Airband and the West Mercia Rural 5G (WMR5G) Project

Being based in Worcestershire, and as the region’s fastest growing provider of broadband to rural communities, Airband’s participation in the WMR5G Project was a natural fit.

At Airband we’re in a unique position to support the WMR5G project in addressing its very distinct challenges. Firstly, how the mobile industry in the UK could deploy 5G in rural areas at pace, but also at reasonable cost. Secondly, how councils and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in rural areas, when faced with increasing demands for their critical services and with funding stretched due to increasing demand, could find new models for delivery.

As a result of their work over recent years, in conjunction with Connecting Shropshire, Airband has already deployed a superfast fixed wireless broadband network across the county, with dozens of masts discretely located in areas of strategic benefit to the WMR5G project. Making use of existing infrastructure in this way inevitably reduces the overheads required to rollout the new 5G technology, and nowhere more so than in rural counties such as Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Furthermore, making use of existing infrastructure in this way significantly reduces the time frames involved in scaling up pilot project such as this.

We’re excited about what projects like WMR5G mean for the future of connectivity in rural counties. Initiatives like this show that when there is collaboration between different sectors, some tangible differences can be made to the everyday online lives of rural communities, and even more so to the provision of essential services such as medical and social care.

For more information on WMR5G project please visit wmr5g.org.uk