TOM SNEE SMARTCITIES
that serves their needs well into the future,” she says. “For some cities, the challenges associated with fibre – high- cost and the need to dig up the ground – will be too great to overcome and as 5G moves closer to becoming a reality, it is easy to see why some city planners might try to rely solely on wireless technology. “However, with 5G requiring higher capacity than ever, fibre will still be an essential element in delivering the technology as it is ideal for providing “anyhaul” services.”
The key fibre question that needs to be on agendas for city planners is not ‘if’, but ‘what’.
DIFFERENT STROKES This versatility of approach will be essential as smart city requirements begin to grow at an exponential rate. The course of deployment never did run smooth, and in some circumstances the logistical challenges of laying fibre will be insurmountable. However, even when this is the case, Pesovic believes that the benefits of fibre being deployed as deep into the network as economically viable far outweigh any negatives. “From there, other technologies can be used to complement the network, such as copper- or coax-based technologies - including G.fast, Vplus, and Vectoring - along with fixed wireless access technologies such as Wireless PON, which takes fibre within a few metres of the distribution point and then uses 60 Ghz 802.11 and wireless drops to deliver connectivity,” she says. “This avoids the need to take fibre into individual buildings and lowering the deployment’s cost per user.” A BALANCED MARRIAGE For some operators, the smart city focus has moved away from the fibre transport network and more towards end applications and how the revolutionised mobile capabilities delivered by 5G can enable them. However, as the idea of smart cities moves away from concepts and test cases and towards large, global deployments, it may be that the conversation needs to move back a step. While 5G will no doubt prove a boon for smart cities, there is inevitably a point in the connectivity chain where the radio ends and the network begins. If there is a significant drop-off at this exchange and there is a noticeable difference between fixed and wireless connectivity and performance, it is hard to argue that a city is truly smart. For this to happen, the network picture needs to be a true marriage of connectivity types, all of which need to work together and exchange information quickly, seamlessly and invisibly, and for this marriage to work, fibre has to be the heart and soul of the network. Even if 5G is the catalyst that really ignites the smart city fire, fibre is still going to be the fuel on which it consistently burns.
THE FIFTH UTILITY This view is echoed by Dr Badri
and mobile transport to be added on to the same fibre network, without the need to make any changes in the fibre plant,” says Pesovic. A QUESTION OF MONEY Even with the overwhelming weight of evidence that fibre can provide the technological solution for
Gomatam, CTO of Sterlite Tech, who believes that the emergence of 5G will increase, rather than decrease the necessity for
smart cities to have a reliable fibre backbone. “Just as water, electricity and roads are essential utilities, so is fibre critical infrastructure
smart cities, its infrastructural
and logistical complications are the stuff of nightmares for public sector purse string holders. Unlike the
for a smart city,” says Dr Gomatam. “The fibre network backbone is the information highway for crucial services such as high-speed broadband, integrated sensors, traffic control, surveillance, waste management, e-governance and other smart elements to help cities truly tap their potential. “[5G] wireless solutions are not adequate for large amounts of data to travel in real-time, and fibre is today critical not just for core and aggregate networks but more and more so for access FTTx, particularly in the context of smart cities.” The key fibre question that needs to be on agendas for those city planners therefore is not ‘if’, but ‘what’. With a range of technologies on the table, Pesovic believes that, while most existing fibre networks are based on GPON, smart decisions need to be made to ensure that decision-makers invest in a solution that will be capable of matching rapidly growing capacity needs and deliver long-term value. “Next-generation fibre technologies such as XGS-PON and TWDM-PON will unlock even more opportunities [for smart cities], with the 10Gbps speeds enabling business services
perceived view that mobile technologies can be delivered by simply popping up a mast or access point, the laying of fibre nearly always entails road closures, delays and disgruntled citizens. Rather than adopting a one-size fits all approach, Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum suggests that decisions can be made by planners based on the individual characteristics of each element of any given smart city project. “The role that fibre has to play in smart cities very much depends on both the scale of the smart city and the sort of applications being run and their bandwidth demands,” says Mersh. “Some applications, for example, have very low bandwidth needs and can run effectively on basic connectivity – but other applications, such as bespoke business services, might need the additional capacity that fibre can provide. City planners will need to look carefully at exactly what applications they want to run over their networks and make decisions on a case-by-case basis.”
London’s ‘Smart City’ plan calls for “a bold new approach to connectivity
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| ISSUE 14 | Q3 2018
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