17 November 2017

Street furniture such as lampposts are said to play a crucial role in providing 4G today and preparing for 5G tomorrow.

Arqiva has secured the exclusive access rights to street furniture across the London Borough of Waltham Forest for the future deployment of telecoms infrastructure.

The up to 10 year contract gives the communications infrastructure company access to around 16,000 lampposts across the borough.

It will use these for the deployment of small cell technology to help mobile network operators further expand mobile coverage and capacity over the coming years. 

As the project commences, Arqiva will also deploy Wi-Fi access points, mounted on lampposts, in town centres across Waltham Forest to provide free public access to online services.

The company adds that small cells will also be crucial to the delivery of 5G. Nicolas Ott, MD of telecoms and M2M, says: “Street furniture such as lampposts has a crucial role to play in providing 4G signal to densely populated areas now, and preparing for 5G. We can see the arrival of 5G connectivity on the horizon and density of infrastructure is crucial to its delivery. This is particularly true for the future delivery of 5G fixed wireless access broadband to homes.”

Ott claims that Arqiva’s portfolio of communications sites means it is “uniquely” able to help mobile operators to deliver the required coverage and capacity, whether it is towers and rooftops for macro sites, or street furniture for small cells. 

This latest deal represents Arqiva’s 14th concession of this kind in London. It follows similar contract wins in Barnet, Brent, Camden,  Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Hounslow, Islington, Kingston-Upon-Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth.

Arqiva also has similar deals in Manchester, Southampton, Colchester, Eastbourne and Medway.