City Telecoms Potential: 5G Challenges for a Smart City
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Keywords
5G, Telecoms, Smart City, Smart Cities, Dublin, Ireland, Smart Dublin, Smart Docklands, City Assets, Procurement, Testbeds
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.28945/4860
Abstract
Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, Owen Keegan, slowly gathered his things as he left his office on a wet and miserable Monday night. After a long meeting to review the progress of Dublin’s 5G experimental testbed, he realized the City was now at a pivotal point in its journey to become a smart city. For more than three years, Owen and the Smart City team at Dublin City Council (DCC) were aware that the latest generation of mobile technology – 5G - promised massive bandwidth for citizens but required the deployment of dense short-range antennas on a significant number of city assets. Various telecoms vendors, and several mobile antenna suppliers, informed the city managers that network equipment would need to be installed on as many as one in every five street lighting poles in the city. Not only would these physical assets be needed, but the installation of the new 5G antennas required additional in ground fibre optic cabling and would likely lead to major disruptions with many road closures during the installation works. The reality was that to-date, the city had never deployed telecoms equipment on its infrastructure. 4G antennas stood on towers or commercial buildings high above the cityscape. Owen was not sure that the city departments were even aware of the implications of this new technology and the effect it would have on operations for Electrical, Traffic, Planning, and other city services. Owen was left to wonder, what role the city should play in the deployment of a new commercial technology. How was 5G integral to the mission of Dublin City Council? Who would benefit most from the access provided by 5G? If city assets were essential to deployment, how should the city be involved? How would the city be compensated? Could he and his team ensure that the citizens of Dublin would ultimately benefit? Was it the city’s role to trade assets for access to broader bandwidth?
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Muma Case Review, v. 6, no. 15, p. 1-30
Scholar Commons Citation
Guerin, Michael B.; Mullarkey, Matthew T.; and Cudden, Jamie, "City Telecoms Potential: 5G Challenges for a Smart City" (2021). School of Information Systems and Management Faculty Publications. 67.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/qmb_facpub/67
