The Ministry of Economy and Enterprise resolves the first call for grants for pilot projects of 5G technologies

29/04/2019
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  • The two selected projects have a higher aggregate budget of more than 36 million euros, of which more than 10 million will be co-financed by Red.es through the ERDF
  • The projects belong to Temporary Business Unions led by Vodafone and Telefónica, and will be located in Andalusia and Galicia, respectively
    • The Ministry of Economy and Enterprise has resolved the call for development aid for two 5G technology pilots, launched by Red.es, with the selection of two projects to be developed in the autonomous communities of Andalusia and Galicia. The aggregate budget amounts to more than 36 M€, of which more than 10 M€ will be co-financed by Red.es through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in charge of the Multiregional Operational Programme of Spain (POPE)

    The Ministry of Economy and Enterprise has resolved the call for development aid for two 5G technology pilots, launched by Red.es, with the selection of two projects to be developed in the autonomous communities of Andalusia and Galicia. The aggregate budget amounts to more than 36 M€, of which more than 10 M€ will be co-financed by Red.es through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in charge of the Multiregional Operational Programme of Spain (POPE).

    The two projects correspond to the Temporary Unions of Companies headed by Vodafone Spain and Huawei Technologies Spain, whose pilot will be developed in Andalusia, and the one composed by Telefónica Mobiles Spain, Telefónica de Spain, Telnet Smart Networks, Cinfo Personalised Informative Content, International Centre of Advanced Ophthalmology, Idronia Multimedia Solutions, Nokia Spain and Ericsson Spain, whose scope of action will be Galicia.

    Both initiatives have multiple use cases that take advantage of the potential of 5G technology in key sectors for society such as health, infrastructure or defense.

    Pilot project in Andalusia

    The pilot project of 5G technology that will be deployed in Andalusia by the UTE composed of Vodafone Spain and Huawei Technologies Spain has a duration of 30 months and a budget of more than 25 M€ (25.410.348.57 €), for which an aid of more than 6 M€ (6.348.836.88 €) has been requested that will be cofinanced by Red.es from the ERDF.

    The project covers 32 use cases that will be developed in very diverse areas: agriculture, health, smart cities and territories, security and defense, society, digital economy and culture, digital transformation and tourism. There are ten use cases that experience virtual reality and augmented reality in different areas, five that revolve around applications with drones and three use cases that explore facial recognition, among others.

    To carry out the use cases, a 5G network will be deployed in several points of the provinces of Malaga, Cadiz, Seville, Huelva and Jaén: the urban environment of Seville (historic center, Isla de La Cartuja, Real de la Feria and FIBES environment), the environment of Malaga (center of Malaga, technological park of Andalusia, station of María Zambrano, Pole of Digital Contents and Automobile Museum), the port of Huelva, Guadalema de Quinteros, the factory of Airbus in Puerto Algeóas and Puerto Ciras.

    Pilot project in Galicia

    The pilot project of 5G technology that will be developed in Galicia is the one presented by the UTE Telefónica Mobiles Spain, Telefónica de España, Telnet Smart Networks, Cinfo Personalised Informative Contents, International Centre of Advanced Ophthalmology, Idronia Multimedia Solutions, Nokia Spain and Ericsson Spain. It has a duration of 24 months and a budget of more than 11 M€ (11,500,164.02 €), for which an aid of more than 4 M€ (4,600,065.61 €) has been requested, which will be cofinanced by Red.es from the ERDF.

    The project includes eight use cases that will be developed in very diverse areas such as the retransmission of events, the connected car (C-V2X), the supervision of railway infrastructures through drones, and industry 4.0 with three use cases based on augmented reality techniques, fixed wireless access (FWA) and health (robot for remote ophthalmological diagnosis). Use cases, in addition to experimentation with the 5G network, include the development of artificial intelligence applications and algorithms.

    In addition to access to the infrastructure deployed for the pilot project, Telefónica will make available to third parties (companies, SMEs, startups, etc.) both the physical infrastructure and the management, support and advice of THE THINX laboratories (laboratories focused on IoT technologies) located in Madrid and Barcelona and those that will be equipped with 5G technology in 2019.

    To carry them out, a 5G network will be deployed in several points of the four Galician provinces: the Navantia pavilions in Ferrol, the facilities of the RC Deportivo de la Coruña in the stadium of Riazor, Abegondo, the Cereixal tunnel on the A-6 and the urban centers of the cities of Vigo and Orense.

    About the call

    The public call for grants for the development of 5G technology pilot projects was launched by Red.es at the end of 2018 for a value of € 20 M, oriented to a territorial scope of action. The call that has been resolved today has had a wide response from the sector when a total of eleven requests were received, which represented an aggregate budget of 128 M€.

    The pilot projects will be developed in the frequency bands 3.4-3.8 GHz and 26 GHz, identified in the European Union as priorities for the launch of 5G services.

    All the information is available in the website of Red.es.