Operator technical requirements (radios, antennas), municipal aesthetic requirements and power company metering/power requirements vary greatly across the US - from coast to coast, state to state and even street to street within cities. Adding to this campus settings and private LTE networks and the volume of different configuration requirements can be daunting. Clearly, one size does not fit all, and this wide variety creates natural obstacles across the ecosystem in the deployment of 5G densified networks. Let’s look at some of the obstacles and how they can be overcome.
Requirements and potential obstacles
Site acquisition and aesthetics - small cells are designed for street-level deployment, and local governments want to provide attractive cityscapes for their residents. Accommodating the varied technical and aesthetic requirements while also incorporating future and evolving technologies can be a challenge. While all parties want and are quickly moving forward in deployments it’s hard to keep up with the technical requirements, especially for municipalities and public utilities who may not be as familiar as mobile operators. Enter the design and manufacturing community to work with the ecosystem of stakeholders to design concealment solutions that meet today’s requirements as well as future considerations.
Power and Fiber backhaul - small cells require more power beyond what is supplied for streetlights, and fiber to the site. Although it sounds simple, getting it there can be costly and a long process. Public Utilities and municipalities may look to explore synergies with other infrastructure projects like distributed power systems, smart meter conversion and coupling fiber builds with street improvements to decrease the time and costs in the long haul.
