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Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson have deployed a private 5G network at Hamburg’s Container Terminal Altenwerder, the latest chapter in a seven-year cellular experiment that shows how industrial 5G is a slow-burn infrastructure market.
In sum – what to know:
Evolution – Hamburg has moved from Nokia and Deutsche Telekom’s 2019 5G-slicing trials with the port authority, through government-funded Eurogate deployments, to a new Ericsson private 5G setup for HHLA.
Ecosystem – The DigiTest project covers a broad portfolio of digital port tech, including private and public 5G, sensors, cameras, machine vision, data platforms, traffic management, and autonomous vehicles.
Foundation – Projects end, vendors change, and architectures evolve; the case of Hamburg suggests the programme’s real value may be in sustaining that gradual transition from testbed to working infrastructure.
The news, as presented – Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson have deployed a private 5G ‘campus’ network at Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) at the Port of Hamburg. The Port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest seaport and Europe’s third-largest container port. The terminal is operated by Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA). The new network covers an area of one square kilometrr. The project is mostly funded by the German government.
It is a part of a broader ‘Industrie/Logistik 4.0’ project, DigitTest (Digitale Testfelder in Häfen), by the German Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV), which is contributing about 80 percent of the funding to around 30 testbeds in German seaports and inland ports. Technical services firm TÜV Rheinland is managing the DigitTest series. The so-called PROCON-5G project in Hamburg is to connect “vehicles, sensors, mobile devices, and IT systems in real time”.
Ericsson’s 5G system for HHLA is pitched as “highly scalable” to meet future operational requirements, said a press note from Deutsche Telekom. Many of the 30 DigitTest sites use 5G, whether public or private. DigiTest has been running since late 2020, with the first port projects in 2021, and new projects continuing through 2026. The philosophy is to build the infrastructure first, and then use real ports as ‘living labs’ for smarter logistics.
Some quotes, as written – Klaus Werner, managing director for business customers at Telekom Deutschland, the group’s local operating company in Germany, remarked: “With the private 5G campus network at CTA… we are taking the digitalization of port logistics to the next level with HHLA. This solution demonstrates how advanced mobile communications technology can make complex processes more efficient, transparent, and flexible.”
Michael Albers, IT project manager at HHLA, said: “With the 5G campus network, we now have a high-performance and reliable wireless infrastructure… to test new applications under realistic conditions and deploy them directly into operations. At the same time, it allows us and our partners to develop and validate innovative solutions in a real terminal environment. This marks an important step in advancing the connectivity and automation of the CTA.”
Private 5G port patchwork
Further background, as researched – DigiTest projects fall into four areas: digitalising and automating operational processes; connecting supply-chain data and processes; autonomous and remote-controlled vehicles and equipment; traffic optimisation of ships, trains, and trucks. Technologies include: private (and some public) 5G, cloud platforms, data-sharing systems, sensors, cameras, machine vision / camera AI, and autonomous vehicles.
Others include Berlin Westhafen (HARLEKIN), Brake (RaDaR 4.0), Bremerhaven (PAAS, DigiWeser), Cuxhaven (RaDaR 4.0, SIDAS), Duisburg (SETRI), Emden (RaDaR 4.0), Karlsruhe (PORTABLE 5.0, PORTCONNECT), Kehl (Kehl 2.0), Kiel (D-TECH-BASE), Ludwigshafen (PORTAL), Stralsund (PORTABLE 5.0), Trier (DiVer-HT), Wismar (PORTABLE 5.0), Wilhelmshaven (PAAS, RaDaR 4.0), and Wörth am Rhein (Wörth 2.0).
As such, the DigiTest scheme is organised like a portfolio of geographically distributed test environments, each tackling particular port/logistics problems. Some projects are completed (as of June 2024); others are ongoing. Some state their infrastructure will be available for further experimentation. Thirteen new projects started in December 2025, with more than €14m in funding – including PROCON-5G with HHLA. 5G is an important thread.
The PAAS project (ended 2024) established campus 5G infrastructure in Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven; so did the Wörth 2.0 setup (also ended 2024). These use public and private 5G slices, alongside a cloud-based data-sharing platform for managing containers on autonomous trucks. The new Hamburg project has evolved into a live 5G campus network at the CTA site with a redundant 5G core, multiple RAN units, plus network management.
D-TECH-BASE, PORTABLE 5.0, PROCON-5G, and Kehl 2.0 have major private 5G elements, besides. Other projects focus on sensors, cameras, environmental monitoring, data collection or process optimisation without 5G as the central technology. AI is present, of course, but none are presented primarily as ‘AI’ programmes; the website lists AI-style camera applications and traffic management, for example. Autonomous vehicles are everywhere.
Diverse 5G supplier list
Some further context, as relevant – 5G vendors and integrators are being mixed and matched across the DigiTest portfolio for different ends. This is not a Deutsche Telekom / Ericsson free-for-all, in other words. Besides the Hamburg deployment, system integrator COCUS appears a couple of times on the list, mostly in open RAN tests. The PORTABLE 5.0 setup in Karlsruhe, Stralsund, and Wismar uses a COCUS core, and RAN from Airspan.
FibroLAN is listed as a hardware partner. COCUS also says it implemented 5G campus networks at AuDiPort / HavelPort (another Berlin-based testbed) and at DiVer-HT at the Port of Trier, both times with Airspan. HMF Smart Solutions also worked with Airspan on the D-TECH-BASE project in Kiel. It might be noted, the latter is a big deployment: 564,000 square metres, 25 indoor/outdoor base stations, plus redundant 5G core.
Similarly, the PORTABLE 5.0 systems in Karlsruhe, Stralsund, and Wismar have been retained by the port operators. The identity of vendors for certain other projects are not disclosed. There are two (visible) models, however: high profile projects with a big operator and a big vendor, and big and small open RAN projects with a small integrator and a small vendor. COCUS/Airspan has established a strong foothold in smaller German ports.
Meanwhile, Nokia and Mavenir (or Huawei) do not readily appear in the DigiTest files; nor does Telefonica or Vodafone.
Industrial 5G slow-burn
Some insight, finally, from what RCR has reported before – Nokia’s absence is a curious one, even as the Finnish vendor quits the campus 5G scene. Nokia was here first, it might be noted. In 2019, it was already demonstrating 5G slicing with Deutsche Telekom in Hamburg. The architectural question, at the time, was the same one ports are grappling with today: whether to rely on a public slice for the wider port, and private 5G for terminal operations.
The tech worked; and really the whole Hamburg tale says everything about private 5G – in Germany, in shipping ports, in Industry 4.0 at large. In 2019, the port authority (landlord) in Hamburg (HPA) told RCR that the trials had demonstrated the right reliability, latency, and security. What it wanted was proper commercial 5G infrastructure. The trial with Nokia and Deutsche Telekom, conducted under the EU’s 5G-MoNArch scheme, covered 8,000 hectares.
There was a useful reality check (in these pages) around the same time. Ireland-based core network vendor Druid Software – along with Nokia, one of the trailblazer vendors in industrial 4G/5G – was deploying private LTE for port automation in Rotterdam, and argued that LTE could already handle many of the requirements. It might not say the same today, but it shows the issue with tech projects for ports and others is multi-faceted, and takes years to resolve.
Because the model is as much about economics, spectrum, resilience, ownership, and operations – and who does what, and where and why. By 2023, the Hamburg setup was closer to a commercial reality. Deutsche Telekom won a €6.6 million project to build private 5G for Eurogate’s terminals (rather than HHLA’s, per PROCON-5G) in Hamburg, Bremerhaven, and Wilhelmshaven – partly funded through DigiTest. The architecture mixed public and private 5G.
The carrier’s public network was for less-critical traffic, and Eurogate’s ‘private’ 3.7-3.8 GHz holding was reserved for more critical operations. Zoom ahead, and now, in 2026, Hamburg has done it again – with the new Ericsson-based PROCON-5G setup at HHLA’s CTA berths. The new private 5G network looks like a relatively small and focused affair – covering a square kilometre for connected cranes and trucks.
So Hamburg has spent no fewer than seven years moving through different technologies, architectures, projects, and suppliers – from Deutsche Telekom and Nokia doing pre-commercial 5G slicing for the larger port authority, through Deutsche Telekom’s work (Campus-Netz L) with an unnamed RAN vendor at Eurogate terminals, to Deutsche Telekom’s latest with Ericsson at the HHLA site. The only lesson, really, is that industrial 5G is a slow-burn infrastructure market.
Which we know very well. It is not just a tech adoption event. Public funding can establish the testbed; operators and vendors can change; individual projects can end; but the underlying requirement for dedicated, reliable industrial connectivity persists. And DigiTest should be judged on those terms – as a success, generally. And Hamburg is the best illustration of that – across different stakeholders, architectures, business models, and use cases.
5G is the constant.
