Thousands of visitors to Belfast Christmas Market benefit from new queue-busting tech trial
Belfast’s oldest family-owned pub Lavery’s was the first organisation to benefit from the new technology with festive revellers at its Christmas Market treated to faster payment speeds
Telecoms giant BT Group has completed the first live trial of its new state-of-the-art mobile connectivity to support faster and more resilient payments for a historic Belfast business and thousands of visitors to the city’s Christmas Market.
The communications and telecoms company ran the successful two-week trial of its 5G ‘network slicing’ technology last month, enabling superfast card and mobile payments at the Market’s renowned Lavery’s beer tent - even during its busiest periods.
BT’s network slicing uses EE's 5G standalone network, to ringfence a private ‘slice’ of the network for a business, boosting outdoor connectivity speeds and slashing congestion for organisations to cut down on lag and waiting times.
Historic Belfast business Lavery’s becomes the first organisation to benefit from the new technology with festive revellers at its Christmas Market treated to queue-busting payment speeds.
As Belfast’s oldest family-owned pub, Lavery’s has been at the heart of the city's social life for over 100 years, and the Christmas Market has become one of the most important dates in its diary for two decades.
The Market, which takes place at Belfast City Hall, draws crowds of up to 1.2 million each year with the Lavery’s beer tent proving among its most popular attractions.
Bernard Lavery, director, Lavery’s, said: "With this being the 20th year of our festive beer tent, Lavery’s is as synonymous with Belfast Christmas Market as it is with the city itself. In that time, the need to enable fast and reliable mobile payments has only grown thanks to the growing trend towards cashless.
"BT Group's network slicing capability therefore gives us so much peace of mind, not only in enabling transactions to be completed faster than ever, but also in delivering the dedicated mobile capacity needed to keep our customers happy and queues moving even at the busiest times.”
The trial comes as BT invests significantly in improved network infrastructure across Northern Ireland paving the way the rollout of the technology for businesses across the region.
It comes after 5G standalone connectivity was made available for BT's small business customers as part of the company’s investment in the networks of the future.
Paul Murnaghan, BT’s Northern Ireland director, explained: “Businesses increasingly rely on technology that’s capable of coping with the demands of the ever-pervasive digital world, securely. We have all visited a retailer and had the awkward ‘wait while we check’ to see if a payment has been completed correctly.
"Network slicing helps tackle this problem by enabling consistently fast and smooth connectivity, giving certainty to both traders and customers even when the network is busy in specific locations like Belfast Christmas Market.”
Councillor Ryan Murphy, chair of Belfast City Council’s Strategic, Policy and Resources Committee, added: “Having access to world-class advanced wireless connectivity is essential for our local businesses. It’s brilliant to see Belfast benefit from BT Group’s first ever real-world deployment of network slicing, helping local business Lavery’s to enhance its operations and provide an even better customer experience at the very popular Belfast Christmas Market.”
The investment in improved mobile infrastructure across Northern Ireland follows BT Group’s other recent investments in the region, including the multi-million-pound refurbishment of its Belfast Riverside HQ which was completed in 2023.
BT Group’s fibre network, built and run by Openreach, now covers more than 795,000 homes and businesses across the region.