VMO2 teams up with Accenture for UK private 5G push

VMO2 will be serving up the network capabilities, while Accenture has applications that layer on top such as computer vision AI for product quality control monitoring of equipment, and queue management systems designed to improve ‘customer experiences’.

Focusing initially on the construction, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, utilities, warehousing and sports venue sectors, the solutions are built on Accenture’s Edge Orchestration Platform and will incorporate edge computing, data and AI, and embedded cybersecurity.

Liberty Global, the joint owner of Virgin Media O2 alongside Telefónica, is also apparently exploring opportunities for these solutions in other countries.

“Building on Virgin Media O2’s established expertise in deploying mobile private networks, this new partnership with Accenture leverages their industry-specific knowledge and proven digital platform and solutions to help broaden our offering to businesses,” said Jo Bertram, Managing Director of Business and Wholesale at Virgin Media O2. “From facilitating safe communication on construction sites to powering critical devices in hospitals, businesses across a range of sectors will have access to a one-stop shop of innovative, adaptive and secure mobile private network solutions.”

Andy Tay, Global Lead at Accenture Cloud First, said: “Enterprises need to reinvent their networks to become agile and competitive, and it starts with access to reliable and secure mobile connectivity. This enables companies to build a strong digital core that uses the power of cloud, data, artificial intelligence and other technologies alongside new ways of working – ultimately helping them to optimise operations, drive growth, and reach new levels of performance.”

The collaboration will scale up in the coming months as ‘joint customer implementations’ begin to be deployed, we’re told.

As well as the listed sectors, VMO2 points to work it’s done in elsewhere with regards to private 5G installations – highlighting a project in which it helped activate the ‘UK’s first 5G-connected hospital’ with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, presumably to prove it has form in big projects of this kind. At the hospital, access to a private mobile network improved clinician workflow, patient record management, monitoring of smart medicine storage and integration of connected devices, we’re told.

The announcement also cites a report from STL Partners which forecasts that the UK’s mobile private network market will reach around £528 million by 2030. This forecast is based on a wider global one, which anticipates an addressable market of $21 billion by 2030.