Of all the possibilities with 5G, AT&T is now using it to help build out infrastructure in cities, with aesthetics in mind. They just announced last week that they have begun field testing 5G small cell radios that can hide on top of street lamp posts. The new radios were developed through a partnership between AT&T, mobile technology manufacturer Ericsson, and urban solutions provider Ubicquia.
“It is virtually unseen from street level,” wrote Gordon Mansfield, AT&T’s VP of mobility access & architecture, in a company blog post. Mansfield said that these new low- / mid-band 5G radios can be deployed within 15 minutes on street lamps. “No long wires and big, bulky boxes – a true aesthetic improvement,” Mansfield wrote.
Keep in mind that these new small cell radios are not operating on the much faster mmWave antennas. Those have to be larger, as the signal does not carry very far, so that also makes them more visible. Since the new radios are powered by street lamps and connected to nearby fiber, it could reduce the need to install more standalone small cell towers in cities.
Street lights have become a perfect location to install many modern technologies across cities. They allow hardware to be positioned high up away from possible vandalism, plus they have their own existing power supply and access to other infrastructure. There’s also technology in place that helps detect outages so they can send crews when needed.
While the project sounds great, it is still only in the testing phase. AT&T had begun using the small cells, which were being trialed by the company last year. “We are now in the process of field testing and deploying commercially available units in multiple cities,” Mansfield wrote.