Building a smart city is not easy, nor is adding the infrastructure to create smart city features. It helps to work with partners who have done it before. That is why Deb Socia of Next Century Cities works hard every day to reach out and contact as many communities as possible. Collaboration is the key to getting smart city enhancements in your community. Next Century Cities has a mission to do just that, help all communities elevate through cooperation, or at least help guide them to add smart city services.
The Smart City Tech Planning Handbook, available at:
Did you have smart city questions? Did you ever wonder how the city gets the technology to improve local businesses? How does a “smart city” initiative get started? Where can cities go for help? How do they start the high-speed internet initiatives? Where can communities get help to start a tech initiative? What steps can be taken to become a smart city? What can a city do to improve health care, education, quality of life, access to broadband, and make technology affordable to the residents?
Deb talks about they are helping communities elevate from where they are now to initiating smart city policies so that they can improve technology. While for businesses it is a business initiative. Not so easy for cities. Cities need to get this by multiple departments, raise funds, pass policies, and get buy in from departments, businesses, partners, utilities, and constituents. No easy task. That is why this non-profit group works so hard to make sure they can find mentors and partners in this venture. In the long run, smart city policies are more about improving the city. Growing the jobs and improving the quality of life. It all goes hand in hand.
Deb’s group normally starts with local elected officials because they have the dream of improving their city. They are looking for help. They need someone they can trust for help. They cannot just go to the OEMs since they may be looking to sell a solution or push a solution that may not be the best option for the city. The key is to find what the city is what they need, want, and the residents want.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks athttp://teltech-college.com/where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
To get to the next level of a smart city initiative, they may want to see how it’s been done in other cities. Here is where Next Century Cities comes in. Offering a sounding board and a group where one city can learn from another’s initiative. They could provide them a plan based on what’s been done. Maybe they could help them avoid problems. Teach them about the mistakes that other cities have made. Why not learn from what other communities have done? While policies may be different, the desired result may be the same. If they can accelerate the roll out process by initiating real and robust policies, why not?
You need to listen to get all the information. Let’s get a high level of the questions that may help you. Deb is a wonderful resource. Next Century Cities is there to support you. It’s a two-way street, help and be helpful, remember that. T could serve as a sounding board for new ideas. It feels good when you complete a project and let others know so they can learn.
Did you ever wonder how the city gets the technology to improve local businesses?
It takes planning.
What do they normally want? Broadband! While it varies from city to city, goals may differ. Most, if not all want broadband rolled out throughout the city for businesses and residents. Maybe even for tourists.
How does a “smart city” initiative get started?
It usually starts with the higher level of governments, the mayor or a CTO or economic development groups may want to improve the internet access to help local businesses grow.
Why recreate the wheel if it’s been done? Duplicate what others have done.
Where can cities go for help?
Next Century Cities has created a network where cities can turn to each other to learn from someone who has done it before. They have provided a platform to share ideas.
How do they start the high-speed internet initiatives?
They could start with business partnerships. Learning what has worked in other areas and what vendors have solutions. They could leverage their utility partners to help.
Building infrastructure to support city-wide broadband need planning and support.
Where can communities go to for help in starting a tech initiative?
It could be the OEMs, consultants, or fellow cities that have already done it.
Whom do you trust the most? If another city has done it, then you have a model.
Next Century Cities is a great place to start.
What steps can be taken to become a smart city?
Not an easy question, first, define what smart city means to you and your community, then develop a plan for policies and technical requirements. The foundation is the key, then build on it.
What can a city do to improve health care, education, quality of life, access to broadband, and make technology affordable to the residents?
Roll out broadband, build the infrastructure, create policies that enable this to happen quickly and efficiently.
Who can join Next Century Cities?
Communities, cities, counties, any government organization looking to help or get help in creating s smart city initiative.
Vendors can contact and support Next Century Cities, maybe become partners, but not become a member.
Where can I learn more about smart cities?
Next Century Cities has a great resource page, http://nextcenturycities.org/resources/ where you can see articles in the main list, but at the bottom left they have the resources broken down to help you understand specific areas, like pole attachments and small cells.
Deb Socia is the Executive Director of Next Century Cities, an innovative organization that helps cities develop city initiatives and policies for the infrastructure. They do this by connecting communities so that someone starting out can learn from the more experienced cities. Going beyond technical initiatives and into the city policies and planning. When communities want to move ahead, it helps to talk to someone who has done it before. Contact Den through the contact page or at Deb@nextcenturycities.org.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
I am so into CBRS, so when I had an opportunity to interview the CTO of Ruckus, Steve Martin, I jumped at it. I was lucky enough to learn even more about CBRS with this deep dive of knowledge from someone who has been working on it. Ruckus has developed devices that perform in the CBRS bands. I am a fan of Ruckus who is a provider of carrier class Wi-Fi systems, an OEM. When I heard they were planning to get into the CBRS game, I got excited and knew that I had to talk to them. Steve was nice enough to accept and go over how amazing the CBRS is. He is going give an overview of the CBRS part of the wireless eco system.
Steve answers so many questions about CBRS. Ruckus has been actively pushing for CBRS to become the next wave of wireless deployments for the carriers, enterprise, and private LTE solutions. So much so they helped form the CBRS Alliance.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks at http://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
Ruckus has done an amazing job deploying carrier grade Wi-Fi, outside and inside. They have complete systems to manage and provide Wi-Fi solutions such as controllers, switches, indoor radios, and outdoor radios. They have been suppliers for enterprise, carrier, and WISP customers. They are a high performance yet easy to deploy wireless OEM. They are cost-cost effective but innovative. They realized that Wi-Fi could not provide all the solutions, so they entered the realm of LTE in the CBRS band, getting me excited about Ruckus Wireless. They are providing new solutions, very innovative.
As everyone knows, I am excited about the CBRS spectrum opening because it’s available to more than just the carriers. It allows small and midsize businesses to build private LTE networks. Something that has been near impossible to do before. So now the carriers can handoff to an independent small cell. An independent small cell can host any carrier. It can be carrier neutral and host multiple carriers. How cool is that? We finally have a solution for the places where carriers won’t invest.
What about other use cases for factories and enterprise customers that want broadband and IOT applications on a dedicated LTE system? Problem solved!
Ruckus was one of the founding members of the CBRS Alliance. The CBRS Alliance has grown from the original 6 to over 60 members.
Here are some questions I wanted to be answered.
How will the CBRS spectrum assignment work? (Licensing and spectrum assignment)
Spectrum assignment will be like how a DHCP server grants and assigns an IP address. In this case, the radio will boot up and send a request to a server which assigns spectrum. Then the Spectrum Allocation Server, (SAS), allocates the bandwidth and spectrum for that specific location and radio. Steve explains more in the interview.
You talk to an SAS vendor, like Federated Wireless or maybe Google, and they will set you up with a subscription. You would pay a monthly subscription to the SAS to make sure that the spectrum is assigned to you, so you’re
What are the spectrum usage tiers of the CBRS?
The incumbents have been using for fixed satellite services and military radar.
Now it’s going to be used for LTE coverage.
GAA – Generally Authorized Access – lightly licensed and open to all.
PAL – Priority Access License which is exclusive usage for that section of It’s the licensed part of the band with a guarantee of that spectrum.
Can CBRS be used outdoors?
Yes, it can be utilized Just make sure that you have approval from SAS for the power level and the channel, which will most likely be the carriers.
You can build a 50W base station if needed. Not everywhere, but in designated areas. That is a macro site in my eyes.
Can CBRS provide coverage for companies outside of the carrier space?
Yes, anyone can apply for spectrum and deploy.
How will it help the enterprise user?
Now the enterprise can go beyond Wi-Fi and have a clean LTE system to work with that is dedicated spectrum for their service.
Private LTE systems?
Industrial IOT systems for IOT.
Fixed wireless applications.
Enterprise solutions for a dedicated wireless system that can handoff.
Rural broadband solutions. (A different use case altogether.)
Private broadband LTE solutions for anything you can imagine.
Anything that you thought of now can be done for more than just the carriers. Get creative here! If you have a problem that needs a wireless and secure solution, here it is.
Will the cable companies use this spectrum?
Yes, it will make it easier for them to use what they have and build out their mobile systems using a combination of licensed, Wi-Fi, and CBRS.
What are the roadblocks keeping carriers from providing better indoor coverage?
DAS systems are a fine solution for larger venues where the carriers see a business case to invest, like NFL and MLB stadiums. What about the smaller to mid-size buildings? How can they be served when the carriers don’t see a cost-effective way to deploy? They don’t want to pay for it, or at least not a DAS system for a few customers. Now they have the CBRS small cells which can fill that gap.
Will CBRS be cost-effective to deploy?
Yes!
Will CBRS spectrum help the smart city?
Of course! It will bring new solutions to the IOT applications in smart It will increase the smart building availability, and allow small systems to be built for specific purposes in any city. It will eventually allow new and dedicated smart city functions to deploy everywhere cost effectively.
Carriers, cable companies, enterprise users, industrial IOT, smart cities, utilities, and more.
Can the CBRS small cells solve carrier’s coverage solutions?
Yes, indoors and out. It’s a great solution for fill and capacity.
Is it possible to have multiple carriers on one small cell?
YES! Multiple LTE carriers on one Small Cell!
This will be a more economical way to deploy small cells to fill holes.
Steve is a wealth of knowledge and someone who is so easy to talk to. Just a great conversation and I strongly recommend that you listen to learn more. I enjoyed talking to him, and I love the way they (Ruckus) envision CBRS LTE systems. It made me want to jump on the Ruckus bandwagon. What a thrill to be part of this time in history. The FCC did something here that will be groundbreaking for the world if it’s successful. They opened new spectrum for use beyond the carriers and into the hands of all American businesses.
This goes beyond the spectrum repack where they migrated the spectrum from broadcast to the carriers, which was great for the carriers. Now they opened spectrum for the rest of the industry allowing innovation to happen outside of the carriers. I can’t wait to see how people solve their problems using private LTE systems. They could connect to a dedicated device or roam onto a smartphone for all to use. We live in exciting times once again, innovation still live! Thank you, FCC, for doing this!
Steve Martin is the Chief Technology Officer of Ruckus. He holds many positions in industry groups. He is on the CBRS Alliance Board of Directors and the Wireless Broadband Alliance Board of Directors. Just a great guy all around. He has been with Ruckus since 2006 but became the CTO in 2017, congratulations, Steve!
Ruckus Wireless is a carrier class Wi-Fi company that offers best in class Wi-Fi systems. Based in beautiful Sunnyvale, Ca, the high-tech company has provided outdoor and indoor wireless solutions for over a decade. Brocade recently acquired Ruckus, and then Brocade got bought by Broadcom, and then Ruckus was being spun out and then bought by Arris International, the story found here, where Ruckus will be a division of Arris. Arris is an amazing company that provides equipment to many of the cable companies worldwide. Cable companies deploy wireless everywhere, so the acquisition makes perfect sense to me. FYI, it’s cool that Arris has a racing club, learn more at http://www.arris.com/ARRISRacing/ if interested. I am quickly becoming a fan of Arris.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
I have been following the broadband repack for some time. I thought I would share what I learned and how I found teams to help.
First off, what is it? It is where the FCC held 2 auctions. Yes, 2 auctions so that they could get the spectrum back from the television broadcasters. You see, one auction was to regain the spectrum from the broadcaster and the other was to unload the spectrum to the carriers. All of this in the 600MHz band.
The broadcasters were in a reverse auction where they could request money from the FCC and get paid based on their market for their spectrum. They would also get new spectrum. So, they get paid to unload their spectrum.
Then another auction for the carriers to buy the spectrum in the 600MHz band. This gives them the opportunity to gain more spectrum and grow for a few billion dollars. The big winner in this auction was T-Mobile, who intends to fill their holes across the US. They spent quite a bit. However, AT&T bought very little, and Verizon showed little interest. T-Mobile did very well. Comcast snatched up some spectrum too, among many others.
Back to the broadcasters. Now they must move to the new spectrum which involves much work. They need to take down what they have and build a new transmitter. They have to replace their antenna and line. It is a lot of work. They need to do all of this before the deadline hits.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks at http://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
Some questions get answered here like:
What is the repack?
What is involved in the repack?
When does it have to be done?
Who pays for the hardware and services?
Will the FCC keep track of all of this?
What is spectrum reallocation?
Who can help you do this?
What is the repack? What is spectrum repacking in the USA? It is the FCC reallocating spectrum from the broadcasters to the telecom companies. They did this through the spectrum auction in 2016. It took years to plan and then execute and now it will take years to complete the moving of equipment.
Telecom companies are requesting a lot more spectrum to increase wireless broadband in the USE.
The FCC knows that most broadcasters rely more and more on cable and dish to deliver content.
So, they decided to make an offer to the broadcaster where they could sell their spectrum to the telecom companies through an auction controlled by the FCC.
The FCC had a reverse auction to get the spectrum from the broadcasters.
Then the FCC had a forward auction to hand out the spectrum to wireless carriers, like T-Mobile.
The Auction was completed in 2016 for both sides, not the repacking begins.
Repacking means that the broadcasters replace their transmitters, line, and antennas to put their stations in a new band. All new equipment and the services to go with it funded by the FCC and the money they got from the auction. The FCC has a budget that they are working with, thanks to the carriers.
While carriers like T-Mobile are excited to get the new spectrum so we all can use it to enjoy broadband and build the infrastructure of wireless in the USA, it is not an easy thing to do.
So, when planning a smart city, the regulations matt
What is involved in a repack? Broadcasters have a tremendous amount of work to move ahead. They must make many changes on each of their towers over the next 4 years. They have until July 13th of 2021 to complete all the work. Sounds easy, right, that is over 4 years from the time I am writing this.
Build up the new transmitter in the new band.
Install the new line and antennas.
Move over to the new spectrum and bring the new equipment live.
Take down the old line and antenna.
Deconstruct the old transmitter.
It is a lot of work to have this completed in an industry that has insufficient resources. Someone should manage all of this, do the tower work, provide the antennas, change out the transmitters. If you think this is something that can be done quickly, then you are in telecom and have no idea what the broadcasters deal with or what their system looks like. They have a large antenna that could be 2,000 feet high, that is right, 2K, not 200. It weighs hundreds of pounds, not pounds. The line is a copper coax that is very heavy, not fiber. It is work, and it needs to be managed.
The broadcasters have a tremendous amount of work to get done. They will completely de-install their equipment from their towers. This is a massive undertaking which will take a lot of time and planning before the real work gets done. It will take a team of people. The tower workers will be so busy over the next 3 years trying to complete all the removals and installing the new equipment. The broadcasters will be off the air along with anyone else who may be at the same level as them.
Let’s look at challenges ahead:
Old antennas to be removed could weigh up to 20,000lbs, that is right, 20 thousand!
Antennas are over 700 feet or higher, up to 2,000 feet, that is high, and you might have to remove the same thing that weighs thousands of pounds!
The coax is usually copper sections that weigh over 50lbs per section. Heavy, hundreds of feet running up to the top. Grounded at sections and mounted solidly to the tower. WOW!
The transmitter is big, and it must be removed.
The new equipment could be the same size as the old, it may have to be put in before the old being removed, or a temporary setup needs installed.
If a temporary setup is installed, then the permanent solution will have to be installed at some point.
This is high power stuff, which means it takes more engineering and testing to make sure there are no problems. At high power you have arcing, high voltage, and many safety issues.
There is a deadline, so it is a pressure job.
Resources, like tower crews, will be maxed out and super busy, so it is going to be hard to get what you need when you need it.
When rushed, you overlook stuff, it happens. Mistakes happen. Bad weather happens. Schedules get impacted.
If you do not apply with the FCC, form 2100, schedule 399, properly, you may not get reimbursed so you may spend more money than you have too.
It may be too late when you ask for help! Then you are already behind, (and screwed!). Don’t wait!
Then they must remove the old transmitter from the site after they installed the new one.
You see, they will have to have all the new equipment installed and ready to turn up, just like they did when they converted to digital several years ago. They will need to have the new system in or something temporary in and ready to go live. This means a full installation and test before turning down the old station.
When does it have to be done? Here are next steps that broadcaster engineers need to get done quickly, which I found at here on the Broadcast Law Blog, an excellent blog written by David Oxenford.
July 12th was the deadline your estimated construction costs for equipment and services to the FCC, form 2100 schedule 399. Did you do this?
For a great video on what the broadcasters must do, look at https://youtu.be/l03Hff97hqE to see what is going on. NAB did a great job of summing this up. For anyone in the business, they get it because they know the work that must be done and how dangerous it is and that it takes a lot of planning and project management. It takes professionals to do this job. It takes people that can work with a crane or a GIN pole. It takes broadcast engineers to commission TV stations for over the air broadcast.
Who pays for the hardware and services? The FCC, of course, this is an amazing time when the money will come from the FCC with the reserves they built from the auction. The broadcasters would get the money if they requested it using Form 2100 – Schedule 399. This was the important part because they ask to get it. Otherwise, they will pay for it. I hope they all asked for all the money, project management, hardware, services, and anything else they could add in there. This is not the time to go cheap!
Will the FCC keep track of all of this? Yes, of course, they will not only take the request but also, they need receipts and documentation to monitor the progress and the expenses associated with this. Make sure you keep good records of everything. In fact, they said that so far they expect it to cost $2.1B based on what they know, the article found here, http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0002/broadcasters-cable-ops-turn-in-21-billion-for-reimbursement/281416.
Who can help you do this? Of course, I have someone who can help. Specifically, a friend of mine works at QCOM. I am working with my friends at QCommunications, LLC, (QCOM), about how to manage this. Just let them know Wade sent you!
They said it takes much time to get it all done and it will take endless babysitting to make sure all the steps are complete. This will take good project management by seasoned broadcast engineers.
QCOM told me that they have the PM support to oversee and assist with the critical steps. However, whether you want their help or not, it is a good idea to look over the steps involved. Most broadcast engineers probably are already dealing with this. The steps include:
Form 2100– Schedule 399 preparation
System Audit
System transition plan, engineering and cost analysis
Project Management
Decommissioning and Legacy equipment disposal
Post install system testing
Post Auction Transition Planning
Project management
RF Engineering and Field services
New System Installation, Integration, and Testing
Engineering analysis and evaluation of the cost to relocate to an alternative channel
Tower Mapping, Modifications Minor, Major and Serious as well as Installation
HVAC services
Interim Solutions, Engineer, Design, PM, and Installation
Impact Study
Studio and Production Control transition
Coordinating all the services and crews and hardware deliveries.
It is a lot of work. However, this time the FCC will reimburse the broadcasters for their work and equipment. If they file the forms in time, the forms and the request should be made before getting paid. So, they need to make sure they account for everything. They will need to use their planning skills to account for everything. They also need to add some money in there for the problems they are not thinking of yet. That is right! They should consider the worst-case scenario to make sure that they are prepared to cover it. Don’t be cheap! You only get reimbursed if you have the receipts, but if you do not make the request, then you get nothing. Plan well, get the tower modifications if they are needed. Get the PM for the extra help. Hire extra engineers to execute quickly and properly. Plan for the extras, so you get reimbursed properly Don’t short change yourselves or losing money. The FCC forces you to go digital and they did not give you any money for that, but now you have an opportunity to get all of this done from the money from the auction. How great is that? It is awesome!
How is the spectrum be reallocated? It’s being bought from the broadcasters and distributed to the telecom companies for wireless LTE broadband as part of the 5G roll out. That’s how the spectrum is being allocated, through the auction and the money is going from the telecom companies to the FCC, who will take some, but they are going to make sure that the broadcasters get their share and get some of the services and hardware paid for.
This is a lot of work and something that your team may or may not want to do alone. If you need help, just ask. Feel free to let me know at wade4wireless@gmail.com, or you can reach out to QCOM at https://www.qcom1.com/contact-us/ to get more information, just tell them Wade sent you there!
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
I know what you’re thinking, indoor connectivity, why does that matter for the smart city? What is indoor connectivity for the smart city? Is it part of a smart building? I mean really Wade, who cares? Indoor connectivity will matter just as much as outdoor connectivity. After all, the smartphone should not stop working when you go into a building. If your phone stops working, how does that make you feel? It sucks, right! What about public safety, they can’t have their radios die the minute they go into a building, that could mean death, literally, for them or whoever needs help. Indoor connectivity should be thought of as crucial for any city, much less a smart city.
Do you stop using your device when you go inside any building? Seriously? Of course not, you don’t expect it too.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks at http://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
Indoor coverage included the entire building. It’s sad when you see a disaster happen and people don’t have coverage in the obvious places in a disaster, like the stairwells or the closets or basements. Why is that? Because normally people don’t go there and the building owner didn’t want to pay for something that no one would normally use. That is why there are regulations, in some cities, to make sure that at least the emergency bands used by fire and police are working in those areas. The local fire departments and radio shops can put this in and test it. However, most business people don’t enforce this because they know that businesses and building owners do not want to pay for it. We all think it’s OK until a fire or a terrorist attack happens and the people inside can’t communicate because they are in dead zones. In an emergency, a dead zone could mean that the people could die because they could not reach help. That often gets overlooked just to save a few dollars in many cities.
So, when planning a smart city, the regulations matter, the rules to define whether a company needs to have the best coverage, wired and wireless, in their building really matters in the grand scheme. Why not think it through and look at what has happened in the past. Take the necessary measures to ensure that buildings are being built to the proper code for structure and safety.
We still need fiber inside the building. Run it to every floor if possible. We really need fiber not only from the outside in but from the demarcation to each floor and across every floor. We need to connect every data and computer room. Even the emergency systems, the alarms systems will need to be connected. They will also need redundancy, just in case some contract goes crazy with a drill or a reciprocating saw, I have seen this first hand with wires, pipes, and power. It happens!
Fiber matters for what we want to do, the way we want to go. Broadband is what we all need to some point. Whether it’s back to an internet connection or if its dedicated fiber to a specific location for a specific purpose, we want fiber. After all, it connects the world. We all thought that satellites would do that, and they do, but they have too much delay. Fiber needs to be laid, but it works so well and opens new options.
Cable & Copper
Cable companies will be running their solutions to these building. They may even use fiber to get in the building, but they may rely on cable and CAT5 to distribute throughout the building once they are in.
CAT5 and CAT6 will be crucial. Ask any data center, any enterprise, any company that thinks they can run without having data lines all over the offices. Sure, they rely on Wi-Fi and small cells, but what feeds the Wi-Fi and small cells? That’s right, either fiber but most likely CAT5. It’s been around for a long time, and it’s not going anywhere.
I know most of you think that fiber will take over, but until fiber can carry power, (spoiler alert – it can’t alone!), then we need CAT5 or CAT6 or whatever else they come out with. CAT5 has been used for over 15 years, and it’s still going strong. Don’t deny it, we love wireless, but we need CAT5 somewhere.
Wi-Fi
This is the obvious thing that we all expect to see everywhere. I don’t think I need to cover this issue because almost every public area has Wi-Fi and most offices have it as well.
This is going to be on the same spectrum as Wi-Fi and the carriers are excited because the handoff from licensed LTE spectrum to unlicensed LTE is almost seamless if it’s setup properly. This will be a game changer for all the carriers to share loading with devices in the ISM license-free band. WOW! A way for your smartphone to hand off its data and VoLTE, (Voice over LTE) calls to a spectrum that should not cost you any data on your plan.
If this can be put on every device, I would see it really is a game changer for the carriers to hand off to almost any vendors units. With the coming of age of the cloud and mobile edge computing, MEC, we will see things improve greatly.
This is critical, but it’s an unknown. I don’t talk about public safety bands much because it’s going to go through changes. These departments still need to have the urgent PTT, (Push to Talk), Voice access because it’s reliable and immediate. We don’t want to wait for the emergency responders to be able to communicate in an emergency.
They still need data to work their laptops and gather information. FirstNet is taking care of this with their recent partnership with AT&T to provide dedicated coverage for first responders. I am waiting to see how this plays out. I am glad that first responders will have a priority channel, but most of them already have smartphones. They don’t all have devices paid for by their jobs, many use their personal devices and coverage plans because not all governments have the budget to supply everyone with what they need.
For the emergency responders, there are rules in many areas that require buildings to put in DAS systems or radios so that emergency responders have coverage as I said before. I have no idea who has this requirement and who doesn’t. It really seems to vary, even within cities.
While the public safety aspect will weigh heavily in the smart city planning, it should be thought of as part of the wireless and wireline deployment. Please don’t make it an afterthought. It will take regulations to ensure that all indoor coverage is thought out and planned properly.
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DAS systems
DAS systems are still booming in high density and high traffic areas. They are being upgraded. While small cells are making a dent, they are being used together to provide better coverage for less cost.
You see, the original DAS systems could include a Macro site to feed it for the system to reach all the areas of the building, stadium, or whatever you’re trying to cover. Now they can feed it with small cells. Now they can transport the signals digitally, meaning that instead of coax cable they can run fiber and use power from a local connection point or even run things through router and power the radio head with PoE, (Power Over Ethernet) which is really a great way to deploy.
DAS, (Distributed Antenna System), is a great way to get the signal out to the people, but it’s a financial commitment that small and some mid-size businesses don’t want to pay for. The carriers no longer see a payback on these systems, and they are looking for a less expensive way to get the signal out to the people.
Hey, I love DAS systems. They are crucial for the wireless infrastructure to cover venues. But the carriers are looking for more cost-effective ways to get the signal out. Now that we entered the age of a seamless digital network using LTE for wireless we can distribute the signal using fiber and CAT5 cable instead of the coaxial cable and splitters and analog amplifiers that we relied on in the past. DAS systems have evolved and will continue to evolve to meet the needs of today’s market.
CBRS
I have been speaking about how the spectrum of 5G will shift into the hands of the small business once again. The US CBRS is the 3.5GHz band, which runs from 3550 to 3700 MHz band. CBRS stands for Citizens Broadband Radio Service (I remember the CB, Citizens Band, here in the US). It is a lightly licensed spectrum, but it is split up into 2 areas. There is Military radar, and Earth stations that use this spectrum that is grandfathered in and have priority access. That will not change. There will be Authorized Shared Access, (ASA). Currently in the US only, but Europe is looking to follow suit with Licensed Shared Access, (LSA).
ASA includes:
Incumbent access including the federal government and satellite providers.
Priority access licenses (PAL) which are 7 10MHz licenses to be awarded to the highest bidders. PALs will be protected from the GAA users. PAL will include commercial users like carriers, rural operators, are a 3-year license with only 1 renewal term allowed now, and will be in the 3500 to 3650 portion of the spectrum. One licensee can hold only 4 PAL licenses.
General access user, (GAA) which is “Licensed by rule” which requires the rules to be followed. This will be dedicated in the 3650 to 3750 MHz portion of the band.
A PAL may gain additional GAA spectrum.
Companies that currently have this spectrum licenses will be able to keep their licenses; this was used for WiMAX in the past, now it will be LTE focused.
Licensing will be done by the Spectrum Allocation System, (SAS), which is a group that can charge for these services, currently being led by Google and Federated Wireless.
Hardware vendors include SpiderCloud, Ruckus, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, ip.access, and Acceleron.
I was reading a report by ABI Research that mentions several articles pointing to Verizon Wireless plans to use CBRS to replace middle price DAS systems, the articles in RCR and Fierce Wireless using CBRS as the neutral host solution. Then it shows how Nokia added the CBRS to its Airscale product and the Ruckus OpenG product to follow suit. Not to be outdone but Acceleron also has a CBRS product. Just to be fair, Spidercloud was one of the first to have a CBRS product. It spears that Spidercloud is already reaching out the DAS vendors and Verizon to bridge the gap for smaller DAS systems. We shall see more of SAS, (Small Cell Antenna Systems) popping up to replace the smaller DAS systems.
Could CBRS solve the DAS middleware problem? Could CBRS products fill the void where no one wants to invest in those 100,000 to 500,000 square feet venues where it is too small for a carrier but too large for a small cell? Is this the savior we are looking for? I hope so! A clean way to hand off and a lightly licensed spectrum where we would not all be trampling on each other in the Wi-Fi space. I see a solution that could solve so many issues, financial and technical.
This will mostly be an indoor solution, something where we could replace some DAS system with a common platform licensed spectrum that all the carriers and non-carriers could share to reach the dense population, it will be used for enterprise and outdoor coverage as a critical part of the 5G network slice. I am looking forward to seeing what small businesses can do with this spectrum to serve the people.
If you want a quick overview, here are 2 links that can help:
I see CBRS filling the public venues with an alternative to smaller DAS systems by dropping in a CBRS small cell with multiple bands to provide a lightly licensed signal where the carriers would roam onto this device. Clean signal without the threat of another access point going up on the same band(s).
Factories have connected systems that may not be so reliant on Wi-Fi. Now they can dedicate a specific carrier to that function inside the factory so that no one may share it. Keep that spectrum dedicated for the machines and very low latency so that no one else can use it, jump on it, or break it. That is a game changer for indoor wireless!
I often overlook the use of indoor wireless for factories and distribution warehouses. This is a great use case for indoor wireless and one that needs low latency as well as dedicated spectrum. You want to keep it secure and dedicated for one purpose. Here is a perfect spectrum that they can add to any machine in their system. It helps to cut down on issues due to latency. Distribution will need to provide accurate order filling, and factories will need to have real-time feedback on how the machines are performing or if they need to make changes.
CBRS will allow small business and Enterprise to have their lightly licensed spectrum, something that the FCC has kept from small business for quite some time. I get it, they make billions on the auctions, but it has not helped small business broadband. They feel the ISM band was enough for them to build on. I feel differently. Now I see opportunity in CBRS, centimeter wave and millimeter wave spectrums. Let’s deploy and bring broadband and narrowband to the masses! Broadband for internet access and narrowband for IOT access. It’s exciting to see the industry have more opportunity again!
How secure could you make a CBRS system? You could have a dedicated band just for your internal use and only have it on your devices. Invisible to the outside world but giving you the bandwidth that you need in your office, warehouse, or factory.
We have seen the players be OEMs and carriers and other integrators in this space. Who has been conspicuously absent has been the cable companies. Here is space where they can shine, grow, and spread beyond Wi-Fi without building an ironclad agreement with one carrier. They have the money and the deployment process to make this a phenomenal area of growth. I would like to think that SpiderCloud would be calling the cable companies with proposals and business cases. Just my opinion. It is time for the cable companies to make it happen in wireless deployment.
Inside coverage summary
So, to sum it up, there are plenty of options that you will have. Some you have control of and some you don’t. You also need to separate what the first responders will need and what other services will need. This is specific to the band and the coverage. It matters.
When planning, try not to think of just one service or area. Look at the building, then look at the service you want. Something like what I have below.
The building has:
Common areas like the entrance, the mezzanine, the food courts.
Emergency exits, stairwells, basements, rooftops and other areas that are only accessed by workers, contractors, and when there’s an emergency.
Office space that may be secure and locked occupied by tenants.
Rest rooms, public and tenant only.
Hallways where people could be walking at any given time.
Entrance and exit areas where people could stop to smoke on break or congregate.
Coverage for:
Public safety should cover the entire building.
Carriers will want to cover the common areas and some tenant offices.
IOT coverage for the meters, air conditioners, thermostats and other controls.
Private networks throughout the building in tenant spaces.
Emergency phone connections:
Elevators
Rooftops
One on each floor
Basement
Wherever the generators are located.
I hope this helps you what needs to be added to the buildings in a smart city.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
Broadband is needed everywhere, so much so that even the federal government sees broadband as a utility that is needed by all people. How do you get broadband to the underserved areas?
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks athttp://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
In the suburban and country, (remote areas), it is simply a matter of budgets. However, CenturyLink is a company I see serving those areas. They are doing the best they can get wired broadband to that area along with the wireless carriers. I really see Verizon out in some remote areas, deploying LTE too far out areas. This is amazing. Areas that once were thought to be so remote that they can now have your smartphone or laptop connected via LTE signals. WOW!
What about city coverage? They don’t always have the coverage that we think they do, especially in areas where the “payback” is not obvious. This is a recurring theme I hear from cities. The need to make sure that broadband is available in all areas of the city. This seems like a non-negotiable issue. I guess it’s true that broadband is the new utility. As a utility, it assumes that we need it to live or at least live at a quality level of life. Of course, we can all live without electricity or running water, but do we want to? Of course not, not in our daily lives anyway. We want to have broadband as part of our daily lives.
Broadband is more than a luxury or something that’s nice to have. It is the livelihood of so many people, including me, to work efficiently and improve their daily lives. That is what the cities see. They see hundreds of small business taking off, becoming more than just a hobby or a way to play games or even watch TV. Broadband is all of that and more.
I work and train from home using the internet to do it. I started my side business at home because I have broadband and because work no longer pays for it. I feel no guilt using it for gain and learning new skills, something that if work paid for they might frown upon it. It ain’t free! I pay for it. Work no longer pays for any broadband to the house yet they expect you to have it and work using it. Did you catch that, they expect you to have it. Broadband to the home has become an expectation, not a luxury.
The connection is not free, however. I pay for that, and it is part of my monthly service. I love it and yet I do pay for it and not it’s more important to me than TV on my cable bill. That is a shift in today’s world where cable and the internet would be on the same bill. However, today it’s an expectation.
Back to the smart city saga, they see the need because they want their residents to learn at home, to have the opportunity to work from home, and the bigger opportunity to start their online businesses at home or at least in a nearby office. They see the value is providing value to their residents. They see the success of each person that learns to take advantage of this. They know that broadband is a game changer.
Now, how do we get the signal to the people? There is always fiber, which is awesome for getting broadband. However, it ain’t cheap, and most companies don’t want to add it to the “underserved” areas of town. You see, the big boys want to see a payback in a timely manner and it may not happen there. The cities are frustrated with this because those are the areas that could benefit the most. It’s a social dilemma because these areas need the opportunities to grow business, but the companies that can make it available to them won’t do it because they don’t see the immediate payback.
Business is business so what many cities are doing is taking the initiative to put broadband in these areas. Since they have fiber in some sections of this part of town, they are starting to rely on Wi-Fi to get the signal to the people. It’s what we used to call Muni Wi-Fi, municipal Wi-Fi where Wi-Fi covers the city, area by area. This way the people can connect for a reasonable price and almost anywhere they are near the hotspot.
To be honest, many of these initiatives have not been overwhelmingly successful. Not always a failure either. Somewhere in between, I would say. However, for the area where they don’t have anything else, it is a game changer for the residents, if they are ready for it. In today’s world, we have every device with Wi-Fi in it, smartphones and laptops and Kindles and iPads. While these are all high-end devices, I really don’t know more than 10 people that don’t have a smartphone. The ones that don’t have smartphones really could care less about the internet, so let’s not talk about them.
Let’s speak of the thousands of people that not only have it but rely on Wi-Fi to offload their smartphone data. Many times Wi-Fi works better than the carrier’s system unless you have a great LTE connection. While new formats are coming out in 2018, Wi-fi is already here and in almost every device. It can really help these areas if you educate the people.
Educate people? What does that mean? It means tell them it’s there! To do this, you need to get the word to them so that they know it’s there. Wi-Fi hotspots are very limited so most people may not see it. They might not know where to go to get connectivity. It is the city’s job to educate them, let them know it’s available, and what they should pay for it or how long it is free. Most people love free, including me. Let them know it’s there by other means!
Just because it’s there doesn’t mean people will come, it’s not the “Field of Dreams” just yet, do your part. Make sure that the word gets out, and the people know what the terms are. It’s like when you go to the airport, and the Wi-Fi is only free for an hour. You usually read it on a billboard or see it on a screen or kiosk before you read the acceptance terms on your smartphone or laptop. Well, you may read it on your laptop, but probably not your smartphone.
Then you have some dedicated fans who are so grateful that you provided Wi-Fi for them. Getting the word out has been a major problem in the past. However, in the present, the cable companies have done a great job in letting you know where they have Wi-fi available and how long you can use it for free.
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To get Wi-Fi out there it is not easy. There are 3 major things you need, 1) backhaul, 2) mounting assets with power, and 3) Equipment. All the rest will come together, but most people think you can mount anywhere. Without power and backhaul and a place to mount, your equipment is useless. It takes time and money to plan this out. I often see how people think it’s like putting a hotspot in your home, but it is not. While you’re not building towers, you still need an installation crew to mount it somewhere and have a backhaul plan in place. Remember that this is a professional installation, not something you plug-in, drop, and run.
If you’re in the rural areas, then you know that Wi-Fi is not a viable solution. There is just too much area to cover. We need to rely on fiber, cable, copper, and licensed wireless to cover these broad areas. They need to have it available where the people are. It’s going to continue to be a problem. While VSAT, satellite, is a viable option, it hasn’t panned out so well. It just never really served the way we all hoped, the delays were high, and when the transponder gets loaded, everybody gets slow. Slow sucks! We all have the need for speed, not the patience for connection issues. This will be an issue.
The smart city has many options. They need to consider each one and figure out who will pay for it.
That is a high overview on one thing that I see in all cities, the need for broadband speed. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon. People rely on broadband for more and more in their everyday lives. So getting it to them in some way is critical!
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
Let’s look at some services that you may not think you may not have thought of; some may call them unusual. I think it’s good to look outside of the box and think of what’s coming or maybe a way to solve a problem that you didn’t think of. Here are some things that may not be on your radar.
Drone traffic control and monitoring is something that will need to be implemented if Amazon wants to start a drone delivery service. I think that we need to start planning that now. Qualcomm is already testing drone control over LTE, which means it won’t be long until drones are able to be routed long distances, say a few miles. This will change the landscape for drone usage assuming the FAA can keep up with demand.
The dream of cost-effective drone delivery is going to become more and more real for more than food and goods.
Think of how we will get medicine to someone cost effectively and without worrying about traffic.
What about emergency services looking over an accident in real-time? I mean before emergency service can even get to the site, the drone pilot is already assessing the situation so that when emergency responders arrive the know exactly what to do and where to do.
What about tracking criminals? Suddenly we don’t have the expensive helicopters buzzing but the drones going after most criminals in real-time dispatched from the trunk of an officer’s car! How cool is that? Here is another tool in their arsenal to keep the streets safe.
Widespread search and rescue in parks can happen immediately, no more waiting for approval to start the search, just deploy a cost-effective drone.
Autonomous vehicle tracking and routing is one more item that may fall into the hands of the city. Someone has to track and route the vehicles. It may be the city or something equivalent to Uber or a taxi company. Who will do it and how will it be done? Will someone like AT&T or Verizon pick up this service? I can tell you this; they won’t do it for free!
Criminal tracking is one thing that has been done for years with the ankle bracelets. This will be greatly improved with the IOT systems that are being deployed. Law enforcement can track someone better than ever using this service. Who will own it? Chances are someone will manage the system and send alerts to law enforcement when they leave their designated area.
Vehicle tracking is one more thing that may or may not catch on. While you may find this funny, it is being done in Songdo, South Korea, https://publications.iadb.org/handle/11319/7721where they track legal and illegal vehicles in real time If a vehicle is stolen, it won’t take them long to catch it in the city. They use RFID to track vehicles throughout the city where each vehicle is registered, and they can immediately tell legal or not Then track it on their CCTV system.
Video tracking is going to be more important than ever. Again, in the study of Songdo, they also speak of monitoring the city of unusual activity using CCTV throughout the city. Most cities have video today but are they using it to its fullest potential. This is where they need applications to have facial recognition for catching criminals and monitoring traffic to alert them of accidents and to alert them when a crowd gathers in an unusual area meaning that something may be wrong. Take it to the next level!
Selling data will be a valuable source of income. I bring this up again and again because I would think that no one knows the city as well as the people who work there and represent the city. I don’t mean the propaganda that you tell everyone. I mean the traffic patterns and where most residents go at what time of day. How they can tell what businesses will take off and which ones won’t. They know this just because they know the city, the locations, and how people will react.
Grabbing attention with a large Kiosk is what Palo Alto intends to do. They are quite advanced in their smart grid project and the investment into smart city projects. One of them is to put in a 52” Kiosk downtown for the locals and visitors to know what is going on. A bulletin board that no one can miss. To learn more about what they and other cities are doing go to http://smartcitiescouncil.com/article/how-one-citys-not-afraid-fail-attitude-making-it-smarter and see what’s possible.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks athttp://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
My point here is that we need innovation. There is so much that is possible if we can see it. If we can imagine it. Albert Einstein once said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution” Let’s play a part in that evolution.
I have worked for large and small companies, and the one major thing they all have in common is that when they find something that works they stick with it. This is fine for a while, but eventually, you need to innovate again, use that imagination to create something great and new. Sure, we fail, but it could be on the way to something great, something bigger than us or what we imagined. Let’s do that together!
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
If you think you have a plan for a smart city, great. If you don’t them decide what to do, just don’t waste this time by not knowing what you have.
One thing I have seen with Wi-Fi rollouts and Fiber rollouts is that in most cases the city is guessing at who owns what. I get it; there are a lot of poles, holes, and cables run throughout the city. I don’t believe that on a person can really get a handle on who owns what.
What you can do is audit what you have. Learn who owns what and who can attach to it. This is something that will take time and spread across departments, utilities, and services. These are going to vary and will be something that the city can leverage to make income, rollout services, or make changes to save money. The audit is going to be key. If you don’t think that your internal teams can do it, then hire a group to do it.
How do you do any of this if you don’t know what you already have?
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks athttp://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
The assets I am talking about could be one of many things. The obvious would be the poles, rooftops, tower, and anything that you can mount a radio or fiber. Think about all the poles and map posts and guy wire that a radio can be mounted to!
We now live in the age of constant and never-ending connectivity. Think about what we can do if we get the wireless signals out to the people! It will be a necessity at some point. The owners of the poles and lampposts in the city can really benefit. I don’t think I am telling you anything new. This is already something that is being hunted down by most carriers in all cities. They want to mount radios to get the signal as close to the people as possible.
You, as a city, should know who owns what. If it’s you, then great, if it’s a utility, great! Just make sure you have it documented somewhere online so when someone tries to gain access they know whom to talk to and how to fill out the permits. The zoning information would be helpful too. Make it easy for them.
Don’t’ forget what your requirements are with noise and aesthetics. These are things that a company like Crown Castle or Verizon will need to know when they deploy. If they put something up that you don’t like or is noisy, then the residents complain. Usually not to them, but to the city. They talk of problems and the eyesore and of course, the noisy fans. It matters to them because they live 20 feet from it. They pay their city taxes, and they want to have a beautiful and quiet neighborhood. That’s why it really helps if you do your part and define in great detail what you expect prior to issuing any permits.
This is the one thing that I learned from muni Wi-Fi, the poles are poorly managed in many cities. They don’t’ worry about it or care about it. They let it up to the contractors, us, to figure it out. Now they may regret not keeping up with it because it takes a lot of time and walking and research to figure it all out. I wouldn’t give it away for free. I would sell it, or I would keep it which means that it’s of no use the next time because things may have changed. See the problem; old data could be bad data. Maybe a great place to start, but maybe starting over would be easier.
So, what’s a city to do? Look at the agreements you signed with your cable and fiber businesses. Look at how the utilities structured the contracts if they did so at all. Most utilities didn’t care until recently. Those contracts traditionally have been a headache for them. I get it, they are a pain to manage, and that’s not their primary income. However, they need to play nice in this new world of 5G!
Underground assets:
OK, this is technically a mounting asset, but why not separate it out. Now the Wi-Fi companies are getting creative in getting the signal to the people. They are working to provide coverage even if it’s on a manhole cover. Who owns the manhole? You should have that documented somewhere.
What about putting in vaults to mount the radios and router equipment so that it can connect to the fiber? Yes, underground vaults are a brilliant idea that is coming of age so that all we need to put on the pole is the antenna and maybe a very small radio head. Who will own that asset? I say the city, and they have a beautiful underground radio vault where they can charge rent.
What about the routing of cable? Here is another place the city or utility can allow access to the fiber and cable runs. This is something that they can lease. If you just want to stop the roads from getting ripped up every 2 years, plan ahead with empty conduits so that future runs can be fed from manhole to manhole. Make it easy and clean to allow a new player to come in and run cables by getting access to conduits that the city and utility planners put in ahead of time to save the streets from getting ripped up. Plan ahead, my friends!
Fiber assets:
You may have unused fiber you don’t think you need that you could lease or sell to someone in need. It’s extra income. If you don’t need it or don’t see an immediate need, sell or rent it.
You may be able to share some strands that you have with another carrier, business, or a customer. I know you may not want to get into the fiber business, but you could have a company manage this for you so that all you see is the recurring income.
These are assets that you may already have that you don’t know about. Make the most of it and get some income if possible.
You probably know what towers ad building tops you have, I can only imagine. However, can you lease space off of them? In the past, you tried to keep it secure, but in this communication centric world, you can start opening up this revenue stream.
Many times you have more value than you originally thought. The rooftops that are empty because at one time they were too low now are closer to the public and possibly the best height for small cells to be mounted on edge. Open up your perspectives and see what you have to offer.
Your tower may be loaded on the top, but what about the lower parts? Are they open? Are they near busy places in the city? Take advantage of them and open them up!
Billboards:
This is something that the city may not own, but they could have access to. Many billboards have power which means they could be prime real estate for small cells and Wi-Fi and IOT! Use them. Find out who owns the property and who manages them. Keep track of them and see if you can offer them to wireless providers coming into your city.
If you think they don’t matter then think of your public safety systems. As FirstNet rolls out, they are going to push to mount in cities at some point. Make this another place they can use. AT&T will need more space, they want to cover your city, and you can bet they will use the FirstNet name to mount anywhere they can. Why not?
I often see city-owned parking garages in smaller cities. This is a great place to put antennas on. The stairwells are a great place to mount Wi-Fi and small cells. Lower levels could be used for small cells. This is another thing you should look at in your audit to see what you have to create a new source of income. Get the word out so that you expand your portfolio in a good way.
How will you know if you don’t make it available to all?
Street Furniture:
You have bus stops; train stops, parks, benches, garbage cans, and dumpsters, maybe even kiosks that would be a great fit for small cells, Wi-Fi, interactive displays, and more. Why not use them? You have the property already in place, and if you have power to them, you’re all set. The carriers may want to run fiber, but ask if they could use wireless backhaul or an alternative to fiber. See if fiber is nearby, it may not be so bad to run it there after all.
This may be a great opportunity to update your bus stops and train stops, make the most out of this. If you already had the plan to upgrade, think of what other services you could add. If they are owned by the transit company and not the city, then partner with them to improve what they have. Use LED lighting to save costs, add Wi-Fi to add value. So much more can be done. We can add small cells to get the carriers in there to improve their coverage and collect some rent along with it. As IOT coverage expands, it adds another source of income and service for the city and the transit company. It pays to have partners.
You could have large garbage cans or recycling cans or donation centers that people go to that are big and fixed. Take advantage of those structures to add small cells, Wi-Fi, or even a kiosk to share with the city. This is a form of street furniture that has value to a wireless rollout.
Wireless Backhaul:
If you have microwave or data backhaul, it could be used and leased to others. Many times old microwave shots will be taken down or not used, so why not put in something that could serve your city or the businesses nearby. It’s worth looking into. It could be Wi-Fi or a point to point link or a multipoint link. If you connect those links to the internet, you could connect buildings to a backbone. That’s something that you could offer to small businesses in that building, a broadband connection.
Data Collection:
I know this is a strange thing to audit, but it’s a valuable asset that is often overlooked. Think of how this could be useful. You may not see value in the data that your team has collected, but it has great value. Local business and non-profits need this data! Residents need this data! You use it internally so often that you take it for granted, but it has value.
If you give it away or if you use it internally, it can really help more than your teams. If you share it, either sell it or give it away or a combination, then your city can grow exponentially. This is something that small businesses, partners, and residents will find useful when deciding what to do next.
Small businesses may want to expand to a new neighborhood, or they may want to start a new business. The data that you provide will help them expand with great knowledge. It helps them make an educated guess using what they know, their customer feedback, and your data.
Partnersand non-profits could be trying to help the city do something new, innovative, or charity work. Why not help them streamline what needs to be done and where to start. This is all going to be taken from what they learned and the data you provide. They want to help you become better, a better city with a better reputation. Do it as a team, play the part of supporter.
Residents are looking for what to do and what neighborhood to live in. The data you provide can help them make that decision. They need your input so that they can improve their daily lives. So that they can brag to their friend and family about what a great city they live in. Help make them proud of your city!
Notes:
I just want your teams to think outside the box and see value in more than the physical assets. I often fall into this being a wireless guy. I see so many things that are useful but not taken advantage of. Why not use all of them.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
I am excited that we talk of 5G and fixed wireless. Fixed Wireless is where we put a radio up and shoot it to a building or a kiosk or a small cell or even a macro cell. If you’re in the wireless deployment business, then you would call this point to point, PTP, or Point to Multi-Point, PTMP or PMP. We used to call these microwave hops, but in this case, it is broadband to a specific facility. While this has been done for a while, not it’s going to be a viable competitor to ISPs and Cable companies. Wireless is taking over, and we have a shot to change the world here. Not just the carriers, but the small businesses who want to become ISPs really have a shot to provide real bandwidth to business and home customers. WOW! Can you feel it, a new era is rising in wireless broadband!
Don’t worry, I tie this into smart cities at the end.
First, let’s look at the 5G spectrum. I’m not sure if any of you saw it, but the 5G Americas group put together a great sheet on the 5G spectrum. I have the link so go ahead and download it.
Tower Safety and Instruction has online training and eBooks athttp://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
I don’t see this spectrum as a mobile solution, but more of a fixed solution. This is going to be a thorn in the side of the cable and ISP business model. Why? It’s a new competitor that will have the reach and customer base and savvy to steal those customers. Remember, fewer millennials are watching traditional TV, they watch on demand as most of you do. Don’t deny it, do you really sit down and watch a show at the designated time or do you watch it on Amazon or Netflix or Zulu or with your DVR?
I tell you that I watch it on my DVR, but also on Amazon. I don’t watch much at the time the show airs except live sports. If there is the demand for live TV, sports is it! Even though I can watch sports on a device as well.
So, the push for massive broadband is coming. Those crappy TV packages that they cable companies are pushing will slowly fade away. Seriously, why can’t I get the channels I want and why do they always change the lineup which cancels the one channel I watch? I really hate paying a lot of money for something that I don’t really want, but the cable companies are not changing fast enough in my opinion. However, they do have great internet speeds to the home. I won’t deny that. They have a great model there with the cable modems.
The wireless carriers are going to have to make it cost-effective, so all they need to do is come in lower, about 25%, on price to compete. They can’t come in at the same price because cable is very reliable and I get the feeling wireless will need a year to get there. I think they will need to work out the bugs. Then they will do what they always do, slowly raise the price until you leave.
That is why I am hoping that Legere at T-Mobile makes waves by getting there first. He already said he wants to attack the big cable companies the way that he attacked the big wireless carriers. If anyone can do it, I believe that John Legere can do it. He needs to push into fixed wireless. However, I believe he is too smart to just jump in. I think he will wait for Verizon and AT&T to work out the bugs and then pounce. First isn’t always best when there are problems. So why be first when the technology isn’t quite there? When it is, hammer the deals out to the customer, like he did with mobility. Great job there becoming #3 and pushing into #2.
Of course, CBRS will also be a game changer for those businesses that don’t need 100Mbps.It will allow us to do more in the rural areas. Remember CBRS, 3.5GHz? I love this spectrum because it will be open to more than just the big bad carriers who rule the spectrum. We have a chance to create something great when I say we, I mean the small businesses who must feed off the scraps which the carrier doesn’t own or manage. This may be the most valuable of all because it may not require LOS, a line of site, as shown here, http://www.telecompetitor.com/fixed-lte-in-cbrs-band-not-expected-to-require-line-of-sight-for-fixed-wireless/ for the connections to be made. This opens new doors for connectivity. I think it’s real and exciting! Hey don’t take my word for it, ask Google, http://www.rcrwireless.com/20161117/carriers/google-sees-cbrs-spectrum-band-key-5g-new-model-industry-tag2, and they will vouch for this.
To be fair, the 5G Americas Spectrum document that I reference above also has a quick blurb in it about CBRS, and I quote “Other bands of interest, From the point of view of global harmonization in the 3 to 5 GHz range as the main mid-range spectrum target for 5G, interests have been expressed in use of this range for 5G in the United States. This could potentially include current CBRS band (3.55-3.7 GHz) and beyond (e.g. up to 4.2 GHz).” I believe that the CBRS will play a large part because the carrier doesn’t want to deploy small cells everywhere, in fact, they are going to let that up to the business owners or the landlord to do. They won’t admit this but I think they are looking for a neutral host solution and CBRS is a great solution! Licensed and protected and it could potentially have multiple carriers on one band. If you think this is crazy, have you ever heard of Wi-Fi? Does it discriminate based on a carrier in your home? NOPE! It just connects, so this will be a stepped-up version of that where it will connect, but it may discriminate based on your carrier. Amazing!
Why? Because cities are going to want alternatives to running fiber on poles and underground. The dig once the policy is going to be enforced more and more throughout the USA. The poles are going to be a point of contention among competitors. The access rights and permitting battles will heat up until we find a resolution. The FCC is working to streamline small cell deployments, and the cities are realizing that they must lay out the requirements for a proper installation. If things go as planned, the fixed wireless base stations should be a lot like small cells with batteries. I believe that power is going to be the issue because if the power goes out people still want Internet access. So, this issue needs to be resolved.
The smart city is going to be aware that they need broadband service for small businesses and for kiosks as well as food trucks. They will rely on smartphones, but the demand will grow. As demand grows we come up with new solutions. If you go to a city, you will see stands that sell newspapers, hot dogs, and T-Shirts almost on every busy street. They rely on landlines and smartphones to do business now. It will become a game changer when they can run the online business out of the same small stand that they run the physical business out of. Things change and become more and more advances. As the business grows, revenue grows, the city gains more in tax revenue. It’s a win-win all around.
I am hoping that fixed wireless can be one of the catalysts to help make this happen.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial assistance and more.
Will Smart Cities use IOT? Will IOT be an integral part of the smart city vision? Yes and yes! IOT is going to be a key factor in many smart city services and it will fill the holes for services other than broadband. If you wonder if it will take off, just ask AT&T who is building an entire business unit around IOT, AT&T IOT website found here. AT&T has invested in complete end to end services for vehicles, asset management, smart cities, and healthcare. So they see a definite future in the IOT ecosystem.
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What about Verizon? Yes, they have their IOT business as well, the website found here. While they are focused more on the enterprise, they too see the ecosystem that I see. In fact, Verizon had a developers website set up, found here, to encourage developers to come up with solutions and fill holes around the IOT need and exponential growth.
So you’re asking yourself, as a small business consultant or integrator, “How does that help me?”. I will tell you how, you have an opportunity to build, deploy, manage, and fill holes in the IOT solutions. We can compete with the larger behemoths like AT&T and Verizon by building our own systems, or by piggybacking onto their network with our unique solutions. We can provide the answers that smart cities are looking for. We are the local consultants and contractors, the small businesses that are the backbone of America that know what the cities need. However, the cities need help and we can provide them with vendor agnostic solutions. IOT will open new areas of business for smart cities.
The smart city will use IOT services for a foundation of many things. Funding, cutting expenses, services that will make residents and tourist happy. Why? It is going to be the foundation of many services and how they will work in the city. There are many services that you may have heard of, and some you may think are too futuristic. However, this will be the norm in the very near future. Remember when the smartphone was a luxury? How many people claim they can’t live without it? What about Uber, it has changed the way we get a ride and forever hurt the Taxi service model. What services will be needed?
Let’s begin!
Parking services are an immediate need that most cities are addressing. Until the drones and self-driving cars to take over, we need parking meters that should be easy to pay, which are already taking over. Remotely connected meters that people can pay with a credit card or with a phone application. Those services are already here! What about open parking spaces? Parking is a huge issue in many cities. Wouldn’t it be nice to reroute traffic to the parking spaces and garages that have spaces? YES! Did you ever fly over Thanksgiving? Airport garages fill up quickly, they reroute traffic to the open garages. Also, open street parking is a huge issue. Why not let people know where the spaces are by looking at an app and pointing people to the open spaces. This is valuable to avoid small traffic jams. It just makes sense! This is happening, go to http://www.nedapidentification.com/news/insights/the-business-case-for-wireless-parking-sensors.html and https://www.smartparking.com/technologies/smarteye to see some ideas of how it is done today.
Garbage dumpstersensors are something that has been growing as a service. If you don’t think this is a big idea, then you must not care when garbage is laying all over the streets. When a dumpster is full, it’s because there is a lot of garbage and it will start to overflow, and it will blow all over the city. Then the city has to clean it up, especially if it’s going to make the city dirty and possibly spread disease. Now we have a way to get the garbage crews out there when they are needed and if a restaurant is closed for a week and the dumpster stays empty, then why dispatch a truck? What a wasted trip for the garbage company it’s a waste of time and fuel. Think this isn’t real? Then look at https://www.smartbin.com/markets/level-sensor-general-waste-recyclables/ and http://www.enevo.com/waste-analytics-solution/ to see who is doing it.
Sensors around the city are going to be key. This could be water sensors that could detect high water at levees, drains, sewers where an overflow can cause major issues with traffic or resident safety. Water pressure in water mains could drop quickly, which would mean that there is a break in the line which means street flooding or a sinkhole is forming which leads to traffic problems and residents not feeling safe. What about gas lines that have leaks, gas detection could be a huge service.
How about ShotSpotter? Public safety will need to get creative to stay on top of the crime in any city. As luck would have it, someone reminded me of ShotSpotter this morning. Someone just sent me an article, http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/03/02/incredible-tech-detects-gunfire-across-america.html that had sensors put all over cities to identify shots fired in the city and locate them and identify them, You’re asking, is this IOT? Yes, it was a completely automated system that would sense gunfire then alert an NOC, probably an e911 call center, that there are shots fired. All automated. How did the system work? Imagine this, microphones that are hyper sensitive all across a city all connected via wireless backhaul to a central location where there is a server that identifies the sound then puts up an alert on a computer screen. There you go, classic IOT automated services connected wireless to a server that alerts a human when something happens, what a great model to follow. Remember that this technology has been around for over 10 years. The article is new, but I installed one around 10 years ago. I installed the system in York, Pa, which let it go because they could not afford to support it. Here is an article for that service specifically, http://ydr.inyork.com/ydr/opinion/ci_9642210 and http://yorkdispatch.inyork.com/yd/local/ci_10618140 stating how it was unreliable. I don’t blame the system, but maybe there needed to be more systems around the city. Remember that it was over 8 years ago, so the technology may not have been there.
What about Drone Traffic Control? Did you know that Uber is working towards drone passenger service, I would say taxi, but seriously, Uber is the anti-taxi. The article is here, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/26/uber-plans-self-flying-drone-taxis-to-beat-city-traffic/ where it explains Uber’s drone vision. My point is if Amazon does the package delivery and Uber does passenger delivery, we will need to have drone traffic control. While it may be the FAA that manages the traffic, each city will need their own way to manage and track the drones. It will be a city service at some point because in the city the drone traffic will be heavy. Deliveries are one thing that the city may not worry about, but when humans take the air, it will be life or death. This is what we have all waited for, to get off the road and into the air. It’s almost here. Why is it the city? Because the intercity traffic will take a long time for drones to do, but intracity traffic is almost here, within the next 5 years. Thank you, Uber! I heard the DJI Matrice, (Amazon affiliate link) which is a great drone for commercial work.
Wait, how can we connect these services to the main line? Wireless and wired backhaul. Get creative! I actually have a plan that could help, but hey, you need to reach out to me via Wade@TechFecta.com if you want to learn more. I am not talking about putting it all on a carrier’s system, although they would love that. The key is to have a long battery life where there is no power and where you have the power you could use anything. These services don’t need a lot of bandwidth, what some of them need is a great battery life, and that is where wireless comes in. Low power draw sensors that need minimal bandwidth that won’t drain the battery in the sensor. All of this is real. Even Amazon has them available, found on my affiliate link here, and Honeywell writes about their sensor at https://www.alarmgrid.com/products/honeywell-5821 if you’re interested.
So to wrap it up, the IOT services for the city are huge, not just for the businesses to become more efficient and effective, but for the city to maintain safety and cleanliness. This is one of the foundations of the smart city and services that we will all expect every city and town to have. It will become more of an expectation that a luxury.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial support and more.
Of course. When we look at 5G it is well beyond the devices that we are used to. It’s time to expand your horizons beyond a simple device. That is why IOT is used along with 5G in so many conversations. IOT and 5G are used synonymously even though they are not the same thing. The thing is, 5G is the network description and IOT is the application.
Tower Safety and Instruction has a new online school, check it out athttp://teltech-college.com/ when you are ready to step up your learning in telecom!
When we think of 5G, we think of the signal to a device. Now the signal will go to much more than a smart device. It will go to smartphones and tablets, but it’s also going to go to sensors, video cameras, games, smart gloves, smart anything that can be connected. We already see it with Wi-Fi that set the stage for 5G to connect to anything. The problem is that we need more bandwidth for stuff like that.
Just when we thought more and more bandwidth was the answer, IOT device makers realize that they don’t need the bandwidth, but they also realize that lots of bandwidth needs lots of battery power to support it. So, they thought, how did pagers last so long on that tiny AA battery? How? They did it with less bandwidth, with the power to sleep until the code wakes it, and not using the display all the time. WOW! Paging technology ideas are still the foundation for modern technology! I remember we had QAM 64 before carriers had LTE. Anyway, I digress.
While the broadband is adding amazing opportunities to the modern era, like remote surgery, self-driving cars, long-range drones, gaming, video, and applications. We also have machine to machine communications we call IOT, which we need to track devices that can track and control remote things without having a human constantly looking at a screen. In almost real-time it can adjust.
While wireless gets not only more advanced, it gets more and more efficient with less and less overhead. It’s not all the wireless side, the network is pushing the computing and decision-making to the edge. It all started with the cloud bringing the data closer to where we are. Now the edge is bringing it closer to the wireless edge with less overhead and lower latency. We can have the application’s source get closer to the actual remote device.
The edge makes all this possible. Efficiencies were built into the wireless formats. Now the network is building in its own efficiencies by reducing the latency that it would normally have in transport. Routers and switch have become more efficient but now we are finding a way to cut out the travel delay that has been there for years. Now we can eliminate the travel delays by having more computing done closer to the device making readings and changes happening real close to real-time.
WOW! Just a quick overview of what is out there and how cool it is.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Hubble Foundation helps the families of climbers in a time of need and beyond with financial support and counseling!
Tower Family Foundation supports the families of tower climbers at the time of crisis when a climber falls with financial support and more.
sure they can find mentors and partners in this venture. In the long run, smart city policies are more about improving the city. Growing the jobs and improving the quality of life. It all goes hand in hand.at http://teltech-college.com/ where you can get drone, tower, safety, 5G, and deployment material on your laptop! TSI, making the best better.
