Verizon Business completes one of Europe’s largest Private 5G implementations

• Now live, the Verizon Private 5G infrastructure spans multiple sites including ports, logistics centers and manufacturing facilities, providing secure, AI-ready infrastructure for diverse operations and long-term economic benefit.
• Thames Freeport is undergoing a multiphase use-case validation process to identify, trial, and validate Private 5G-enabled innovations benefiting site operations.
• Verizon was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for 4G and 5G Private Mobile Network Services report this year, for the second year in a row.

LONDON, U.K.—Verizon Business and Thames Freeport today announced the completion of a multisite Private 5G platform across the Thames Freeport economic corridor, part of a multiyear, multibillion dollar operational transformation and economic revival for the region.

The Private 5G implementation establishes a unified, industrial-grade wireless connectivity foundation for several economically critical port, logistics, and manufacturing environments at one of the busiest maritime shipping hubs in the United Kingdom.

The deployment spans five separate locations across the Thames Freeport district, each a private and independently operating tenant of the hub with distinct use cases for Private 5G technology. Each tenant network operates on an independent network core for complete data sovereignty.

By connecting multiple industrial environments on a secure, unified platform, Thames Freeport offers its tenants built-in infrastructure for developing and scaling connected capabilities such as physical AI, computer vision, real-time asset tracking, connected-worker/worker-safety applications, predictive maintenance, edge-computing, AI-powered real-time autonomous operations and operational intelligence, and more, as individual site priorities dictate.

Tenants using the platform include:

• DP World London Gateway and DP World Logistics Park, the UK’s largest and most integrated deep-sea container port and logistics facility. The platform provides a digital foundation for connected terminal and logistics operations, asset tracking, video analytics, autonomous systems, coordinated workflows, and automation readiness.
• Ford Dagenham, the largest manufacturing site in London, which has produced more than 11 million automobiles and 50 million engines in its history. The deployment provides a scalable manufacturing connectivity layer for connected assets, robotics, vision-based applications, and production intelligence.
• Port of Tilbury (two locations), the largest of the Thames ports, housing 135 supply chain companies, supporting all cargo types, and serving as a crucial logistics hub for construction, automotive and food and drink sectors. Private 5G use cases include cargo operations support, connected workers, site monitoring, safety applications, asset visibility, and future automation across live port and logistics environments.

Nokia Enterprise Campus Edge, currently subject to a planned sale to AURELIUS, is the exclusive hardware and software provider for the networks, which incorporate the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) platform and Nokia MX Industrial Edge (MXIE).

“The implementation at Thames Freeport is a perfect reference point for the versatility and scalability of private 5G across complex industrial sites: One commercial hub, five individual sites with unique needs, and a multitude of connected use cases,” said Robb Juliano, Vice President of 5G Acceleration, Verizon Business. “Together with Thames Freeport, we’re creating a digital foundation for automation, physical AI, and future industrial growth to revitalize an entire economic region. Similar enterprises hosting multiple sites with complex and evolving needs—especially as physical AI redefines industrial operations—can lay the same private 5G foundation from which to build their own transformations.”

“This deployment gives our key sites a platform to innovate together while continuing to meet the realities of live industrial operations,” said Tom White, Innovation and Skills Director, Thames Freeport. “It strengthens Thames Freeport’s ability to help businesses test, adopt and scale new technologies and helps us attract investment, accelerate innovation, and create high-value jobs.”

Thames Freeport’s Connectivity Innovation Lab has brought technology providers together with the Freeport’s partner sites to test and validate potential use cases for the networks, particularly in the areas of maintenance and efficiency, tracking and monitoring, and health, safety, and security. The first trials have completed or are in progress for the following uses:

• Vehicle damage detection: AI spots damage to vehicles and trailers from images and video, so inspection no longer depends on a slow external process. The trial solution was able to pick up damage that manual inspections had missed.
• Digital truck processing: A platform connects terminals, depots and truck drivers, automating communication between gate, yard and operations teams and providing real-time visibility of truck movements. The trial showed where queues build at gates when an incident slows access.
• Mission-critical field communications: Push-to-talk, video, location and emergency alert tools for field staff, tracking field activity, producing daily reports without manual input, and sending real-time alerts to the right teams when an incident occurs.
• A digital map of the container yard (in progress): It shows the full container inventory with location, age and planned movements. It also gives real-time visibility of containers that are moving or planned to move, including export cargo for specific vessels.

A second phase of trials will cover ports and logistics use cases. Users have identified the following areas to investigate for Private 5G-driven solutions:

• Simulation and scenario planning: Digital twin and simulation tools to test “what if” scenarios before committing to physical or operational change, such as different arrival volumes, sequencing or layouts.
• Proactive estate monitoring: AI video analysis on existing cameras and extended to drones for blind-spots coverage, detecting estate issues such as potholes, fly-tipping, damaged signs, failed lights and cracked pavements. Each detection becomes a ticket for the facilities team.
• Operational decision support with NLP: A real-time AI data layer with natural language processing (NLP), collecting terminal data from different sources and allowing shift managers to ask operational questions in plain language. It would answer questions about container stacking and truck routes and plan against actual or likely performance bottlenecks. Managers would get scenario-based recommendations rather than dashboards requiring interpretation.
• Predictive maintenance and condition monitoring: Sensors retrofitted to critical plant and mobile equipment, or non-invasive methods such as electrical signal analysis, to spot early signs of failure and raise a work order before a breakdown.
• Environmental monitoring: Emissions tracking, dust and air-quality monitoring, and sustainability reporting tools.

The Thames Freeport is a designated UK “Free Trade Zone,” established to boost economic growth, create high-value jobs and attract global investment as part of a long-term effort to revive the UK’s River Thames Estuary region.

Thames Freeport has already helped create more than 1,400 jobs and secured over £2.13 billion of private investment since 2021. A further 1,290 people are employed across the tax sites, with 2,548 additional jobs in the confirmed pipeline. Through its long-term Growth Plan, it aims to attract up to £4.9 billion of additional investment, double the region’s trade capacity, and support up to 28,000 jobs by 2045, with a strong focus on skills, training and opportunities for local communities.

As part of this redevelopment effort, Verizon Private 5G Networks provide essential technology infrastructure that is fundamental to daily operations and long-term growth as operations, workforces, and port traffic continue to grow in complexity and scale. In addition to enabling digital applications and capabilities, reliable wireless connectivity also facilitates the capture and transport of data, the connectivity of people and machines across physically and technologically complex industrial sites, and the movement of technological innovations from controlled trials into daily operations.

In March of 2026, Verizon received the highest Vendor Product Score evaluated in the 2026 Gartner® Critical Capabilities for 4G and 5G Private Mobile Network (PMN) Services report for the following use cases, among others:

• PMN for Industrial Use Site—Dedicated/Stand-Alone 
• Multisite PMN
• Campus PMN

That same month, Verizon was also named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for 4G and 5G Private Mobile Network Services report, for the second year in a row.

That recognition is based on a combined assessment of Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision related to the company’s activity in the worldwide private mobile network services market.