Smart Street Lighting Meets Mobile Connectivity
Philips Ericsson smart street lighting combined energy-efficient LED infrastructure with mobile broadband equipment in a single urban system. The collaboration showed how cities could improve lighting, connectivity and infrastructure economics at the same time.
Moreover, the Philips Ericsson smart street concept turned ordinary light poles into valuable pieces of connected city infrastructure. Instead of installing separate systems for lighting and wireless coverage, cities could use the same locations for both. As a result, municipalities gained more efficient LED lighting while telecom providers could expand mobile broadband coverage in busy urban areas. The approach also reduced infrastructure clutter and created new opportunities to offset lighting costs through telecom partnerships. Most importantly, it demonstrated an early version of what we now call the smart city. That’s essentially where energy efficiency, communications and public infrastructure work together. So it’s clearly rather than operating as separate systems.
Smart Street Lighting Meets Mobile Broadband
Philips Lighting will now offer cities my favorite green LED street lighting. These poles can include mobile telecoms equipment from Ericsson for mobile broadband companies to rent space in the poles. In this way, mobile network operators will be able to improve data coverage and capacity for citizens, resulting in enhanced mobile broadband services.
The model also accelerates the payback time for city infrastructure, by making the up-front costs of installing and managing these systems more affordable, so reducing the strain on city budgets.
LED Efficiency Lowered City Energy Use
Philips LED street lighting can generate energy savings of 50 to 70 percent, with savings reaching 80 percent when coupled with smart controls – as validated by a study conducted by The Climate Group in 12 of the world’s largest cities. The study also showed that citizens prefer the white light of LED lighting, citing a greater sense of safety and improved visibility compared to the orange glow of traditional high pressure sodium systems.
Ericsson President and CEO Hans Vestberg says: “This is a tremendous solution using ICT and partnerships to address the megatrend of urbanization. City populations are increasing at the rate of 7,500 people per hour, but our world is not geographically expanding. Meanwhile, our ConsumerLab research shows that internet connectivity is one of the top five factors for satisfaction in city life. This Zero Site solution is the kind of innovation that offers a way for people to succeed in the Networked Society.”
Frans van Houten, President and CEO of Philips, says: “This new connected LED street lighting model is another example of us bringing the Internet of Things to life and demonstrates the capabilities of light beyond illumination. We are offering lighting as a service that scales with a city’s needs and enables city officials to offer their citizens a more connected, energy efficient and safer urban environment, while preserving existing budgets and resources to improve the livability of their city.”
Source: Philips Lighting
Conclusion: Streetlights Became Smart Infrastructure
The Philips Ericsson smart street lighting model showed how cities could make one infrastructure upgrade do more than one job. Better lighting, lower electricity use and stronger connectivity could all come from the same project.
For more on efficient lighting, read our guide to saving energy and money with LED lighting.
Sources
- Philips and Ericsson Unite to Brighten Cities and Provide Mobile Broadband Connectivity Through Smart Street Lighting —Signify/Philips
Original Philips–Ericsson 2014 announcement - Ericsson Annual Report 2014 — Zero Site Smart Pole
Ericsson Annual Report 2014 - Philips SmartPoles and Ericsson Wireless Broadband — San Jose Deployment
Philips–Ericsson San Jose SmartPole project
