BT launches 5G-based computer vision system with Atos
UK telco BT has combined with French IT firm Atos to develop and launch Digital Vision, a computer vision system for the industrial sector that includes support for manufacturing and logistics. The system combines BT’s digital connectivity, including 5G, with Atos’s Computer Vision Platform, providing pre-trained and customizable AI models.
The partners noted that AI video and image analysis is now used widely in applications such as transport safety and traffic monitoring, quality control in manufacturing, and location tracking. The joint BT-Atos system aims to improve security and monitoring for customers by enabling real-time use of video and image data. Digital Vision will use BT’s 5G/FTTx multi-access connectivity and edge computing system.
Nokia announces private 5G deployments in Brazil and Turkey
Nokia has announced two further 5G private network deployments, one in Brazil at the factory of electronics provider Flex Brazil, and the other at MEXT, the Turkish Employers’ Association of Metal Industries Technology Center.
Both involve the vendor’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) package enabling private wireless network deployment as-a-service, combining plug-and-play ‘4.9G’ LTE and 5G network connectivity with on-premise edge computing.
Flex will also use Nokia’s digital twin technology to create a replica of the private 5G network and its connected devices, allowing the company to monitor network operations and predict maintenance needs.
China adds 26.2m 5G subscribers in August 2022
Chinese telcos recorded a net gain of 26.2 m 5G subscribers in August, according to figures from the carriers, with China Mobile as the world’s largest cellular operator by subscribers notching up 15.08m of those.
The operator ended the month with 538.8m 5G subscribers with 152m of those gained since the beginning of the year. This is now well over half of China Mobile’s overall subscriber base, which was 973.24m at the end of August, itself up from 971.13m in the previous month.
Rival operator China Unicom added 4.88m 5G subscribers last month, ending with 194.83m 5G subscribers, while China Telecom added 6.27m 5G subscribers to reach 243.6m.
Ericsson deploys private 5G at Nestlé in Brazil
Swiss food-and-drink conglomerate Nestlé has deployed what Ericsson claims is the first private 5G network in Latin America, at a factory in Caçapava, a city in Brazil.
This was executed with help from Claro and Embratel, both Brazilian subsidiaries of Mexican group América Móvil, using equipment from Ericsson. This is part of Nestlé’s planned migration from partly automated to fully autonomous production across its 31 factories in Brazil, featuring ultra-low latency in the sub-10ms range, as well as data rates 25 times faster than over the preceding LTE network, according to Ericsson.
The claim of this being a world first for Nestlé may withstand closer scrutiny than the one about being first in Latin America, since Nokia in August 2022 announced a private 5G deployment with AT&T for port terminals on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico. It could, though, be the first such deployment in South America, which excludes Mexico.