PRESS RELEASE: Recently, Huawei Technologies, China Mobile Ningbo, and Hangzhou Smart Allong Technology jointly developed China’s first 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) Intelligent Healthcare Community in Li Huili Hospital in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.
The campus is fully covered by a 5G RedCap network that connects more than 500 5G RedCap terminals. The first commercial use case of 5G RedCap for smart healthcare, this project marks the maturity of lightweight 5G for end-to-end commercialization, which can be adapted to a wider range of industries.
5G RedCap is a lightweight 5G technology defined in 3GPP R17. Designed for applications such as industrial wireless sensors, video surveillance, and smart wearables, 5G RedCap greatly reduces 5G terminal costs while providing superior service performance, which is conducive to the scaled development of 5G applications. At the World Digital Economy Conference 2023 & 13th Smart City and Intelligent Economy Expo, Huawei Technologies, China Mobile Ningbo, and Ningbo Li Huili Hospital signed a strategic cooperation agreement on joint industry research. The three parties vowed to promote extensive integration of the RedCap industry chain in the upstream and downstream to further the development of the 5G RedCap industry and build advanced, high-quality 5G networks.
As the first commercial demo site of 5G RedCap, Li Huili Hospital has been transformed into China’s first digital smart medical campus. Huawei deployed the hospital’s 5G RedCap network that connects hundreds of 5G RedCap IoT gateways. The hospital now has smart ward IoT applications such as temperature and humidity sensors, electric curtains, patient wristbands, and ear thermometers. The IoT transmission protocols used by these different IoT applications were mostly non-standard protocols in need of standardization. Huawei achieved standardization by using IoT converged gateways embedded with TD Tech’s 5G RedCap modules. This has streamlined clinical data for better interconnection with the hospital’s management system, improving both data accuracy and staff efficiency.
Vice President of Li Huili Hospital, Chen Liang said, “5G RedCap greatly reduces 5G terminal costs and can be widely used in 5G smart healthcare while reliably providing secure and controllable services at low latency. Our hospital’s massive volumes of medical data can be more efficiently pooled and utilized. This application should be accepted as a must-have for 5G smart medical campuses.”
Deputy General Manager of China Mobile Ningbo, Zhang Qing stated, “We will continue deploying 5G RedCap on our networks and improve the 5G RedCap industry ecosystem in collaboration with industry partners such as Huawei. We hope that 5G RedCap will see application in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, electric power, and security. Our vision is to transform Ningbo into a model city of 5G RedCap innovation and boost the intelligent digitalization of industries with lightweight applications.”
Vice President of Huawei’s 5G Product Line, Sun Zhentao said, “5G RedCap offers an optimal solution to ensure performance at lower costs, and therefore will open up a new blue ocean of IoT with billions of connections forming a huge market. Huawei will work with industry partners to accelerate the maturity of the 5G RedCap industry and build a new foundation for 5G industry connections to stimulate the digital economy.”