Los Angeles to become the World’s first city to deploy Philips SmartPole Street Lighting having 4G LTE Wireless Technology
Philips and Ericsson combine the benefits of mobile connectivity and LED lighting in a ”lighting-as-a-service” model for cities. It allows city authorities to offer space within their connected lighting poles to network service providers for mobile broadband infrastructure.
Cellular data traffic is growing at a heck of a rate. Indeed, Philips expects it to increase 900 percent by 2020 – and so the infrastructure to handle it must grow too. With street lights being ubiquitous in towns and cities, they provide a good basis for that infrastructure.
Los Angeles is the world’s first city to deploy Philips’ SmartPole Street lighting with fully built-in 4G LTE wireless technology from Ericsson, as announced by Royal Philips earlier this week.
What is 4G LTE?
The term 4G LTE is really two terms. 4G means the fourth generation of data technology for cellular networks ̶ following 3G, the third generation. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and is short for a very technical process for high-speed data for phones and other mobile devices. Together, they make 4G LTE ̶ the fastest 4G service available today.
Image credit: Philips
“The City of Los Angeles (LA) will be the first city in the world to deploy 100 Philips SmartPoles – connected LED Street lighting that includes fully integrated 4G LTE wireless telecommunications technology by Ericsson,” read the announcement.’ Delivers enhanced and more reliable wireless data broadband coverage to businesses and citizens in one of the largest cities in the world.
100 LED light poles to be fitted with new small cell technology from Ericsson that will host mobile network operator equipment. Leading-edge energy efficiency LED street lighting to help LA to meet sustainability goals while improving mobile network performance and reducing urban clutter.
The collaboration between Philips and Ericsson delivers on the latest Internet of Things (IoT) innovation and provides a double benefit to LA citizens: high quality, public lighting that is energy efficient as well as improved network performance in dense urban areas.
“The analog light pole has evolved right here in Los Angeles,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “L.A. is a world leader in LED street lights and has more poles than any other city in America. We are now taking advantage of previously untapped real estate to give our streets better broadband connectivity and future-ready infrastructure while generating revenue for the city.
This project shows what smart infrastructure can do for Los Angeles: create jobs, save taxpayer dollars, and improve our environment.”
Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Radio, Ericsson, said: “LA will be a role model for other smart cities that place sustainability and connectivity high on their agenda. As citizens, businesses, and industries transform through mobility, cities have an increasingly important role to play as eco-system partners enabling the next wave of innovations that will bring us to 5G in 2020.
Innovative solutions like Philips SmartPoles and Ericsson Zero Site that efficiently improve the performance of mobile networks will be necessary to address the growing demand from both smartphone users and the Internet of Things.”
For mobile network operators, this innovation offers new possibilities to find the right site location. It also helps scale mobile wireless 4G/LTE infrastructure deployment beyond traditional sites.
As a result operators can improve data coverage and capacity for citizens so there are no more signal dropouts. Explore further at Philips press release.
