Our latest #Talking5G series entry features Robert Franks, Managing Director at West Midlands 5G (WM5G).

Established to accelerate the benefits of 5G, WM5G has adopted a leadership position to ensure 5G’s economic and social benefits are realised in the West Midlands.  

Robert Franks’ two-part contribution to the #Talking5G series explores the importance of bringing 5G connectivity to the West Midlands and the role WM5G fulfills in working with mobile operators and others to bring 5G to the region.

Robert describes 5G’s potential to create economic and social growth within the West Midlands. He explains how the low latency speeds (the speed at which data reaches devices) of 5G, offers huge potential for industrial, business to consumer, government and consumer needs.  

Referencing the heritage of the West Midlands region as the “heartland of the UK’s industrial revolution” Robert discusses the substantial amount of economic growth and activity coming from sectors such as manufacturing.  

He further explains how 5G can revolutionise these sectors as part of Industry 4.0. The term ‘Industry 4.0’ refers to a new phase in the contemporary industrial revolution that focuses heavily on interconnectivity, automation, machine learning, and real-time data. Robert expresses that sectors such as transport, healthcare, and the creative industries will all benefit from these 5G-enabled possibilities.  

In the second part of  this video we ask “What 5G benefits do you expect to see for major cities such as Birmingham?”. Responding, Robert provides an overview of  the work WM5G has been doing in partnership with mobile operators, landlords, and local authorities to accelerate the rollout of 5G networks and to test and prove the benefits that 5G will bring to  major cities.  

Further to this, he explains the first benefit that WM5G is seeing is the early stages of large 5G amounts of coverage in major cities such as Birmingham.  

“According to Independent analysts, we have 22% geographic coverage in our region, which is the highest in the UK because we're a heavily urbanised region that equates to over 50% population coverage. In other words, 50% of people in the Midlands have access to a 5G signal from one or multiple operators.”

To find out more watch Roberts’ #Talking5G videos here, connect with him via LinkedIn and visit the WM5G website to find out more here.

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