'Connected Urban' - CU Phosco's 5G Smart Pole Streetlight Solution

When it comes to deploying outdoor small cells and infrastructure on streetlights and lamp posts, Germany is at the forefront. Check out the related posts at the bottom of this post to see all that's going on there.

In a recent press release, Telefónica Deutschland announced (Google translated from German):

The telecommunications provider O2 Telefónica and the infrastructure provider 5G Synergiewerk, together with the Würzburg public utilities, have put the first 5G street light into operation in Bavaria as part of a pilot project. The 5G lighting tower combines street lights and cell phone sites. In doing so, it fulfills two central utility tasks: to provide lighting at night and at the same time to offer the city's citizens a high-performance 5G mobile network.

The aim is to use the existing urban infrastructure as efficiently as possible for an improved mobile network and new digital applications - and thus increase the quality of life for city residents.

CU Phosco Lighting, which supplied the smart pole solution, announced on its website: 

CU Phosco Lighting is thrilled to announce the successful deployment of Connected Urban, its pioneering new smart pole solution designed to enhance mobile network capacities. As part of a Pilot project with our German partner, 5G Synergiewerk, the first 5G streetlight was recently installed in Würzburg, Bavaria, in collaboration with telecommunications provider O2 Telefónica and the Würzburg public utilities.

A smart city, modular, and fully customisable lighting and small cell high-performance mobile network solution within a single, compact footprint, Connected Urban is a break away from more traditional rooftop or cell phone mast locations, and so the installation marks a significant milestone in the evolution of street-level mobile network densification.

Replacing a conventional lamp post, the innovative solution efficiently utilises existing infrastructure and grid connections, to provide citizens with both night-time lighting and advanced telecommunications capabilities, setting a new standard for high-performance 4G and 5G mobile connectivity.

With digital infrastructure facing increasing demands, including music and video streaming, the Metaverse, AI-based programmes, augmented and virtual reality, as well as connected driving and autonomous logistics, Connected Urban is poised to significantly improve the quality of life for city residents and businesses.

5G Synergiewerk has a time-lapse video of the installation of 5G mast system on their website. A video of that embedded below:

Quoting again from Telefónica's press release:

The location on Versbacher Straße is the first active 5G street light in Bavaria . Another location will follow shortly on Schweinfurter Straße, which will conclude a successful pilot project . Coordination discussions are currently being held with all those involved for additional locations. The 5G street light offers smartphone users high bandwidths with 5G and 4G/LTE for mobile telephony and data use in the O2 network. The densification of the mobile network via such small radio cells, which are known in technical jargon as “small cells” , is particularly helpful with regard to the increasing data usage of O2 customers as well as future digital applications in the private and business customer sector. In addition to everyday music and video streaming, this will also include the Metaverse, AI-based programs, augmented and virtual reality, connected driving and autonomous logistics . In Würzburg, more than 40 mobile phone locations are already operating in the O2 network . They ensure comprehensive network coverage with 2G (GSM), 4G (LTE) and the modern 5G standard. Rooftop locations or cell phone masts are usually used for this extensively developed city network.

Street lights are widely used as part of any urban infrastructure and are also suitable as radio cells. They have a power connection, so only a powerful fiber optic connection needs to be added to transport the mobile phone signals. In addition, the 5G light fits harmoniously into the cityscape with its light distribution. The replacement of the conventional street light was carried out in collaboration with the Würzburg public utilities. The infrastructure provider 5G Synergiewerk supplied the special intelligent light pole , a so-called “Smart Pole”. O2 Telefónica then installed the energy-efficient 4G/5G mobile communications technology in the light and ensures a seamless connection to the nationwide O2 mobile network .

Related Posts: 

• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Deutsche Telekom's Mini-Mast a.k.a. “Cell Tower To Go”
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Vodafone's 5G+ Street Lights in Cologne, Germany
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Deutsche Telekom 5G Small Cells in Phone Boxes
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Telefónica Deutschland Activates Germany's First Open RAN Small Cells with Airspan Networks
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: 5G and Wi-Fi Connectivity from Link5G and LinkNYC's Tall Towers
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Verizon's Growing Small Cells Footprint
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Omniflow Smart Street Lighting for 5G and IoT
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: UK will make Street Furniture accessible for Telecoms Infrastructure
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: LuxTurrim5G smart light pole concept
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Small Cells and Neutral Host Networks 

5G for Defence and Autonomous Military Solutions

Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground Systems (iMUGS) consortium is a 13-party collaboration focused on standardising a European-wide ecosystem for aerial and ground platforms, command, control and communication equipment, sensors, payloads, and algorithms. The parties involved in the iMUGS project are Milrem Robotics, Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT), Talgen Cybersecurity, Safran Electronics & Defense, NEXTER Systems, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Diehl Defence, Bittium, Insta DefSec, sol.one, dotOcean, GMV Aerospace and Defence, and Royal Military Academy of Belgium.

Within the iMUGS project, the Latvian MNO LMT is conducting a study on the potential use of 5G in autonomous military solutions. Back in September, the future role of 5G in autonomous military solutions was demonstrated by LMT in collaboration with the iMUGS Consortium. 

A press release said:

The demonstration, during which various scenarios were played out in battlefield-like conditions while showcasing specific use cases, took place today, on September 23rd, at the Ādaži military base in Latvia.

This was the second of a total of six demonstrations with the aim of showcasing the results of the iMUGS (Integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System) project – one of Europe’s leading defence industry development projects. The demonstration was organised by LMT, one of the members of the iMUGS consortium, with the support of the Latvian National Armed Forces and the project coordinator Milrem Robotics.

During the demonstration, the troops played out close-to-reality military scenarios in operational environments and relevant climatic conditions. Milrem Robotics’ unmanned ground vehicle THeMIS, was used, along with a number of other cutting-edge military technologies, such as:

• LMT’s battle Information Management System for displaying the data of the payloads and as a command system for scenario execution
• LMT’s Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (IRS) system for performing aggressive fire detection and source recognition
• The ISR system ‘Skudra’ for performing the signal intelligence mission
• A highly protected wheeled vehicle DINGO 2 as a command post from which the mission was led

Alternative communication networks were used by the troop and an unmanned ground vehicle, in scenarios that included switching from a tactical network, provided by Bittium in collaboration with LMT, to 4G and 5G networks.

Some videos shared by LMT are embedded below:

At the 5G Techritory 2021, Armands Meirāns, Innovation Leader for Defence & Public Safety at LMT gave a presentation on 5G for Defense, as showcased by iMUGS Consortium. His talk is embedded below:

Related Posts:

• Operator Watch Blog: LMT Explains 5G Routes Project
• Operator Watch Blog: 5G and Innovation by Latvian MNO LMT
• Connectivity Technology Blog: Virve 2.0 is becoming a broad-band service
• The 3G4G Blog: Virve 2.0 - Finland's 4G/5G Public Safety Network
• The 3G4G Blog: Maritime Communication (MARCOM) Services over 3GPP system
• The 3G4G Blog: Update from 3GPP on LTE & 5G Mission Critical Communications
• The 3G4G Blog: Update on UK's Emergency Services Network (ESN) from #BAPCO2019
• The 3G4G Blog: Tutorial on Network In a Box (NIB)
• Connectivity Technology Blog: Kima - Faroese Telecom's Mission Critical Communications Solution
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Samsung's 3GPP-Compliant PS-LTE Network
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Meshing for BYOC (Bring Your Own Coverage) 

Turin will be the first European city with a 'drone ready' 5G network

Last year I blogged about how TIM wants Turin to be the first 5G city in Italy. Since then I have also blogged about how TIM has rolled out "commercial" 5G across the whole of San Marino.

Turin (Torino) will be the first European city with a 'drone ready' network, thanks to the use of TIM's 5G technology. Last month measurement activities of the aerial coverage at high altitude was done in Piazza Vittorio Veneto and at the Parco del Valentino and Parco Dora. "The municipality of Turin will use the drones for security and we will experiment with the municipal police remotely piloted aircraft to control some areas most at risk of safety", explains Paola Pisano, councilor for innovation of the municipality of Turin. "Do not call it Big Brother, the goal is to support men in uniform operating on the territory" he continued. via La Repubblica (translated from Italian via Google translate)

The photos above are available on TIM Newsroom Flickr channel here.

According to Mobile World Live:

Telecom Italia and its partners flew remotely piloted aircrafts using 5G to measure mobile coverage in Turin in Italy, which the operator claimed will make the city the first in Europe with a drone-ready network.

The trial was coordinated with the support of the Turin Polytechnic University and enterprise drones solution provider Seikey.

Public safety, critical infrastructure monitoring and land protection are some examples TIM gave of drone applications that will benefit from a high quality connection to send data and videos in real time.

As can be seen in one of the pictures, the equipment used for measurements is PCTEL’s flagship IBflex® scanning receiver for sub-6 GHz bands that was announced at MWC Americas 2018. Here is a tweet from them with embedded video.

PCTEL's IBflex® scanning receiver takes flight! Watch as Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) conducts aerial measurements of their #LTE network in Torino. https://t.co/9MJQEl8foW #mobile

— PCTEL (@PCTEL_inc) November 28, 2018

If for some reason you can't see the video, the direct link to YouTube video is here.

Small Cells: Best solution for rural coverage?

I drive around the UK a great deal. While I rely mostly on my phone to call and message/text, I also use it to check tweets, Facebook, emails and most important of all as a Satnav (I'm a big fan of Waze). I often end up in scenarios where I have no coverage so a wrong turn results in my Satnav route failure. This can mean I have to drive around for miles before I can get back on route.

In most countries (including UK) when an operator mentions its coverage, its means population based coverage. The problem is that one may have reasonable coverage in a big town/cities but not on small roads and villages but the operator would have still met their coverage obligation. However this will be changing, at least in UK, with the announcement by EE that they will do a 95% geographic coverage. Kudos to them!

Picture Source: Point-Topic

This map I came across recently shows the rural challenges in Europe for providing connectivity. Whilst not that detailed, I can definitely say from a UK point of view, there are many places outside big towns and cities that have coverage gaps.

Picture Source: GSMA: Digital inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean - Feb 2016

Picture Source: GSMA: Consumer barriers to mobile internet adoption in Africa - July 2016

As can be seen above, a similar problem is present in Africa and Carribean and Latin America (CALA). In these regions, in addition to the coverage gap, affordability and lack of relevant content are also major issues.

To put it simply in most countries, there is that last 10% of the population for whom coverage is not deemed feasible for the operator.  The problem is that the investment would generally outweigh the revenues. The installation (site, backhaul, etc.) and the maintenance cost would almost always outweigh the profits.

This is one of the challenges that Parallel Wireless* is trying to solve.

What if you can make the deployment very simple and reduce the installation cost and have minimal maintenance cost?

The operator would be far more willing to give it a try. There was an announcement between Parallel Wireless and Telefonica I+D for exactly this reason recently. The small communities wherein these small cells are deployed also have a vital role to play. Not only could they help by making sites available, they can have directly report any issues that would arise. An example of this can be seen in the picture above, demonstrating a small cell deployment in a community center.

An important thing to bear in mind is the support for different types of backhaul for small cells. While cellular/LTE backhaul can allow quick deployment, additional type of backhaul can become available much quicker than anticipated. The small cell deployment should be flexible enough to be able to handle this new change.

A real life example of the above statement can be seen in the picture from a recent site survey.

Finally, I would like to embed this video that explains the Parallel Wireless Rural Solution very well.


Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments below.

*Full Disclosure: I work for Parallel Wireless as a Solutions Architect. This blog is maintained in my personal capacity and expresses my own views, not the views of my employer or anyone else. Anyone who knows me well would know this.