Nokia provides 5G connectivity for Leuven's digital pole project

Source: Smart Cities World Published: December 11th, 2020

The Belgian city of Leuven is working with a consortium to transform its digital city poles into “IoT intelligent” urban infrastructure with the goal of improving quality of life, enhancing safety and aiding business development.

According to city leaders, the Digital City Pole project paves the way for future city-wide 5G connectivity that will stimulate local innovation, drive productivity increases and create jobs, particularly among small and medium-sized businesses.

Secure city data backbone

Nokia will work with a consortium led by digital lighting pole specialist TRES and will demonstrate use cases that leverage IoT intelligence across a new secure city data backbone. In doing so, the project will explore new revenue opportunities based on IoT data and energy marketplaces.

The TRES broader initiative will also see streetlight poles upgraded with energy-efficient LED lighting and electric vehicle charging points. Distributed extensively in urban areas, digital city poles provide an effective platform to host high-performance connectivity and sensors as cities seek to introduce ubiquitous smart city services.

“The City of Leuven is fully supportive of the project. With Leuven recently selected as the European Capital of Innovation 2020, this is another great example of how we bring ideas to life,” said Mohamed Ridouani, mayor of Leuven.

“We have the necessary framework to transform ideas into reality, with an extensive ecosystem of talented partners and innovative business models. Leuven will promote the construction of new infrastructure, in order to make Leuven and the Flanders region more intelligent and digitalised.”

In addition to its 5G-ready connectivity deployed in partnership with local service provider Citymesh, Nokia will also supply its Gigabit Passive Optical Networks technology for ultra-high-speed connectivity over an end-to-end broadband network.

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Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash