Cornerstone to Build New 5G Neutral Host Network via UK Street Lights
Mobile infrastructure firm Cornerstone, which handles the UK network sharing agreement between O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone (Vantage Towers), has today joined forces with Signify in a new partnership that aims to put luminaire technology into lamp heads on street lights in order to build a new Outdoor 5G and IoT Neutral Host platform in urban areas.
The ideal of putting 4G/5G mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) kit and sensors on top of street lights or lamp posts is of course nothing new. Small cells are often deployed in this way around some dense urban areas, assuming an operator can secure the necessary concession agreement from a local authority.
The new plan above seems to be similarly aimed at tackling the growing demand for digital and data connectivity in urban areas, albeit this time by deploying an outdoor Neutral Host platform (i.e. a network that mobile operators or other communications providers can then buy access to via wholesale) and using Signify’s luminaire technology – “allowing communities seamless access to public networks“.
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Sadly, the announcement doesn’t clarify precisely what luminaire technology actually means, although their website does make reference to a “BrightSites Broadband Luminaire” family of products, which help to spread multi-gigabit mesh network speeds (data capacity) by harnessing radio spectrum in the 60GHz (mmW) band.
Nick Spedding, New Business Manager at Cornerstone, said:
“This partnership is yet another example of our evolution towards neutral hosting and smart city solutions. We’re committed to bringing connectivity to urban and dense urban areas across the UK where currently connectivity is not in place or limited, enabling access to public networks is at everyone’s fingertips.”
The first project under this partnership, which is set to launch “within the next 10 weeks“, will be deployed across three cities (they don’t name any of them), “laying the foundation for future expansion and innovation in the field of smart city infrastructure.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Great idea, why not sooner than now though? The benefits to have done so could have been massive and I understand there’s the technical complexities that go into it, even still with that in mind it’s a really good idea.
Because like BB we’d prefer to have 5 different fibres hanging off a pole and 5 different ONTs in each house (on some streets and none on others) rather than a regional provider agnostic network with a distributed set of ISPs (e.g. like electricity or gas).
It would appear to have made more sense to divvy up the spectrum based on spacial need. Assigned the infrastructure to network builders. Allowed telecom providers to bid for the bandwidth and facilities they want. Very much like DTT has a set of transmitters. Broadcasters can choose what bit/stream type they use and which regions they broadcast in.
The kicker should be that anyone refusing a lampost for FTTP should have the permission for this tech automatically rejected for their street lighting. 🙂
Who delivers FTTP via street lamps? And why the punitive approach? The industry is trying to improve everyone’s access to modern networks, not settle weird grudges.
Wait they have street lighting? I presumed they all walked around with head torches on. ;-)