day, we and our partners feel this is what is really important,” says Abhi Naha, Chief Commercial Officer at CW (pictured), who is leading the Accelerator programme, “It’s crucial we ensure that the viable business case matches up to the exciting, innovative technology being deployed.”

“Having relevant commercial objectives and audiences strategically planned out, and a structure in place to achieve these objectives, alongside a crucial focus on making scalable and fully-tested technology, is the combined end goal for any product or service.”

“A future-focused balance between innovative, creative expertise and rigorously evaluated, commercially-viable products and services is why we’re seeing such positive results from the testbed so far,” Abhi continues.

David Roberts, CTO for Special Projects at CW, adds: “We’ve been blown away by innovation by some of the start-ups, and have a joint vision to create a proof of real business value – this is not just a techy hackathon.”

Following on from the first CW testbed, which took place in early 2021, Abhi Naha is pleased to see the Accelerator evolve as more tangible business opportunities are finessed.

“At the heart of this ongoing project is a shared collaborative spirit,” says Abhi, “and we are very thankful to our partners from Huawei and Tuspark, as well as to our mentors, who have shared their experience and insight, even if from completely different verticals than their mentees.”

“This cross-fertilisation of ideas and open-source thinking has enabled this second testbed to evolve significantly from our first.”

“One of the initial applicants, Epitomical, even partnered with former accelerator participant Extend Robotics to further develop their offering, adding a remotely-controlled robotic arm to Eptomical’s autonomous robotic Rover vehicles.”

The ability for the fully private testbed to be deployed with, or without, network operator involvement, and the level of flexibility of network design and configuration has empowered the participants to create bespoke, customer-specific solutions.

“Independent private testbeds are vital to this stage of R&D”, continues Abhi, “They are more configurable. Devs can access additional features. And you can test multiple scenarios in a robust and – importantly – private manner.”

“As James Dyson has mentioned in his recent book, failures are interesting for entrepreneurs, but it's equally important to fail and retest in private!”

Henk Koopmans, CEO of one of the testbed partners, Huawei Technologies R&D (UK), agrees with idea of flexibility enabling growht, and was particularly pleased to see how the projects and teams embodied the start-up mentality. 

“At Huawei, we believe deeply in the power of 5G to make business more intelligent and society more responsible. The way we think about ourselves is a huge collection of start-ups.

“At the core of our company is R&D. The journey itself leads to new discoveries, for humanity, as well as ourselves.”

“Connectivity empowers extraordinary advances to be made, and – as this latest programme has shown – 5G marks an important milestone in this journey. Not just faster and more data, but applications being made possible.”

“With these testbeds it really feels like anything is possible. This is the kind of R&D that makes me love my job.”

In the coming weeks, CW Journal will be hosting interviews and further detail on each of the three startups (see initial details of the companies below), commentary from their mentors and what the teams have learned from the intense three-month project. 

In the meantime, you can watch the videos of the initial results here.

The next accelerator on the CW 5G Testbed will start in February 2022. SMEs looking to develop 5G into their products can visit the CW 5G Testbed page or contact abhi.naha@cambridgewireless.co.uk for further details.