nexGworx: History of Worcestershire 5G


nexGworx was created following the success of the DCMS Testbed and Trials Supported Research and Development project ‘Worcestershire 5G‘.

Whilst the telecommunications history of many of the consortium members of Worcestershire 5G and the individuals involved span decades, our story started in 2016′

Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership along with Worcestershire County Council began exploring the potential benefits that 5G could have to Worcestershire in late 2016, recognising the potential for improvements in productivity across a number of sectors, in particular Advanced Manufacturing and Health and Social Care applications.

Successes along the way for Worcestershire have included securing Department of Digital. Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) funding for two 5G projects ‘Worcestershire 5G’ and West Mercia Rural 5G’, deploying the first 5G network in a factory setting, establishing contact between the Wireless Broadband Alliance and Mettis Aerospace that saw the first industrial trials of Wi-Fi 6 in the world, receiving awards for innovation and establishing an ongoing ‘Testbed as a Service’ at Malvern Hills Science Park alongside technology partner BT.

Whilst our exciting ‘5G and beyond’ journey continues, you can find out below what has been achieved to date and how to get involved moving forward to be part of our future.

DCMS supported project 2018-202

In 2018 Worcestershire was chosen by Government as the home of a new 5G Testbed, putting the county at the forefront of technological innovation. Worcestershire was one of six projects led by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), universities and local authorities that represent the best of UK innovation, resources and expertise.

Each testbed received between £2 million and £7 million in government grants, as part of a total investment of over £40m from private sector and other public sector funding, to explore new ‘fifth generation’ mobile communications technologies that use high frequency spectrum to deliver internet speeds of over a gigabit per second. To find out more about the other testbeds, click here.

During the lifetime of the 5G consortium, 5G technology has been tested within several business led applications, the focus has been on manufacturing and how 5G technology can improve productivity. The Worcestershire 5G testbed was able to demonstrate 5G within manufacturing factories in the first UK ever 5G smart factory trials held with consortium partners Worcester Bosch and Yamazaki Mazak.

The testbed has also been highly commended at the World Communication Awards and won Most Commercially Viable Use Case at the inaugural 5G Realised ‘Use Case Awards’.

The Worcestershire 5G testbed final report was made available in November 2020 and the findings from the project show that, up to 2% efficiency gains can be possible through the adoption of 5G technology. These gains when extrapolated to the UK level would be equivalent to a contribution of £2.6 billion.

nexGworx Testbed as a Service 2020 and beyond

Post project completion, in the summer of 2020, previous Worcestershire 5G consortium members Worcestershire County Council and Local Enterprise Partnership, Malvern Hills Science Park (MHSP) and technology partner BT, along with Ericsson, have transitioned the Testbed into a sustainable model, allowing businesses the opportunity to take advantage of an unprecedented investment opportunity in the innovation and commercialisation of ‘first-to market’ 5G enabled solutions.

nexGworx was incorporated in Spring 2021 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Malvern Hills Science Park and is providing a ‘Testbed as a Service’ to those interested in testing and trialling products and services over 5G. There are three principle ‘Testbed as a Service’ propositions:

  • 5G Core service
  • 5G Laboratory service
  • 5G Customer Site Testbed – or ‘Private 5G in a box’

These propositions represent a variety of potential entry points and customer journeys for small, medium and large businesses.  Initial ideas can be experimented with by customers and their suppliers by visiting nexGworx’s 5G indoor Laboratory and office space at MHSP or accessing the network in the local area (coverage includes parts of Malvern town, the hills and surrounding suburban and rural environments) via the outdoor 25m mast on the site, this is likely to be for a few days or weeks at a time, although can be longer.

Alternatively, businesses can progress their ideas to the implementation of testbed services at their own sites, this may be in a dedicated development area or directly alongside live manufacturing environments.

For those interested in finding out more about nexGworx, contact the team by emailing enquiries@nexGworx.co.uk.

The first users of the Testbed services are:

  • Worcester Bosch,
  • QinetiQ,
  • Worcestershire County Council,
  • West Midlands 5G
  • West Mercia Rural 5G
  • AE Aerospace
  • Manufacturing Technology Centre
  • BetaDen cohort 4,
  • along with a number of existing BT account customers and MHSP resident businesses.