Spark New Zealand announced that it is now trialling a 5G service on the water for Emirates Team New Zealand, delivering on their promise to help make the boat go faster in the bid to defend the next America’s Cup.
The 5G service covers parts of Auckland Harbour, off Milford and Takapuna, where Emirates Team New Zealand do some of their test sailing. The reduced latency and higher bandwidth of 5G means Emirates Team New Zealand can now livestream data and video back to engineers and designers at the base straight off the new AC75 boat, Te Aihe while it’s sailing. Real time access to the data gives Emirates Team New Zealand a design advantage in preparing for the America’s Cup racing.
The trial service is an extension of Spark’s existing 5G Lab in Wynyard Quarter in downtown Auckland, and uses test spectrum on loan from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). As part of the trial, Spark installed a 5G service at the Emirates Team New Zealand base in Auckland in July and has supplied 5G handsets to the team.
Dan Bernasconi, Head of Design for Emirates Team, New Zealand
Before the team had access to 5G they had to get a hard disk with all the data off the sailing boat, then the chase boat took it back to the base, and a team member would run the hard disk up to the data server at the base.
Jolie Hodson, CEO of Spark
Looking ahead to the America’s Cup in 2021, we see huge opportunities to use the Spark5G service to innovate with Emirates Team New Zealand and to support the connectivity required for the America’s Cup village.
