The health, social care and education project, which runs until March 2022, has built its own high speed network using unlicensed spectrum covering the area and will offer free connectivity to participants in the project.
Using funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s £200mi 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme, the project has built a mesh network which relies on line of sight with similar levels of incoming and outgoing capacity rather than using base stations designed mainly to send data.
It has also developed what it calls a ‘digital twin’ replica-map of Kensington to support construction of the network, which includes 120 outdoor sites and is connected to Liverpool City Council’s network, one of its partners.
The project, which also involves local NHS organisations and a number of technology providers, is using 5G connections for remote monitoring of health conditions, a remote GP triaging service and wound care and management.
Liverpool 5G Create director Rosemary Kay said: “We knew early on in the project that we needed to develop a new service level agreement that supported the monitoring and delivery of our technologies.
“Many of the technologies support vulnerable people living independently in the community, so we need to be 100% sure that if sensors detect an older person has fallen, there’s an immediate home visit from a care provider. This level of personalised commitment is harder for a purely commercially driven operation to support. Our model is designed with this not-for-profit capability in mind.”
