City of Antwerp partners with Ericsson and iSea for public safety

Ericsson (NASDAG: ERIC) and service provider iSea in partnership with the City of Antwerp have jointly deployed a large scale 5G-ready trial network in the greater Antwerp city and port area. Goal is to investigate, together with the local police force, fire department and port authorities, the development of a private 5G network to further improve multidisciplinary cooperation on the field. This network, named “Minerva”, aims at playing a crucial role in the further digitalisation of the port as well as public security forces and emergency response teams.

Today’s emergency networks are still predominantly focused on basic voice services, with limited support for data services. This is about to change, taking into account the growing feature and capability sets provided by 4G and 5G networks, such as secure and speedy sharing of data, images and video, critical IoT, low latency control, network slicing, increased availability and resilience.

The Antwerp trial network is based on 700 MHz RAN and Core technology by Ericsson. Set-up and operated by iSea, the trial network provides extensive private coverage throughout the entire city and port area. Trials include live and continuous video streaming from various fixed, vehicle mounted and body cameras to a central operations centre coordinating site interventions of public security and first response teams. High-performance and secure data connectivity supports the use of dedicated apps, such as the FOCUS police app bringing a variety of tools, data and real-time communication capabilities from a single, integrated and secure police platform to the field, even under critical circumstances.. Another use case will be push-to-talk applications (PTT) adding interactive voice services. Network slicing, a unique feature of 5G technology, allows local police, fire department, port authorities and private actors with critical needs to control their respective networks independently and to assure adequate quality of service. The Core enables to manage and control the mission critical broadband network, to safeguard information security and to protect data integrity. The trial network enables direct local data drop off without need for public internet access or transit, thus substantially increasing network and data security.

Rémi de Montgolfier, general manager Ericsson Belux: “We are proud to be part of the trial in Antwerp. Mobile technology is a cornerstone in the public safety networks of tomorrow, for the benefit of the citizen and for the efficiency of the public security and emergency response officers.”

Valentijn Vande Keere, CEO of iSea: “iSea is pleased to see that the excellent collaboration between involved partners and teams has allowed to bring this trial project in short time from the design table into working practice, with many new capabilities and applications yet to come. This creates great perspectives for the creation and growth of local expertise, sustainable business and valuable jobs enabled by new technologies such as 5G.”

Bart De Wever, Mayor of Antwerp: “For the City of Antwerp it is crucial to have mobile networks as future-proof digitalisation platform and to strengthen the multidisciplinary ecosystem of actors like the Antwerp Police Force, the Fire Department and the Port of Antwerp. 5G can address the different needs and use cases required in their daily operations.”

Maarten Torfs, ICT Director Antwerp Police: “The increasing digitalisation of the Antwerp Police Department requires secure and reliable high performance mobile data connectivity ready to use by various applications on the field, such as mobile cameras and our police app FOCUS. By deploying this trial network, we can further develop our existing digital applications and research new ones for future use.”

Bert Brugghemans, Chief Fire Officer and CEO of Antwerp Fire Department: “In emergency situations, the availability of guaranteed real-time video on site can make a huge difference for quick assessment and first response actions. This trial network will strengthen our further digitalisation and improve our work in the field.”

Erwin Verstraelen, CDIO Port of Antwerp: “As Antwerp Port Authority we are committed to facilitate the digital transformation of the port ecosystem. This port-wide 5G trial network not only supports the future version of port operations from nautical, environmental and safety perspective, but also prepares us for emerging 5G applications leveraging high speed and low latency for automation, logistics or safety & security assurance.”

ABOUT ERICSSON

Ericsson enables communications service providers to capture the full value of connectivity. The company’s portfolio spans Networks, Digital Services, Managed Services, and Emerging Business and is designed to help our customers go digital, increase efficiency and find new revenue streams. Ericsson’s investments in innovation have delivered the benefits of telephony and mobile broadband to billions of people around the world. The Ericsson stock is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and on Nasdaq New York.

www.ericsson.com

ABOUT iSEA

iSea designs, deploys and operates radio network solutions for a wide variety of safety and security related applications. By offering in-depth technical expertise, hands-on approach and result driven cooperation, iSea has delivered and continues to deliver leading edge technology solutions. iSea is a privately owned, independent innovator based in Brussels, Belgium. The company is atypical in its absence from the public internet and modus operandi based on word-of-mouth reference.

MORE INFORMATION AT

Press contact:
Ericsson BeLux

Stéphanie Blairon
Marketing & Communication Officer
+32 496 27 18 97
stephanie.blairon@ericsson.com

Corinne Muller
Head of Marketing & Communications
+33 1 81 87 41 62
corinne.muller@ericsson.com

Weber Shandwick
Kevin Scheers
KScheers@webershandwick.com

Sarah Bouckaert
+32 492 15 96 47
SBouckaert@webershandwick.com

Press contact iSEA:
Valentijn Vande Keere, CEO
+32 477 34 55 22
valentijn.vande.keere@isea-data.com

NOTES TO EDITORS

For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visit www.ericsson.com/press

News Center