Smart cities on cusp of renewed push

INTERVIEW: Applications made viable by 5G alongside new forms of network architecture create a renewed opportunity to push grand smart city projects, BAI Communications chief strategy officer Justin Berger highlighted.

Berger told Mobile World Live ongoing rollouts of 5G technology would have a “massive impact on the whole smart cities topic”. Citing use cases including cameras relaying high-quality video in close to real-time and projects requiring the deployment of thousands of sensors, he noted the presence of 5G itself helped the smart city case.

However, he also noted new network architecture being developed created a significant opportunity, especially when added to shared infrastructure projects.

“5G requires all the telcos to build and operate new networks to add more antennas and start rolling out small cells to create capacity in city centres,” Berger said.

“There are also some very profound moves in the network architecture to more decentralised RAN and things like that,” he added. “All in all it’s a big shake-up: 5G will change a lot of things in the network. We see [this] as a great opportunity to integrate the smart city agenda and the need for shared infrastructure.”