YOU ARE AT:Smart Factory

BROWSING: Smart Factory

Nokia deploys private 5G network for KUKA production site in Germany

Nokia is to deploy a private 5G network at industrial robot and automation specialist maker KUKA’s ‘smart’ production and development centre in Augsburg, in Germany. Nokia’s compact ‘digital automation cloud’ (DAC) private LTE and 5G solution, geared for quick-fire local-area deployments, will support product...

IT firm COCUS taps Airspan for private 5G as SI bandwagon rolls on in home of Industry 4.0

The private LTE/5G bandwagon rolls on with system integrators (SIs) in Germany. Further to the report yesterday, that Ireland-based Druid Software has teamed up with IT specialist Becon in the home of Industrie 4.0, US radio equipment vendor Airspan Networks has announced a deal...

ArcelorMittal recruits Ericsson for private 5G across all steel plants in France

ArcelorMittal has cut the ribbon at a new ‘digital lab’ in Dunkirk, in France, adjacent to its largest Europe-based steel production site. The new lab, which opens in September, will host manufacturing partners, start-ups, and universities, and be the epicentre of the company’s digital...

Druid tracks expanding private 5G ecosystem with new SI deal in Germany

The importance of ‘vertical’ domain expertise, obtainable through partnership with industry-specific system integrators, has been a feature of the developing go-to-market strategies of private LTE and 5G players in recent months. It has been the case in Germany, in particular, where the government’s move...

Private operators, neutral hosts to deploy three quarters of enterprise 5G by 2026

By 2026, over three-quarters of enterprise small cells will be deployed and operated by private network operators or neutral hosts, according to Small Cell Forum (SCF). Deployments in shared spectrum will overtake those in licensed bands in 2025, it reckons. The latest market report from...

Orange, Nokia expand industrial 5G projects with SNCF and Schneider Electric in France

French rail company SNCF, in partnership with Orange and Nokia, has extended a state-sponsored industrial 5G testbed utilising the 26 GHz millimeter wave band at a train station Rennes, in the northwest of France, to two new industrial complexes in the city. The strategy...

Qualcomm tees-up Capgemini to push new Release-16 private 5G system in Industry 4.0

Qualcomm is teaming up with Capgemini to “unlock” private 5G for Industry 4.0, based on its new Release 16-capable 5G RAN platform and radio modem. Qualcomm and Capgemini will develop an off-the-shelf private network system, “tested and validated”, to provide clients a faster route...

False starts, funny looks – Nokia eyes 14m private LTE networks with MulteFire launch

After all the false starts and funny looks, is it time to take MulteFire seriously? Nokia says so. And, as the mainstream telecoms market wakes up to the Finnish firm’s long-time message about the industry-changing potential of private cellular, it is probably worth listening....

German test company Umlaut recruits Airspan and Druid for private 5G network

Network engineering, testing, and analytics company Umlaut has appointed Airspan Networks and Druid Software to build a private 5G network at its headquarters in Aachen, in Germany. The network will occupy the 3.7-3.8 GHz band, liberated by the German regulator for locally-licensed private networks. The...

MulteFire, finally – unlicensed LTE lifts off, rebrands, takes left-turn as 5G match-maker

The LTE-based MulteFire standard, one of the pioneer technologies in the private cellular market, is alive and kicking – well, alive, anyway – and also mutating into something brand new, which is potentially more powerful for the telecoms industry’s great hopes for 5G as...

Orange, Sierra Wireless, STMicro, Lacroix form all-in-one design house to scale IoT

Orange has banded together with hardware, software, design, and manufacturing companies in the IoT space to accelerate deployment of cellular IoT in Europe. Canadian module maker Sierra Wireless, French-Italian chip maker STMicroelectronics, and French manufacturing and design firm Lacroix are its new crewmates, working...

Druid Software teams up with system integrator Siticom on private 5G in Germany

Ireland-based core network vendor Druid Software has announced a go-to-market deal on private 5G with system integrator Siticom. The Germany-based firm has an agreement with US-based Airspan Networks on 5G open radio access network (RAN) hardware. It appears the pair are Siticom’s preferred choice...

Citymesh snaps up Belgian Sigfox operator, as Sigfox seeks buyers in France and US

Busy Belgian private network provider and industrial connectivity specialist Citymesh has acquired local Sigfox operator ENGIE M2M. The firm said the addition of ultra-narrowband (UNB) low-power IoT connectivity rounds-out its wireless portfolio for enterprises, which includes localised LTE and 5G connectivity in its own...

What is TSN, and why industrial 5G won’t work without it? (Talking 5G-TSC with 5G-ACIA)

Time sensitive networking (TSN), designed to manage latency between industrial devices in Ethernet networks, is essential if a new industrial-grade version of cellular-based 5G is to find its mark in smart factories. TSN is key for industrial applications such as process and machine control...

Celona brings eSIM support for private 5G, signs with Qualcomm’s smart-city crew

California-based startup Celona has announced support for software-based embedded SIM (eSIM) technology to simplify device provisioning for private LTE and 5G networks. The firm has also announced it has joined Qualcomm’s smart cities accelerator ecosystem as an approved supplier of cloud-based private network management. Celona...

‘Rather large’ – 2025 private LTE/5G RAN revenues to top $2bn, rising on China surge

Global revenues from the sale of radio equipment for private LTE and 5G networks will top $2 billion by 2025, with the balance tilting towards 5G by the end of the forecast period, according to telecoms research firm Dell'Oro Group. Revenues from private 5G...

NIST tees-up research competition to grow smart manufacturing in the US

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced a new competition to support industry-driven consortia to develop new technologies to grow smart manufacturing in the US. The US commerce department said a new Technology Roadmaps (MfgTech) scheme, handled by NIST’s Manufacturing USA network...

UK industrial 5G testbed recruits Accedian to run quality checks on slicing and splicing

Canada based performance analytics software company Accedian has joined the UK government’s 5G-ENCODE project, billed as the UK’s largest trial of industrial 5G. Accedian will introduce performance monitoring and assurance to the project’s private LTE / 5G setup at the National Composites Centre (NCC)...

Fujitsu mainlines supercomputing for smart cities and Industry 4.0 in Japan

The industrial city of Kawasaki, in the greater Tokyo area, has signed with Japanese IT conglomerate Fujitsu to develop a new ‘smart city’ fabric using the latest connectivity, compute, and analytics solutions. Specifically, the city has commissioned the firm to install “next-generation” 5G, AI,...

Paint-shop outfit Geico Taikisha bundles IoT and AI from Software AG for Audi, BMW etc

Automotive paint-shop supplier Geico Taikisha has signed with the Germany-based ADAMOS consortium of machine makers to use its industrial IoT solution to digitalize the painting process for its customers’ vehicle production plants. The deal has been led on the supplier side by Germany-based data...

IBM taps telcos for hybrid-cloud push, defers decision on private 5G management

IBM has said it is undecided, as yet, about whether to offer 5G network management services to enterprises, despite commentators repeatedly suggesting the New York firm might yet shape up as a prime candidate to handle the ‘run’ phase of new private cellular deployments. The...

Fujitsu deploys industrial IoT platform for Ricoh chemical plant in Japan

Japanese imaging and electronics firm Ricoh Company has recruited country-mate Fujitsu to accelerate its IoT sensor and data usage at process manufacturing facilities in Japan, starting at a chemical plant in the city of Numazu, in the middle of the country. Fujitsu is to...

Lufthansa Technik boosts Nokia network, pulls Voda version – lockdown legacy for private 5G

Germany-based aircraft services provider Lufthansa Technik has said its private 5G standalone (SA) trial network from Nokia, deployed at its facility in Hamburg, has been made into a permanent fixture. The local 5G setup – in trial mode for more than a year, and...

AWS debuts on 5G-MEC in the UK with Vodafone; Germany to follow

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the general availability of its AWS Wavelength multi-access edge compute (MEC) service in the UK, on Vodafone’s 5G network. The setup embeds AWS compute and storage services in Wavelength ‘zones’ at the edge of Vodafone’s 5G network, to...