The Norwegian facility of IMAGINE-B5G, led by Telenor R&I and the University of Oslo (UiO), successfully hosted its final workshop on 11 March 2026, marking a key milestone in the project’s journey.
Since 2023, the facility has addressed a central challenge: enabling the deployment and validation of advanced Beyond 5G (B5G) features while supporting a diverse and demanding set of vertical experiments. During the workshop, the team shared how this ambition has been realised through a robust and scalable experimental platform.
The event welcomed more than 30 participants, including members of the IMAGINE-B5G Advisory Board, representatives from the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) and ABB, as well as associated experimenters, innovation communities, 5G providers, and representatives from complementary Norwegian experimental labs. Telenor stakeholders also joined the session, reflecting strong industry engagement.
Min Xie (Telenor, Platform Lead) opened the workshop by presenting the evolution of the Norwegian testing platform. She highlighted how the facility enabled the validation of 20 advanced B5G features while supporting 10 vertical experiments in a stable experimental environment. The presentation outlined the platform’s three core dimensions – telco infrastructure, management and orchestration – and value-added services developed collaboratively across multiple partners.
Kostas Kousias (UiO) followed with insights into best practices established within IMAGINE-B5G to support experimenters and open call users, while Hanne-Stine Hallingby (Telenor) elaborated on the platform ecosystem as a market model to further develop.
The workshop also featured presentations from Open Call experimenters. Massimiliano Maule, representing the LEOSED project, showed how Huawei have further prototyped their remote device for diagnosis and presented the latest updates on how the AI empowered solution benefits from B5G. Mohammad Rajiullah (Karlstad University) explained how remote education can benefit from immersive communications, and how B5G networks support it, based on the SIMONE project.
Hakim Cherifi (Telenor) presented a platform extension project where HPE has worked together with NDMA and Norwegian Police to demonstrate public network integration with non-public networks (PNI-NPN). It builds on top of the private network-on-wheels which is a part of the Norwegian facility and integrates it with the public network proxy at Telenor’s headquarter Fornebu. Özgü Alay (UiO) presented and showed teasers about future remote interactions with embodiment and robotic avatars, where edge-AI B5G are enabling building blocks.
The workshop concluded with a panel discussion featuring invited guests, who emphasised the continued importance of combining B5G and AI technologies, while acknowledging that the market is still evolving. Participants underlined the critical role of experimental facilities in supporting innovation and highlighted the value of IMAGINE-B5G in sharing architectures, experiences, and best practices across sectors.
👉 Access the presentations from the workshop here:
- Introduction: Three Years Experimenting with 5G – What Are the Learnings
- IMAGINE-B5G Norway Facility – Xie (Telenor)
- B5G Platform Ecosystem – Hallingby (Telenor)
- What Does It Take to Run an Experimental Platform – Kousias (UiO)
- LEOSED and 6G Health – Maule and Donevski
- SIMONE – Rajiullah
- 5G-NEPTUNE – Cherifi (Telenor) and Pietro
- Multimodal Remote Interactions with Robotic Avatars – Alay (UiO)
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