An overview of the growing interest among municipalities and public safety agencies worldwide to invest in multipurpose, city-wide broadband networks, such as 4G
by Sivan Farfuri, Alvarion
A goal for smart city initiatives is to provide a cost-effective and efficient approach for managing the city’s day-to-day operations. An evolving technology of choice for the Smart City is the 4G WiMAX wireless network, which allows cities and municipalities to operate within a single scalable network infrastructure that can satisfy the diverse requirements of multiple city agencies.
To be efficient, municipalities require a single, multi-purpose network for a wide range of applications and services that include: public safety and security with video surveillance for streets, public areas, and critical facilities such as seaports, airports, train stations, sports stadiums, special events, etc. – as well as video surveillance in city’s crime-prone areas for improved crime prevention. In this regard, mobile broadband connectivity for first responders include video, location-based data, voice traffic to and from moving vehicles.
This is also necessary to connect multiple city buildings and agencies and lower costs with T1 replacement. Intelligent traffic systems require traffic monitoring and central control for traffic lights, as well as driver alerts for road conditions, while automated parking meter reading can reduce personnel requirements.
In addition, automated water, gas, electric meter infrastructure increase efficiencies, as does broadband access to address digital inclusion initiatives, educational networks (e-Education) for intra-facility communication, resource sharing, and common database access, as well as broadband Internet access in public areas.
Common platform
The shift from multiple single-application solutions to a common platform that can be shared by multiple agencies for diverse citywide applications and services, is a dominant trend among cities and municipalities. A common multi-purpose network approach based on Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP), Mesh, and Point-to-Point (PtP) wireless topologies for optimal coverage leads to lower initial investment, lower operating costs, and better overall performance. 4G WiMAX technology based on the IEEE Standard 802.16e-2005, has the features and attributes necessary to meet the cost, performance, and coverage demands required for a wide-area, cost-effective, all-inclusive broadband municipal network.
This is an established and proven shift, as referenced by Alvarion successfully implementing WiMAX based PtMP solutions in some of the top 100 cities in the world.
Surveillance
Most current deployments for video surveillance and other public safety applications have been application specific and been dependent on the use of existing wireline infrastructure to provide the necessary broadband backhaul connections. Whether cable or DSL, these technologies have been optimized for downstream performance and lack the necessary upstream capability for high quality video surveillance, a key application for the Smart City. Additionally, extending conventional wireline networks to gain additional citywide coverage is capital extensive and time consuming due to the permit process and the need to acquire the necessary right-of-ways.
Wireless on the other hand has several key advantages, including:
- lower deployment costs (CAPEX)
- lower operating costs (OPEX)
- fast implementation time
- can be deployed in virtually any terrain
- easy to move cameras and other terminal equipment after initial deployment to further optimize and adjust to time-changing conditions
- easy to deploy additional temporary or permanent terminals as necessary, to address safety and security requirements for special events.
A municipal broadband network based on WiMAX 16e broadband wireless, can provide a cost-effective solution that addresses multiple municipal applications and requirements, ranging from simple parking meter monitors and traffic light synchronization to more sophisticated video surveillance applications in both stationary and mobile environments.
Multi-purpose
The technology has several attributes and features that makes it an attractive and cost-effective solution for high performance, multi-purpose municipal networks.
With support for OFDMA and advanced antenna techniques such as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC), a WiMAX base station can provide the Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) range to economically extend coverage beyond existing wire-line facilities and provide a Line-of-Sight (LOS) range up to 15 Miles (25 km) in a PtMP topology.
Interference mitigation techniques such as Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) and Media Access Protocol Signaling (MAPS) repetition enable maximal performance in license-exempt bands and channel bandwidths up to 10 MHz enabling high-quality video and other broadband services to multiple remote sites are supported.
In addition, this technology provides mobility support for broadband connections to moving vehicles allowing central office personnel to monitor and evaluate situations simultaneously with first responders and enabling responders to monitor changing conditions and access data as they travel to the site. Internet QoS support can be derived for multiple applications to enable voice, data, and video traffic over the same link, while advanced security techniques ensure communications confidentiality. High upstream data rate for high quality video surveillance images is supported, as well as multi-casting for enhanced camera and subscriber support without sacrificing spectral efficiency.
WiMAX is built on an all-IP backbone to enable easy integration and interoperability with a wide range of readily available, off-the-shelf devices and systems and deployments can be implemented in a variety of topologies, including PtP, PtMP, or Mesh, thus offering considerable flexibility in the design and optimization of a wide area broadband network. It can also be used to backhaul WiFi access points for additional local area coverage of a wide area broadband network and backhaul WiFi access points for additional local area coverage.