Specific cities in Europe announced their plans to become 5G Trial Cities, at the forefront of 5G trials and pilots. As at August , three additional cities committed themselves to the target: Aveiro, Bristol and Ghent. These trial cities aim to provide support for a variety of technology and service demonstrations carried out during the 5G trialling phase and provide valuable vertical use cases, especially for Smart City concept to validate the trials in real user environments.
When compared to the private sector, public entities such as cities usually have different interests even in similar use cases focusing e. In all of these domains, shared technology platforms, free access, open data and interfaces as well as the maximal involvement of local ecosystems and residents are common priorities.
Barcelona has just launched the 5GBarcelona strategy towards facilitating the deployment of trials and pilots across the city and so, becoming a 5G smart city. Barcelona contributes to the 5GMed project starting in September The City of Patras is aiming at organising, transforming and finally extending its current digital infrastructure into an open platform that will interconnect 5G related technologies. This digital transformation is performed in order to address e-administration issues related to the City of Patras while enhancing the quality of life of its citizens.
It is part of the 5G PPP facilities ecosystem. The Patras area is seen as a playground for vertical industries. City of Bristol as one of the main UK 5G Hub sites, together with University of Bristol , aims especially to demonstrate the 5G technologies for public. The Bristol target has been mainly to show the potential of 5G in shaping the future of social interaction, entertainment, urban planning and public safety.
The similar events such as arranged in March , are planned for the near future. The promotional video from the event is also available. Bristol alongside Bath will be the home of enhanced visual experiences for tourists using Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in major local attractions as part of the 5G Smart Tourism project which was awarded GBP5 million in March In May , the University of Bristol contributed to provide immersive media services to travellers arriving at Bristol and live streaming application.
