Latin America. Philips and Ericsson have jointly launched a new and innovative model of connected LED street lighting. The partnership solves two important problems that cities face today: offering citizens better grid performance in dense urban areas, as well as high-quality public lighting that is more energy efficient.
Philips and Ericsson combine the advantages of mobile connectivity and LED lighting into a "lighting as a service" model for cities. It allows municipal authorities to offer space on their lighting poles connected to the network of mobile broadband infrastructure service providers.
Philips will now offer cities LED street lighting that may include mobile telecommunications equipment from Ericsson. Mobile operators working with Ericsson for mobile broadband infrastructure will be able to rent space on the poles. In this way, mobile network operators will be able to improve data coverage and capacity for citizens, resulting in an improvement in mobile broadband services.
The model also accelerates payback time for the city's infrastructure, making the initial costs of installing and managing these systems more affordable, thereby reducing pressure on city budgets.
Ericsson President and CEO Hans Vestberg said: "This is a tremendous solution using ICT and collaborations to address the megatrend of urbanisation. The population of cities is growing at a rate of 7,500 people per hour, but our world is not geographically expanding. Meanwhile, our ConsumerLab shows that internet connectivity is one of the top five satisfaction factors in city life. The 'Zero Site' solution is the kind of innovation that offers a successful way to connect people in the networked society."
Frans van Houten, President and CEO of Philips, said: "This new model of connected LED street lighting is another example of bringing the 'Internet of Things' to life and demonstrates the ability of light beyond lighting. We are offering lighting as a service that adapts to the needs of a city and allows city managers to offer their citizens a more connected, efficient and safe urban environment, while preserving existing budgets and resources to improve the livability of the city."
To meet the demand for coverage and capacity, mobile operators have to improve, densify and add more emitters in populated areas. The new connected urban light pole, designed to house Ericsson's small, state-of-the-art emitters, offers network operators new possibilities to find the right location for them. It will also help scale the deployment of mobile broadband technology beyond traditional sites – a key factor for the evolution of heterogeneous networks.
