Municipal Strategies to Monetize 5G Investments

By Dr. Lori Dawson, Senior Director of Service Engineering, UScellular

Note: This blog was produced under WIA’s Innovation and Technology Council (ITC). The ITC is the forum for forecasting the future of the wireless industry. Participants explore developments in the wider wireless industry, from 5G network monetization trends and streamlining infrastructure deployment to future spectrum needs and cell site power issues. The group is publishing a series of thought-leadership pieces throughout the year.

People rely on connectivity in almost every facet of their lives. Grandparents use Facetime to talk to their grandkids. Patients use telemedicine to conveniently and remotely communicate with their doctor. We know that people rely on their phone for their day-to-day activities from getting directions, to ordering rideshares, and of course their employment as it’s like walking around with a mini-computer. As a society, we rely on connectivity so ubiquitously that people tend to forget that it takes a lot of back-end infrastructure to make that connectivity work.

Being able to communicate wirelessly has become table stakes. The question now has become how we can leverage the latest communications infrastructure to provide additional benefits to customers. 

Municipalities have a unique opportunity to leverage 5G investments to implement Internet of Things (IoT) solutions that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their services. Often, municipal communications applications are deployed to serve specific and siloed applications, but municipalities can learn to integrate data across departments to improve public safety, streamline services and better serve their residents. In this blog I will discuss three implications of wireless technology on municipal operations and management, including common challenges, examples of successes and implications for their residents.

Municipal Benefits

I recently learned about a variety of interesting 5G municipal use cases while writing my doctoral dissertation on the technical and governance knowledge that small- to medium-sized cities require to support the implementation and deployment of IoT in their quest to become a smart city. My research included interviews with several small- and medium-sized cities.

One of the things I discovered during my research was that many municipalities do not have funding to deploy a lot of IoT devices and solutions, and the cities that did have funding often indicated they lacked the ability to integrate their applications.  This has led to a siloed approach in their deployment of IoT solutions.

One city I interviewed had more than 400 applications deployed, but each application had a narrow use case. Although they are seeing benefits from those solutions deployed, they are not unlocking the efficiencies of a city department having access and sharing relevant data to optimize and simplify their not only their operations but also make it easier for their employees to do their jobs.  In another instance, a city had found that by integrating data collected across the city siloes and allowing data used by one department to be leveraged by other departments there was improved overall operations of the city. That particular city collected usage data for its water department but was able to re-package that data in a way that its police department could use it to target patrols. More people flushing toilets and drinking from fountains might signal that people are congregating and a potentially elevated risk for crime. Law enforcement could then target increased patrols to those areas, or conversely, not tie up resources in areas where wireless data indicates a low level of activity.

Another city had recently deployed 5G and wanted to monitor its garbage truck fleet, including operational statistics and maintenance alerts. As a result of monitoring this type of data, the city discovered a scheduling imbalance that was leading to excessive overtime work. The city was able to re-balance its trash collection routes, cutting down on overtime payroll and improving service to residents.

Different strategies

Municipalities are taking a variety of approaches to deploying 5G. Many have laid fiber as part of their city planning as they replaced sewer lines, repaired streets or built out new residential areas. Once they have fiber installed, they look for ways to monetize their investment as well as leverage street furniture like light poles and bus stops. Those municipalities often reach out to the wireless carrier and offer them space to lease on their assets and then sell them backhaul capacity on the fiber network. In this model, they can pay off their huge investment in fiber while supporting delivery of 5G to their residents and streamlining their services.

Some cities approach fiber deployment the opposite way, first imagining the various applications fiber and 5G can provide and their economic benefits, and then engineering their network with those goals in mind. The cities that take this more strategic approach and understand the value of the network at the outset tend to be those that had a chief innovation officer or chief technology officer who had worked in the wireless industry or a technology industry previously.

In addition to monetizing their networks, municipalities are also interested in promoting the benefits that citizens can expect from the investments their representatives are making in technology. One city in a hurricane zone used its network to deploy a public-safety application with layers of redundancy and contracts with different wireless and satellite operators. The application notifies residents of impending storms and evacuations.

Gaining Resident Support

While resident buy-in does not necessarily translate into a return on investment measured in dollars and cents, it does pay off in other ways. Interestingly, one of the benefits of promoting connectivity among municipalities and their residents is that siting and permitting generally became much easier in those locations. In one city, an operator approached planning officials and explained the necessity of connectivity to recruit and retain employees in areas where the city was growing. Suddenly, they started to see the benefit and were more receptive to approving the siting requests.

Often times, when residents go to city council or planning meetings, they think about proposals – including tower siting requests – through a lens of how it will impact them personally. However, when you can show them the benefit of that site to their lives – sometimes even saving their lives — the conversation becomes easier. People are more likely to support projects if they understand what is in it for them. 

As populations continue to grow, technology/IoT solutions are a much-needed part of a city’s strategy to enable the various departments and employees the ability to support their residents from the many services offered to their safety.  Many cities are in the process of figuring out their funding strategy by providing access to their assets to generate revenue or partnering with companies to deploy solutions.

Municipalities that consider and plan for the operations and management of wireless technology and secure resident support are more likely to succeed in leveraging wireless technology.  For readers interested in learning more I found the IEEE Internet of Things Journal (www.ieee-iotj.org) to be a great starting point.