In short: The M5Q is a 5G small cell designed and manufactured entirely in the UK. The Aerix team led its creation (in previous roles as Telet Research) through the Best of British (BoB) project under the Future RAN Competition, working with cellXica and AccelerComm. It reached TRL 6 and was trialled as pop-up 5G at Glastonbury and Priddy Folk Festival.
Key Takeaways
- UK-designed, UK-manufactured — the M5Q was built entirely within the UK supply chain, from baseband processing to RF front-end, proving sovereign capability in 5G hardware
- Trialled in the field — pop-up 5G deployments at Glastonbury and Priddy Folk Festival validated the M5Q in real outdoor conditions with real users
- TRL 6 achieved — the technology reached demonstration in a relevant environment, the threshold for commercial readiness
In a nutshell
Why Sovereign 5G Hardware Matters
Following the mandated removal of Huawei, the UK's 5G radio hardware is sourced from a small number of international vendors — principally Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung. The country has genuinely strong capability in telecoms research and standards, but imports almost all of the physical hardware that turns spectrum into a mobile signal.
The Future RAN Competition (FRANC), funded by DSIT, was established to address this gap. The Best of British project was our answer to that challenge.
What We Built
The M5Q is a 5G NR small cell — a compact, deployable radio unit providing localised 5G coverage. We led the project as Telet Research (now Aerix), bringing together two UK partners:
- cellXica contributed the RF front-end design and manufacturing — the analogue electronics that transmit and receive the 5G signal.
- AccelerComm provided the channel coding IP — forward error correction technology with LDPC and polar code implementations designed and developed in the UK.
Every significant component — baseband processing, RF chain, channel coding, mechanical design — was sourced from within the UK. Building a complete radio unit outside the established vendor ecosystem requires capability across multiple disciplines, and the M5Q demonstrates that the UK has it. We should be honest about the trade-offs, though: sovereign manufacturing at this scale is more expensive than purchasing from the incumbent vendors, and the M5Q is not intended to compete on unit cost with Nokia or Ericsson macro radios. Its value lies in optionality, supply chain resilience, and serving market segments — small cells, private networks, temporary deployments — where the requirements are fundamentally different from national macro rollout.
The unit reached Technology Readiness Level 6: system demonstration in a relevant environment. Not a lab simulation — real hardware, built, tested, and deployed in real-world conditions.
Pop-Up 5G at Glastonbury and Priddy
We trialled the M5Q at two very different outdoor events.
Glastonbury needs no introduction. A rural Somerset site with limited fixed infrastructure, overwhelmed by 200,000+ people for a week. We deployed the M5Q to provide localised 5G coverage, demonstrating that a compact, portable small cell could be set up quickly and deliver service where permanent infrastructure does not exist. Notably, the density challenge at a festival is qualitatively different from a stadium — people are spread across a vast site, moving unpredictably, and the terrain is, to put it mildly, not optimised for radio propagation.
Priddy Folk Festival is a smaller event on the Mendip Hills — a few thousand attendees in a genuinely rural location with minimal mobile coverage. Where Glastonbury tests density, Priddy tests basic coverage in a not-spot. The M5Q provided 5G connectivity where there was previously very little of anything.
Both deployments validated the core proposition: a small cell that can be transported to a site, set up in hours, provide genuine 5G service, and be taken down when the event ends.
What the M5Q Represents
The M5Q was never intended to displace Nokia or Ericsson from macro networks. It demonstrates that the UK can design and manufacture 5G hardware for the growing market in small cells, private networks, and temporary deployments — factories, ports, festivals, farms — where requirements differ from national macro rollout. It also matters for supply chain resilience: the Huawei removal cost UK operators billions, and domestic manufacturing capability provides optionality the UK currently lacks.
We are now Aerix, but the engineering that produced the M5Q drives everything we do. The Best of British project — alongside ONE WORD, where we also played a central role — seeded genuine capability in the UK telecoms supply chain. The M5Q is proof that the UK can build this technology, not just buy it. Ultimately however, whether that capability translates into a sustainable commercial proposition depends on continued investment and, importantly, on procurement decisions by UK operators and enterprises who are willing to prioritise supply chain diversity alongside unit cost.