Ericsson provides 5G for high-stakes race

There’s a lot at stake in SailGP, the global ultrahigh-tech catamaran race that most recently took place in Sydney on 8–9 February. Crewed by Olympians and travelling at more than 100 km an hour, SailGP’s F50 catamarans are the “fastest boats on the planet”, according to Niall Treacy, SailGP’s Director – Sports Business. Each season, the competition plays out in several different host countries (currently totalling 13 events with 12 teams), with SailGP looking to drive technological innovation in all aspects of the race.

Safety is a crucial consideration — if someone goes overboard during the ultrafast race, it is critical that they be located in a split second. Neither athletes nor boat may leave the dock until the F50 and its crew are fully connected and communicating.

This year, Ericsson has come on board as a team partner, providing teams and personnel with a private 5G network that delivers instant data and statistical feedback, improving race operations as well as enhancing the viewer experience.

SailGP initially worked with Ericsson and T-Mobile to test and deploy the Ericsson Private 5G solution over T-Mobile’s 5G spectrum at US events in Season 4. The solution will be installed and deployed in all F50s and rolled out globally for the 2025 season. For the Sydney event, Ericsson used one of the area-wide licences the ACMA makes available to drive 5G innovation.

SailGP is a unique sporting event in that all its boats are exactly the same, with all data collected from each craft shared among the competitors equally. This real-time data is directly and securely transported into Oracle Cloud (OCI), enabling racers to share information including boat speed, wind direction, course layout and race position. This helps SailGP prevent any unfair advantages and promotes fair competition. The Ericsson Private 5G is instrumental in facilitating this speedy transfer of information, handling more than 53 billion data points per race day.

It was important for this race that 5G connectivity solutions could be deployed across a diverse landscape and connect to multiple carriers. Data is collected from sensors, video and critical communications via Ericsson’s Cradlepoint edge routers: the R1900K (installed internally) and the rugged, waterproof R2100, mounted outside on the mast.

“Our devices are being used in some of the harshest environments around the world,” said John Boladian, Vice President Partner Sales Asia Pacific, Enterprise Wireless Solutions at Ericsson, adding that the routers have been designed to handle extremes of temperature and vibration while continuing to operate in a mission-critical way.

“SailGP continues to innovate so we can provide the best experiences possible for our teams and fans, and this requires networking technology that can keep up with the speed and intricacies of the sport,” said Warren Jones, Chief Technology Officer at SailGP.

“Ericsson Private 5G combined with its Cradlepoint edge routers not only matches the bandwidth and latency challenges of billions of data points during a race, but also addresses our need to quickly deploy networks at locations across the world.

“This reliable, scalable connectivity helps teams optimise performance and maintain fair competition while significantly enriching the fan experience through visibility into race analytics.”