Accenture announced in a press release today that they’ve partnered up with AT&T to develop an industrial-grade wireless cellular network for Phillips 66 and their private cellular network.
Accenture and AT&T will be working with Phillips 66 to lay the foundation for potential future 5G use cases which will include support for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and low latency applications.
Philips 66 invited Accenture to address cellular performance gaps with its existing public cellular network near one of its refineries in Belle Chasse, Louisiana and to get a proof of the concept that was being pitched.
The proof of concept was designed from the ground up to address Phillips 66’s industrial digital requirements with the ability to demonstrate how their private cellular network could handle increased mobile connectivity needs from the ongoing Phillips 66 digital transformation initiatives.
Zhanna Golodryga, senior vice president, chief digital and administrative officer at Phillips 66 said why connectivity is critical to their operations by saying: “Mobile applications are central to our day-to-day business activities — we use them for safety inspection forms for oil distillation units, capacity tracking and more — so connectivity is critical to keeping our operations running. The results of the proof of concept are promising. This private cellular network can address existing coverage gaps today and potentially lays the foundation for pervasive connectivity to enable upcoming use cases based on IIoT and 5G.”
Improving connectivity speeds within businesses is becoming an increasingly popular move with companies increasingly investing for the infrastructure of 5G and being ready for the capabilities wider commercial and persona use.
Only recently Samsung showed off a successful demonstration of its new drone-based antenna configuration and AI solution to help with installing and optimising local 5G networks while Verizon acquired BlueJeans in April with the goal to improve their 5G capabilities.
Chris Penrose, SVP of Advanced Solutions at AT&T explained how their connectivity solution will help Phillips 66 operations by saying: “Reliable connectivity is accelerating business transformation and enabling companies to innovate faster than ever before. Our multi-access edge compute solution will help give Phillips 66 the control, performance, and security they need from their private network today, while also giving them the flexibility to expand to their other locations in the future.”
Accenture explained how during the proof of concept, teams were able to bring dedicated private cellular infrastructure onsite and record speed improvements at the refinery to improve it which can help scale deployments at a more efficient rate across other sites in the future.
AT&T was selected as the telecommunications partner on this project to develop and provide all the required engineering for the private network that Philips 66 use to ensure it could be integrated with their network systems.
Mary Beth Gracy, Accenture’s client account lead for Phillips 66, said: ”The proof of concept of this private network will enable Phillips 66 to selectively deploy connectivity and enable future digital opportunities across the refineries. We will also work with Phillips 66 to bring ecosystem partners to their private cellular network to give a complete end-to-end view of what is happening across the refineries and its supply chain, so that they can continue to innovate.”
The private cellular network was specifically tailored to the needs of Phillips 66 and built from scratch to ensure that it can handle the load and network capacities.
The private cellular network is used on a local level by Phillips 66 which includes cell sites and core network servers that are required to support the connectivity needs of the company and its highly specific requirements.
Accenture claimed that the private network will be using a multi-access edge compute which is available across the licensed spectrum.
