A quiet Huawei Technologies-led 5G revolution is unfolding at the heart of Europe – in the bucolic Swiss hamlet of Taenikon.
Far from President Donald Trump’s campaign to stop the world from using the Chinese company’s technology, cows in this northern Swiss village – with its whitewashed cottages and manicured fields – wear Huawei’s 5G-connected neck-straps instead of traditional flat bells.
And in the village’s Cistercian abbey, converted into a test farm, Switzerland’s second-biggest telecommunications operator, Sunrise Communications Group, and Huawei test the next-generation 5G wireless network.
“You could call it a Fitbit for cows,” said Alexander Lehrmann, Sunrise’s chief of new business development and internet of things, referring to Fitbit’s fitness device. “It allows farmers to get complete control and insight into their health conditions at any time and from any place.”