The testbed is supported by private networks and 5G equipment from BT’s EE mobile division.
At its brand-new testbed, the BT Group will start creating and testing extended reality (XR) apps with an emphasis on immersive experiences for work, home, health, and entertainment.
According to Andy Gower, head of BT’s Immersive Content & Comms Research, the testbed will help the firm better understand what extended reality would “require from network service providers like BT Group.” It is supported by 5G infrastructure and private networks from BT’s EE mobile unit.
According to the specific use case, “these requirements will obviously vary,” stated Gower. “At the extreme, we might need to support a fully cloud-rendered immersive experience, which would call for high-bandwidth and low-latency networks paired with new facilities like network exposure functions that would let a platform operator request extra features like edge GPU compute or symmetric bandwidth provision that would optimize the end-user experience.”
BT has already showcased its XR aspirations and know-how with services for the domains of education, sports broadcasting, and medical imaging. To give private businesses and public sector organizations an understanding of how their industries will change with new digital technologies and a sense of how they might use them to embrace this digital transformation, BT, for example, launched a series of 5G-based augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) showcases in the U.K. in May. At the time, BT stated that the new facilities were aimed at “any business or organization with a learning or development requirement” and would provide “virtual experiences inside operating theatres, buses, warehouses, supermarkets, building sites, and arenas.”