Liberty Global’s Belgian operation Telenet trialled the use of drones powered by standalone (SA) 5G built in the cloud for a local port, designed to boost safety in the shipping industry.

In a blog post, Liberty Global stated the feat was the “first of its kind” private network trial, conducted at the Port of Antwerp using a dedicated slice for live video streaming.

Footage taken by the drone was sent to an edge computing server at the operator’s data centre to be analysed in real-time, showing angles not possible by traditional security cameras. An alarm would then automatically be activated if the server detected security breaches.

Madalina Suceveanu, MD for mobile and cloud technology at Liberty Global said the drone trial used “the latest mobile technologies to supercharge what we can deliver to business”, combining fundamental elements of the company’s mobile strategy to enable mission-critical use cases.

“The result is a solution that is scalable and practical, with scope to transform the ways in which different business sectors, around the world, operate,” she added.

Liberty Global added the drone trial could open the doors to more business opportunities through further monetisation of 5G, creating tailored services for its B2B customers across industry sectors.

The company plans to conduct more trials in other European markets in the coming months.