The Terres de l’Ebre region is the site of Catalonia’s first ‘5G Area’ for testing 5G technology in rural surroundings

• This territorial development project for the implementation of 5G is promoted by the Ministry for Digital Policy as part of the 5G Strategy of Catalonia, with the collaboration of Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the i2CAT Foundation.
• The 5G areas, which will be established throughout Catalonia, are territorial areas intended to bring together different initiatives addressed to promoting this technology: training and dissemination activities, workshops, concept trials and laboratories.
• Through the 5G Rural ADT (Advanced Digital Technologies) project of the Regional Government of Catalonia, the Terres de l’Ebre 5G Area will be the focal point for Catalonia’ benchmark trial laboratory for testing and defining models of 5G deployment in rural zones.

2 July, 2020

Móra la Nova, 2 July 2020-. The Terres de l’Ebre 5G Area was presented this morning. This project is promoted by the Regional Government of Catalonia, through the Ministry for Digital Policy and Public Administration as part of the 5G Strategy of Catalonia, with the support of Mobile World Capital Barcelona and the i2CAT Foundation, and the local leadership of Ribera d’Ebre County Council.

The Terres de l’Ebre 5G Area, which will go by the name of CoEbreLab 5G Rural, is the first 5G Area that will enter into operation to promote this technology in Catalonia in non-urban surroundings. It marks the start of a project to implement 5G technology with which to run tests in real environments of 5G deployment models in rural surroundings. It will also allow for the creation of added-value digital products and services that can be extended first throughout the Terres de l’Ebre region and then in other rural areas of Catalonia.

The project has been allocated a budget of over €2 million for the 2020-2023 period. Of this budget, €1.4 million are from the Regional Government of Catalonia’s 5G Rural ADT (Advanced Digital Technologies) project. The Area has the local leadership of the Ribera d’Ebre County Council and the support both of the Consortium for the promotion of industrial land of the Molló industrial estate, and of different institutions and companies from the Terres de l’Ebre region.

The project is based on the installation of a 5G network infrastructure in the towns of Móra la Nova and Móra d’Ebre. The base station will be located on the Molló industrial estate in Móra la Nova and will provide 5G coverage to two zones: to the entire Molló industrial estate of Móra la Nova and to the area adjacent to the head office of Ribera d’Ebre County Council, in Móra d’Ebre. It will initially operate using the frequency provided by the telecommunications operator Orange. Work, meanwhile, is in progress to include other operators, given that the infrastructure will be neutral.

The initiative will impact the social and economic fabric of the entire zone, encourage innovation, boost the economy and, in the future, help to reduce the rural digital divide.

5G Area Project

The Regional Government of Catalonia, through the Ministry for Digital Policy, together with MWCapital and the i2CAT Foundation, has initiated the 5G Area project with a view to boosting the Catalan 5G ecosystem and turning Catalonia into an international benchmark for this technology.  Its objectives include improving existing technological services throughout Catalonia, promoting the commercial use of the 5G network and furthering its deployment by encouraging use cases and prototypes in real environments and stimulating a digital economy beyond urban areas through the development of new products and services based on 5G technology.

The project will involve the creation of territorial areas intended to bring together different initiatives aimed at promoting 5G technology, such as training and dissemination activities, workshops, concept trials and laboratories. 5G Areas will be established throughout Catalonia, mainly where 5G will not be initially commercially deployed, with a view to providing the ICT ecosystem and the zone’s different social and economic sectors a test bench for undertaking their innovative activity and developing new added-value digital products and services based on 5G.

As well as encouraging concept trials, the 5G Areas are intended to provide the territory with long-lasting structures based on a model of public and private co-investment.

5G Rural ADT 

The Terres de l’Ebre 5G Area will receive an extra boost as it is the only 5G Area in which the 5G Rural ADT will be implemented. The project is financed by the Ministry for Digital Policy with an investment of €1.4 million.

This Advanced Digital Technologies (ADT) project, which will be implemented by the i2CAT Foundation, is intended to prevent the digital divide in the deployment of 5G infrastructures in Catalonia, by defining deployment models that make it possible to offer this service in rural environments and scantly populated zones in collaboration with both public and private local institutions, and to demonstrate the viability of the neutral infrastructure operator concept.

Based on social digital innovation

CoEbreLab is the Ribera d’Ebre region’s public Social Innovation Laboratory, the first in the entire province of Tarragona and has now been operating for over two years. It is intended to provide a platform for different regional social and economic agents -citizens, entrepreneurs, universities and public authorities- to explore ways of collaborating with a view to detecting challenges and to testing innovative solutions based on digital technologies.

With CoEbreLab 5G Rural, this laboratory is opening up a new line of work associated with 5G technology and its application in rural environments, using digital social innovation as a basis for all the actions to be undertaken there.

CoEbreLab is part of the Col·laboratori Cat Sud pilot project, the first Social and Digital Innovation laboratory in Catalonia. This project is promoted by the Ministry for Digital Policy and Public Administration and the i2Cat Foundation with the intention of creating a regionally embedded network that makes use of the assets and the knowledge of different agents with a view to innovating jointly and to resolving the challenges that arise in this region.