BT Group has celebrated the success of the first live trial of its new mobile connectivity to support faster and more resilient payments.
The company ran the two-week trial of its 5G ‘network slicing’ technology in December at Belfast’s Christmas market, enabling superfast card and mobile payments at Lavery’s beer tent.
BT Group said it uses slicing on EE’s 5G standalone network to ringfence a private ‘slice’ of the network for a business, boosting outdoor connectivity speeds and slashing congestion for companies to cut down on lag and waiting times.
As Belfast’s oldest family-owned pub, Lavery’s has been at the heart of the city’s social life for over 100 years.
The market at City Hall draws crowds of up to 1.2 million each year.
Bernard Lavery, director at Lavery’s, said: “With this being the 20th year of our festive beer tent, Lavery’s is as synonymous with Belfast Christmas market as it is with the city itself. In that time, the need to enable fast and reliable mobile payments has only grown thanks to the growing trend towards cashless.
“BT Group’s network slicing capability therefore gives us so much peace of mind, not only in enabling transactions to be completed faster than ever, but also in delivering the dedicated mobile capacity needed to keep our customers happy and queues moving.”
The trial comes as BT invests in improved network infrastructure across the province.
Paul Murnaghan, BT’s NI director, said: “Businesses increasingly rely on technology that’s capable of coping with the demands of the ever-pervasive digital world, securely.
“We have all visited a retailer and had the awkward ‘wait while we check’ to see if a payment has been completed correctly. Network slicing helps tackle this by enabling consistently fast and smooth connectivity.”
Ryan Murphy, chair of Belfast City Council’s strategic, policy and resources committee, said: “It’s brilliant to see Belfast benefit from BT Group’s first real-world deployment of network slicing, helping local business Lavery’s to enhance its operations and provide an even better customer experience at the very popular Belfast Christmas market.”