5G at HANNOVER MESSE: Telekom brings industrial solutions to life

Exhibition center becomes 5G innovation campus
Industry solutions at Telekom and partners
Standalone architecture for new services

The Exhibition center becomes a 5G innovation campus. Get a feeling for Industry solutions and Standalone architecture for new services. © Deutsche Telekom

Hannover is home to Europe's largest 5G exhibition center: Telekom has installed new, super-fast generation mobile communications in time for HANNOVER MESSE. The exhibition center offers a private campus network that the trade fair company and exhibitors alone can use for their applications. Additionally, visitors to HANNOVER MESSE have excellent coverage of the public 5G network on the grounds. In close partnership with Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Messe AG has gradually developed the exhibition grounds into a multifunctional innovation campus. Deutsche Telekom is ensuring high-performance 5G coverage on a total area of more than 1.4 million square meters. In Hall 23, a purely private campus network is also available to exhibitors. The network is based on the so-called standalone (SA) architecture and offers new possibilities for developing, implementing, and operating services.

In the first step, Deutsche Telekom equipped five halls and the entire outdoor area, including the parking lots, with 5G. Subsequently, all 30 halls and buildings on the exhibition grounds will be supplied. The aim is to create a globally unique test field for 5G applications in which technology leaders from different industries operate.

Experience 5G application live: Autonomous forklift truck

At HANNOVER MESSE, Telekom will be demonstrating a concrete application for industry based on its 5G network: an autonomously driving forklift truck autonomously finds the desired pallets in the warehouse and moves them to the loading ramp. At the same time, the forklift monitors inventory levels and can provide timely information when parts need to be reordered.

But for such an application to be profitably integrated into a company's processes, it needs more than just sensors on the vehicle and pallets:

the network: Connectivity forms the basis for all industrial applications. With the ultra-fast 5G network, many new applications can be realized. But it is also possible to combine existing connectivity, such as WLAN, with a 5G campus network and meet the requirements for autonomous vehicles in industry.
the edge: the so-called edge cloud ensures intelligent and, above all, very fast data processing directly at the point of action. In this way, the forklift on the exhibition site is immediately supplied with the necessary data for the autonomous journey. Experts call this “runtime of data transmission”, or “latency”.
the cloud: the company's merchandise management system is also integrated via the cloud. It automatically registers that the pallet is now on its way to the customer. Particularly when it comes to customer data, data security and data protection are crucial. With the help of a sovereign cloud, the company retains full control over what data is shared with whom.
the ecosystem: standardized interfaces are necessary to integrate further parties into the system. This is because the full value of data that accumulates with digitization is only revealed in networks and data spaces in which companies collaborate. New business models and innovations can be developed in such ecosystems, such as those currently being created for the automotive industry with Catena-X.

Campus network for testing: 5G Box To Go

With the Telekom 5G Box To Go, Telekom offers interested customers the opportunity to test a private 5G campus network on their own company premises. This not only provides a functioning private campus network in compact form. The complete package includes, among other things, 5G-capable end devices, setup and commissioning, project management and support, as well as monitoring of the test phase by a Telekom expert. This gives companies the initial flexibility to try out the campus network and test integration into their own processes.

The Campus network in Hanover in detail

In Hanover, Europe's largest 5G trade fair site has been equipped with a Campus Network L. The network is a hybrid network. The so-called "dual-slice" campus network consists of a private network – exclusively for Messe AG – and a public 5G network. To date, twelve 5G antennas have been put into operation on the outdoor site for this purpose. Another four will be added shortly. In addition, 57 indoor antennas will illuminate the first five halls (Halls 9, 16/17 and 19/20) with 5G indoors as well. Furthermore, Halls 5, 6 and 7 will also be supplied with 5G especially for HANNOVER MESSE 2022.

A purely private campus network will be available to exhibitors in Hall 23. Here, companies can test their future 5G applications. With 5G Standalone (SA), the network offers new opportunities for the development of innovative services.

The private part of the campus network uses frequencies between 3.7 and 3.8 GHz from the industrial spectrum. Deutsche Messe has obtained the appropriate license from the German Federal Network Agency. The public network part is secured using Telekom-owned frequencies in the 3.6 GHz range. This means that a total of 190 MHz of bandwidth is available for the trade fair center.

Visitors to Hannover Messe will find Deutsche Telekom "open-air" on the outdoor area in front of Halls 8 and 9 from May 30 - June 2, 2022.