BT Group announces a new collaboration with global racing championship, SailGP, which will see its innovative 5G Standalone network slicing capabilities deliver critical connectivity to underpin the event’s operations and enhance the fan experience at the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Portsmouth (July 19-20).
As official technology supplier for the Portsmouth event, in which 12 national teams compete on the waters of the Solent, BT is working closely with SailGP and Ericsson, the championship’s global technology partner. This will see BT provide two dedicated network slices tailored to the event’s specific requirements, enhancing connectivity and complementing Ericsson’s role in delivering high-capacity, reliable network performance for SailGP.
Network slicing uses 5G Standalone technology to provide a dedicated, protected slice of the mobile network for specific use-cases, ensuring performance isn’t impacted if the public network is congested by users at the event. SailGP marks the first time that BT has delivered multiple concurrent network slices at the same event, showcasing the technology’s ability to keep fans connected to event experiences as well as power the delivery of seamless operations behind the scenes. It has worked with Nokia to deploy network slicing capabilities in several radio mast sites covering the event area around Portsmouth harbour, with the slicing being configured end-to-end.
Powered by EE, the UK’s best and most reliable mobile network, BT will provision multiple network slices to provide dedicated capacity for critical use cases including:
- Boat connectivity: To support seamless roaming between the private and public network across all 12 F50s. BT’s network slice ensures always-on connectivity for voice communications, transfer of telemetry data and on-board video.
- Point-of-sale terminals: Enabling a quick payments process in SailGP’s official merchandise shop within the SailGP Race Stadium.
- Broadcast: Working with Sony and its 5G live production products to trial new broadcast capabilities, roaming Full HD cameras will utilise the network slice – optimised for the high-capacity uplink requirements of Sony’s ultra low-latency encoders – to support a SailGP production which is broadcast to 212 countries worldwide.
- Media: Select photographers at the event will benefit from instant and assured connectivity to upload photos in real-time for use by international media. This is being delivered in partnership with Sony’s connected camera solution, consisting of Sony Alpha cameras and PDT-FP1.
Also new to the UK event is SailGP’s 360-degree AR/VR experience, which will allow fans to experience what it’s like to be onboard an F50. This high-quality experience will use new higher capacity 5G radios, being tested in Portsmouth by BT and Ericsson, that will enable ultra low-latency performance and gigabit capacity.
BT’s latest implementation of network slicing builds on a series of recent deployments, including at Wembley Stadium and Belfast Christmas market. EE’s 5G Standalone network, which launched less than a year ago, is now available to over 30 million people across more than 50 major towns and cities in the UK – covering over 45 per cent of the population.
Limited tickets to the Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix still remain. Don’t miss out on the action – visit SailGP.com/tickets to experience the most exciting racing on water’s return to UK shores on July 19-20. To apply for media accreditation, click here.
