Vodafone Netherlands and Ericsson have signed a letter of intent with the city of Eindhoven to hold 5G pilots in the Dutch city. The operator has received a licence for local usage of the 3.5 GHz band from the Telecom Agency to try out new 5G applications, and the first pilots are planned to start after the summer.
The agreement was signed at the High Tech Campus, where a 5G lab will be set up for businesses, researchers and students to work on 5G applications and test prototypes. LUMO Labs, an Eindhoven-based early stage investor and accelerator, will partner the lab to provide further encouragement to start-ups and student initiatives.
The 5G licence for Eindhoven is expected to be used for services with a social impact on the city, the companies said. One of the planned projects is ‘Connected Ambulances’, developed by VodafoneZiggo and Ericsson with Philips, the GGD ambulance service and the Catharina hospital in Eindhoven. The ambulance will use 5G en route in order to provide remote diagnosis and preparatory care.
Another project will work on 'smart locations' to help accommodate large numbers of people at city events, such as football matches. At the Philips stadium where the club PSV plays, 5G 360-degree cameras will be tested to give fans at home a broader choice of views of the pitch. The music venue Effenaar will also look at offering virtual live performances over 5G to fans not able to attend in person.
Representatives of the European Commission, the association of Dutch municipalities and other European cities attended the signing event in Eindhoven. It included a hologram appearance over 5G of Edwin van der Sar, the head of Amsterdam club Ajax, to wish his counterpart Toon Gerbrands of PSV success when the two teams face off on 31 March.
