France-based Bouygues Telecom has joined with IBM to collaborate with enterprises on industrial 5G use cases in the manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, energy and utilities, and smart city sectors.
Bouygues Telecom said the rollout of 5G networks in France in the coming weeks will give rise to a variety of new digital applications in both the consumer and enterprise sectors. However, it said the opportunity with 5G is most expansive with the latter, as it affords a platform for digital transformation and economic growth.
With IBM, the French operator has devised an ‘Open Lab 5G’ scheme for enterprises to check out the performance uplift with 5G, notably with advances in terms of speed, latency, and bandwidth, as well as cell density, compared with LTE-based 4G services. The pair will utilise IBM’s ‘Garage’ accelerator setup, mixing 5G from Bouygues Telecom with cloud and edge computing from IBM for enterprises to experiment in a workshop environment.
The pair said they will rapidly deploy 5G test sites for clients, with 5G kit from Bouygues Telecom and data processing from IBM, along with a cost evaluation, and support to industrialise bespoke Industry 4.0 solutions. Bouygues Telecom said the industrial IoT space is a “strategic” customer segment for its 5G endeavours.
François Treuil, enterprise chief executive at Bouygues Telecom, commented: “Networks are key to the digitalization of businesses and the contributions of 5G will be considerable. It is therefore important for our customers to be able to start now to assess the tangible benefits of 5G, which will promote their own competitiveness. This is the spirit of the approach we are putting in place with IBM to support our customers.”
Marie-Noelle Muller, vice president for enterprise at IBM in France, said: “This collaboration builds on IBM’s deep telecoms industry expertise and our longstanding commitment to helping telecoms companies around the world harness new and emerging technologies to advance how they deliver new value to customers and grow their businesses.”
