Rugby World Cup on 5G

Police and emergency services working at the Rugby World Cup in the French city of Toulouse will have access to a new dedicated 5G network, which went live for the event in September 2023.

Municipal organization Toulouse appointed NTT subsidiary Transatel to provide a public 5G extension to the city’s private 5G infrastructure for use by law enforcement agencies and emergency services. 

Toulouse will host France's largest 'fan zone' during the Rugby World Cup. Transatel, positioned as a globally active mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) for cellular roaming services, won the gig via a tender process.

Its multi-operator SIM cards will provide public/private cellular connectivity for police officers, ambulance drivers, and firefighters as they patrol the city during the rugby tournament, with Transatel likely to continue to provide service beyond the term of the event.

Toulouse Métropole has developed a "sovereign" city-owned private high-connectivity-via 5G (HI5) cellular network with funding from the Connecting Europe Facility, the European Union scheme to support public and private investments in digital infrastructure through 2027.

A press statement said that the city authority has built a shared multi-service 5G and IP/MPLS infrastructure to offer 5G-paced mobile access services to innovation zones and improve municipal services.

The HI5 network is geared to provide group communications during public events, real-time analysis of video streams for security purposes, mobile broadband on the city metro in and in rural areas, and a network facility to train students in 5G applications.

Transatel has been drafted in to provide handover to sundry public 5G networks beyond the bounds of its private 5G network – to "ensure the interoperability of its infrastructure with mobile operators' networks, to guarantee the continuity of service required by its users, securely and at a reasonable cost."

A statement explained: “The proliferation of ‘private’ 4G/5G [networks] in factories, hospitals, stadiums, universities, ports and airports is making interoperability of private and public cellular networks essential, especially for emergency services… [which] are constantly on the move, and need to be able to stay connected and make calls without interruption as they pass through areas respectively covered by public and/or private cellular networks.”

Joe di Marco, in charge of the digital infrastructure organizing authority at Toulouse Métropole, said that initial continuity tests of the network had been conclusive, ”and we look forward to future phases of experimentation.”

Image credit: iStockphoto/master1305