Partner content: The most impactful innovations in connectivity enhance and expedite our lives and businesses, helping us to perform our everyday needs and presenting us with new opportunity
These innovations emerge through collaboration, where shared technology, ideas and expertise yield mutual economic benefits and societal advancement.
However, many innovation efforts in the telecoms industry are hindered by siloed approaches, fragmentation and duplication. In addition, investment in innovation projects remains flat as the spend in other technology sectors soars.
The GSMA Foundry helps to address the widening innovation gap by providing a consolidated home of telco innovation – the go-to place to collaborate to develop commercially viable ideas at scale and pace with the key players in the industry.
Launched in 2021, the GSMA Foundry brings together organisations of all sizes to foster collaboration and innovation. Our mission is to pioneer new approaches and make lasting contributions to society, connecting everyone and everything to a better future. We aim to create a hub for cross-industry collaboration, welcoming all players to develop fresh solutions to industry challenges and unlock new use cases through commercial trials. The GSMA Foundry supports projects at all stages of development, from brand-new concepts to proven solutions needing regional or global scaling.
This first edition of the GSMA Foundry Mobile Innovation Report celebrates the successes to date – from transformative projects to strategic partnerships and how to get involved.
Collaboration in Practice
The GSMA Foundry has already demonstrated the power of collaborative innovation with several industry firsts. One notable project is the ‘5G – Enabling Enterprise Drones to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS)‘ initiative. This collaboration between Ericsson Drone Mobility, TDC NET and other ecosystem partners in Denmark developed a 5G-enabled communication infrastructure for UAS. This infrastructure ensures drones can stay consistently and securely connected to the TDC NET mobile network, enabling applications such as environmental inspections, precision farming and lifesaving supply deliveries.
Another example is the ‘Smart Agri – 5G Automated Farming Solutions‘ project by ZTE and China Mobile. They used 5G connectivity to automate rice production on 12,000 acres of marginal land near Da’an City, Jilin Province. The 5G-enabled farm management solution optimises the use of water, fertiliser, fuel and seeds, significantly reducing labour costs. The project has already yielded economic benefits of 3.3 million yuan (€450,000) through a 10% increase in output and savings in materials and labour costs, while the smart irrigation system uses 40% less water than conventional systems.
Encouraging Future Collaboration
We are currently supporting dozens of new projects, including ‘5G New Calling,’ set to revolutionise traditional voice and video call services with capabilities like Ultra HD, Intelligent, and Interactive video calling. This collaboration involves over ten members, including Ericsson, Huawei and Vivo.
Additionally, the GSMA Foundry and the European Space Agency (ESA) have partnered to enhance collaboration between mobile and satellite industries, accelerating innovation in integrating satellite communications with 5G and future 6G networks.
We encourage more companies to collaborate with the mobile community and contribute to the next wave of mobile innovations. For the remainder of 2024, we will focus on projects in 5G, Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), Artificial Intelligence (AI), efficiency and monetisation. We invite anyone developing a relevant project to join us.
Submit your projects to the GSMA Foundry here.