T-Mobile US flexed its sustainability credentials, revealing a university employed its 5G network as part of a conservation programme for Atlantic sturgeon, a fish protected as an endangered species by the nation’s government.

The Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Rice Rivers Centre is working to protect Atlantic sturgeon in the James River near Richmond, Virginia, using tracking technology with telemetry acoustic receivers to notify a power station when tagged female fish enter their spawning habitat to lay eggs so the facility can decrease or stop its water intake to safeguard them.

After being fished nearly to extinction, the James River sturgeon population faces an ongoing threat from power stations’ cooling water intake systems.

The operator’s 5G network links the receivers to an aquatic hub to enable real-time tracking of the Sturgeons’ movements, even in remote areas of the river.

T-Mobile stated its IoT control centre enables VCU to streamline SIM management in the receivers to optimise data transmission, reporting and device oversight.

The Centre and T-Mobile are also exploring the use of AI to better analyse data and predict Sturgeon movements more accurately.

Current predictions cover river conditions up to two-days in advance, but AI could give power companies more time to adjust their water intake flows.