Market Testing Exercise - 5G Living Lab - Provision of 5G Network and Connectivity Basingstoke

The Council wishes to explore options on how to develop and implement the 5G Living Lab project so that it brings mutual benefit to the council and industry partners and so that it achieves commercial and monetisation opportunities for the industry partners involved.

The project is at concept stage and the purpose of this early engagement notice is to test the market and understand whether a consortium of industry partners would be interested in jointly shaping and developing the project, including the technical specifications and technical capabilities to be deployed, so that it provides innovation and commercialisation opportunities for the private sector.

As part of the response to the notice, we are interested in hearing from the private sector on the following points: • Would there be interest in such a project concept from the private sector? • What would make the project commercially attractive to the private sector to directly invest in the project development and implementation? • What delivery model would be most suitable to develop and implement the project? • What benefits would industry partners would seek for being involved in developing and implementing the project? • What information and scope would the private sector expect to see in a future procurement exercise? • Would private sector organisations be interested and capable of responding to a full, future procurement exercise? • What further developments and opportunities would the private sector be interested in? • Any other specific thoughts, comments or expertise on the proposed scheme which private sector organisations feel may be beneficial.

As the purpose of this notice is solely to engage with the market, the council is not seeking any commitment from the private sector at this stage but is keen to understand how the council and private sector partners could best work together to make the 5G Living Lab concept a reality and kick start the 5G future of the borough.

Expressions of interest and responses to the above questions should be emailed to procurement@basingstoke.gov.uk by 31st March 2021.

Further information is available by searching for the pin notice 2021/s 000-004945 via FIND A TENDER