Canadian quad-play operator Rogers Communications and the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver have announced a three year, ‘multi-million dollar’ partnership deal to build a ‘real-world 5G Hub’ on the UBC campus as a ‘testbed and blueprint for 5G innovation’. Rogers will deploy 5G-ready network equipment and infrastructure at UBC starting in early 2019. The partnership will study 5G applications such as monitoring cars and traffic to develop smarter and safer cities. Other research interests include autonomous vehicles, machine learning, artificial intelligence and network slicing technology for use in robotics, farming and medical applications. Rogers’ CTO Jorge Fernandes said: ‘UBC is the ideal 5G partner with world renowned researchers and facilities where we can co-develop applications that will make our cities smarter, cleaner and safer.’
This partnership is part of Rogers’ multi-year 5G development programme, which includes a national infrastructure agreement with Ericsson to boost and densify its fibre-powered network with 5G-ready technology. Earlier this year Rogers completed live 5G testing at Rogers Centre and is currently testing 5G global standards. Rogers says it also continues to upgrade its LTE network with 5G-ready technology to be ready for 5G commercial deployment ‘in 2020’.