umlaut CEO touts the ‘perfect test environment’

German test and analytics company Umlaut has begun operating a private 5G Standalone Open RAN network, aimed at providing companies a place to test private 5G solutions without having to build their own private network or purchase spectrum to do so.

The 5G Campus Lab is located at Umlaut’s headquarters in Aachen, Germany. Umlaut said that it worked with Airspan Networks and Druid Software to build the network, which relies on a private 5G spectrum license for 100 megahertz of C-Band spectrum and uses a virtualized architecture.

“5G is a key enabler of smart connected products and manufacturing. Our 5G Campus Lab is the ideal testing ground for companies wanting to capitalize on latest wireless connectivity technologies, cloud-based Open RAN virtualized infrastructure, and massive Multi-Input, Multi-Output (MIMO) antennas,” said Hakan Ekmen, CEO for telecommunication at umlaut.

“We are proud that when it comes to 5G we are once again pioneers,” he added. “With our 5G campus network, we can test a wide variety of industrial applications and scenarios which provide real value for our customers. We will provide them with tangible, reliable results to help them develop their 5G strategies and proof of concepts, in the perfect test environment, saving the cost of building and operating their own 5G test beds. umlaut will also support our customers in creating their own tailor-made environment from planning license application for network rollout, launch and optimization and managed operation of our clients’ private networks.”

Umlaut, which was acquired by Accenture last year, said that companies can use its 5G Campus Lab to validate existing 5G use cases, work with umlaut to design and test new solutions, or explore the use cases that umlaut’s network is already set up to support. Umlaut says those include process automation and predictive maintenance for smart manufacturing; telemedicine with a “digitized rescue chain”; software-defined vehicles; and real-time augmented reality for digital twins.

Umlaut said that the campus network “is to be a foundation for engineering studies and collaborative testing of a variety of pioneering applications”, focusing on areas including logistics, utilities, manufacturing and “health and life.”

Liam Kenny, CEO of Druid Software, said in a statement that umlaut is “ideally positioned with the enterprise slicing capabilities of the Druid RaemisT 5G NGC and Airspan’s ORAN solution to address the business-critical needs of industry.”

“This private network solution leveraging our 5G and Open RAN expertise, software and hardware will help many enterprises develop and validate 5G use cases that will drive innovation,” said Airspan President and CEO Eric Stonestrom.