Smart Poles
Solving problems should be a goal for consumer electronics products, making life easier for consumers, but rarely do you find a product that solves more than one problem at the same time, but smart poles can. No not ‘smart Poles’ like Marie Curie or Copernicus, but smart light poles. Smart lighting has been around for a long time, with daylight or motion sensors telling the lights when to be on or off, saving energy and extending lighting source lifetimes, but today’s versions of smart poles are far more sophisticated. Lighting poles are a necessary adjunct to any roadway, especially at pedestrian cross-points, and are a requirement in parking and public spaces in most cities and countries. That said, why use a light pole just for lighting when it can be used for much more?
5G is a developing service that will eventually replace 4G LTE as 4G did with 3G. 5G has lower latency, higher speed, and wider bandwidth than 4G, but has a few limitations that keep the service from living up to full expectations. Currently there are two ‘flavors’ of 5G, sub-6 and mmWave., however 5G transmission characteristics are different from those of 4G and are less able to be transmitted over long distances, the reason why carriers typically piggyback 5G signals on existing 4G infrastructure. To make this worse, as 5G frequencies move higher, meaning moving from low and mid 5G (sub6) bands where much 5G infrastructure is currently, to mmWave (higher frequencies) where 5G truly delivers what carriers have been promising, the transmission distance gets even smaller (~500 meters or a circle around a transmission source of about 2/3 of a mile in diameter). If carriers are serious about offering ‘real’ 5G (mmWave) to fixed and mobile consumers, they will need to populate the world with a grid of transmitters a bit less than a mile apart, which, even using 1 mile apart, would equal 4.43m 5G cell towers in the US for full coverage.
Of course that will never be the case given the vast un-populated spaces in the US, but you get the idea, however in more densely populated areas, such as towns and cities, because mmWave 5G signals are blocked by buildings and even trees, even more transmitters would be needed. Since no one is going to allow such a density of cellular towers, where can such necessary equipment reside? How about on lighting poles? They already have power so additional wiring would not be necessary and 5G base station equipment can be made small enough to easily fit on a pole and they are already in place. What could be easier? But wait there’s more… Of course such lighting poles would have IoT capabilities far beyond the simplistic sensors used currently and could transmit weather, traffic, and other data using 5G, but as we look into the future and automobiles become autonomous, or at least electric, how about using the lighting pole as a power source for charging your vehicle while it is parked?
Suddenly the simple light pole goes from this:
5G is a developing service that will eventually replace 4G LTE as 4G did with 3G. 5G has lower latency, higher speed, and wider bandwidth than 4G, but has a few limitations that keep the service from living up to full expectations. Currently there are two ‘flavors’ of 5G, sub-6 and mmWave., however 5G transmission characteristics are different from those of 4G and are less able to be transmitted over long distances, the reason why carriers typically piggyback 5G signals on existing 4G infrastructure. To make this worse, as 5G frequencies move higher, meaning moving from low and mid 5G (sub6) bands where much 5G infrastructure is currently, to mmWave (higher frequencies) where 5G truly delivers what carriers have been promising, the transmission distance gets even smaller (~500 meters or a circle around a transmission source of about 2/3 of a mile in diameter). If carriers are serious about offering ‘real’ 5G (mmWave) to fixed and mobile consumers, they will need to populate the world with a grid of transmitters a bit less than a mile apart, which, even using 1 mile apart, would equal 4.43m 5G cell towers in the US for full coverage.
Of course that will never be the case given the vast un-populated spaces in the US, but you get the idea, however in more densely populated areas, such as towns and cities, because mmWave 5G signals are blocked by buildings and even trees, even more transmitters would be needed. Since no one is going to allow such a density of cellular towers, where can such necessary equipment reside? How about on lighting poles? They already have power so additional wiring would not be necessary and 5G base station equipment can be made small enough to easily fit on a pole and they are already in place. What could be easier? But wait there’s more… Of course such lighting poles would have IoT capabilities far beyond the simplistic sensors used currently and could transmit weather, traffic, and other data using 5G, but as we look into the future and automobiles become autonomous, or at least electric, how about using the lighting pole as a power source for charging your vehicle while it is parked?
Suddenly the simple light pole goes from this:
To this:
Smart Light Pole - Source: ERCIM News
As always, solving problems in the CE space requires cooperation and while there will be innumerable iterations of smart poles across the US and across the globe, without some basic standards, things could get complicated. China has just implemented the country’s first national standard for smart light poles, South Korea implemented standards last year, and Taiwan has recently formed an alliance for the same purpose, while here in the US things are a bit more fragmented, sooner or later the various governmental organizations needed (FCC, DOT, etc.) will get together and try to come up with a plan that will likely be criticized by state and local governments who do not want the Federal government telling them what they can or cannot put on their light poles. That said, industry will likely come up with real standards that will at least give a starting point for suppliers, but as 5G proliferates and 6G (even higher frequencies) begins to take shape, the US will either revert back to the days of antennae on every chimneys or utilize the infrastructure already in place, the lowly light pole. It make sense and solves problems.
- Rooftop antennae - Source: pxfuel.com
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