Vertical: Airports
Application: Drones for security and monitoring
Ecosystem: Cellnex, Aena, Nokia, Inetum
Private Network: Private 5G
Cellnex Telecom, a telecommunications infrastructure and services operator, along with Aena, a leading airport manager, and Nokia, operationalized the first 5G private network at San Sebastian airport in Spain.
As part of the project, Cellnex was responsible for installing and rolling out the 5G network at the airport. The network at the San Sebastian airport covers many use cases such as drone operations for security and advanced monitoring, as well as the acquisition, collection and secure processing of environmental data (gases and particles in suspension, temperature, humidity and noise) through the Cellnex SmartBrain Platform. While Nokia is the partner for the deployment of the 5G network, Inetum will supply and operate the associated drones.
Pablo Lopez Loeches, Head of Ideation & Entrepreneurship at Aena, underlined “the importance of having a private 5G network at one of our airports that allows us to test specific airport use cases that require high capacity, low latency and high device density, as well as a new connectivity layer that provides the airport community with a highly reliable and readily available data transmission service.”
Miquel Mir, Enterprise Sales Manager at Cellnex Spain highlighted “the importance of telecommunications infrastructures and technologies such as 5G in contributing to optimize processes in complex environments like airports, where security and operational efficiency are key, above and beyond connectivity for passengers.”
Aena has identified 5G as one of the key technologies for the digital transformation process at airports. A private 5G network enables the development of new applications such as security and operations. It further advances the Internet of Things (IoT) and helps to implement Big Data, virtual and augmented reality, and artificial intelligence due to its high-speed data transmission, low latency, capacity to manage a high density of connected devices, and, in particular, its high availability and reliability.
Aena is the number one airport manager by passenger numbers, with over 243 million passing through Spanish airports in 2022. The company manages 46 airports and 2 heliports in Spain and participates directly and indirectly in the management of a further 23 airports. Cellnex manages a portfolio of 137,000 sites –including forecast roll-outs up to 2030– in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Poland.
In early 2023, Cellnex Telecom and Nokia won a €20.5 mn deal to deploy private wireless network for Adif AV, Spanish rail infrastructure operator.
