BT trials 5G Standalone network slicing for Christmas market

16 January 2025

BT Group has announced the first real-world deployment of 5G Standalone network slicing capabilities over the EE mobile network, launched to support faster and more resilient mobile payments at Belfast’s Christmas Market.

During the two-week trial, a dedicated slice of the EE 5G network was partitioned for use in the renowned Lavery’s Beer Tent to support its eight mobile payment terminals, enabling superfast card and mobile payments for thousands of customers. It marks the first time that a business has benefitted from access to a partitioned slice from EE’s public network and live 5G Standalone core.

Network slicing uses 5G Standalone technology, which BT Group launched last September, to provide a customer with a protected ‘slice’ of the network for assured performance, boosting connectivity speeds and lowering latency by minimising congestion and unlocking bespoke capacity for businesses. The trial successfully demonstrated the capability of network slicing to bypass congestion in busy locations and keep businesses connected through dedicated quality of service.

"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,” said Bernard Lavery, Director, Lavery’s. “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 even at the busiest times.”

“Businesses increasingly rely on technology that’s able to cope with the demands of the ever-pervasive digital world, securely,” said Paul Murnaghan, BT Group’s Northern Ireland Director. “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 problem by enabling consistently fast and smooth connectivity, critically giving certainty to both traders and customers even when the network is busy in specific locations like Belfast Christmas Market.”

Other benefits of network slicing include improved security, the ability to quickly adapt the network to meet specific customer needs and the capacity to support IoT sensors. It can also help cut down on accidentally missed payments by removing the lag between a contactless swipe and the funding being accepted.