Bouygues and IBM to collaborate on 5G use cases with companies

France’s Bouygues Telecom and IBM have signed a collaboration agreement to support business customers in their development of 5G use cases.

5G will finally be deployed in France in the coming weeks, after a much delayed spectrum auction. Bouygues Telecom and IBM are offering what they call a “co-innovation approach” for customers through an Open Lab 5G approach.

The idea is that Bouygues combines its experience and expertise as a telco with IBM’s expertise in hybrid cloud, IoT and edge computing.

Earlier this month Big Blue launched 
IBM Cloud for Telecommunications. It brings Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, IBM Edge Application Manager, and IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager under one umbrella brand as IBM strives to gain traction in this key but fiercely competitive market.


Late to the party?

Although 5G deployment is only just beginning in France, this move seems rather late, given that incumber Orange announced it was working with industrial groups of varying sizes on 5G use cases in April 2019 as its top 5G priority.

The Open Lab 5G approach allow companies to assess the benefits and value of 5G to business challenges. Apparently the Lab will be “applicable to all companies wishing to experiment with 5G, to discover its potential and develop use cases”.
 
The Open Lab 5G approach revolves around:
 
• Co-development of use cases that leverage the power of 5G networks in sectors like manufacturing, transport, health, energy and utilities, retail, smart city though the IBM Garage.

• The creation of rapid 5G-enabled test sites for clients with a 5G device kit provided by Bouygues Telecom.

• Implementation of minimum viable product to evaluate the return on investment.

• Support the industrialisation of the chosen solution.

François Treuil, CEO of Bouygues Telecom Entreprises, explained, “Networks are key to the digitalisation of businesses and the contributions of 5G will be considerable. It is therefore important for our customers to be able to start now to assess the tangible benefits of 5G, which will promote their own competitiveness.”