As European Towercos jostle for position in a highly dynamic future 5G digital infrastructure market, American Tower’s latest project positions it to test out its potential role in urban infrastructure. Paris2Connect, led by a consortium of different players including start-ups, Nokia and Parisian transport agency RATP, is working with the Paris municipal government to roll out 5G enabled use cases to demonstrate the need for a collaborative approach to digital infrastructure in urban areas. TowerXchange spoke with Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development at ATC France, to find out more.
TowerXchange: Tell us about how the Paris2Connect project came into being.
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
We met with the Paris municipality over a year ago to present our Smart-City vision and ambition to unlock the value of their lamppost portfolio. They liked the idea of neutral host, sharable infrastructure and suggested that we develop a POC in a specific area in Paris. Following a call for projects which took place shortly thereafter, our Paris2Connect initiative was one of the 15 projects selected from 85 applications.
Paris2Connect is focused on infrastructure and the way it can be shared. A lamppost is the future tower in an urban area. But it is difficult to demonstrate a vision without use cases. So we decided to organize a consortium of different stakeholders to propose different use cases for sensors, small cells and others to show how the shared infrastructure could work. The consortium is made up of eight different companies; some of whom are very well known, while others are start-ups. We have also been lucky enough to get RATP, the Paris public transport agency, involved.
TowerXchange: Can you tell us about who else is involved?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
Our plan is to demonstrate the concept of shared infrastructure and to develop real use cases that drive deployment. For a Towerco, shared infrastructure is already part of our DNA, but for the municipality it also minimises the equipment on sidewalks, avoids uncontrolled deployment of sensors, reduces operational complexity and accelerates the delivery of new services and data sharing. This year we will start the project using existing use cases such as smart-accessibility and traffic flows and then evolve into future technologies such as 5G, before addressing the question of connected/autonomous vehicles and their associated infrastructure.
It is a challenge to find the right balance in terms of mix and number of companies in the consortium when working with different stakeholders. You need a good mix to demonstrate the shared model and support the various use cases - but not so many players such that decision-making and organization becomes unwieldy. For 5G and V2I, some solutions and products are not yet available, so we have to align a lot of stakeholders and roadmaps.
TowerXchange: How do you manage the crossover between private and public entities working together?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
Paris2Connect has helped stimulate discussion with the Paris Municipality, where we’ve worked with different departments. It is both interesting and challenging to try to address the multiple day-to-day considerations of the Municipality (urban furniture, pollution, accessibility, connectivity, access to sidewalks, ecology) and its future agenda regarding climate change and the Olympics. We are in a new environment far from the traditional tower business where we have to understand the rules, interactions, legal constraints, operational complexities, etc.
TowerXchange: How has the project developed over time? What challenges have you come up against?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
We wanted to deploy the first use cases in Q3 this year.
There’s a very strategic discussion underway in France (and also in the rest of Europe) about who will be the main players in the 5G world and associated 5G use cases: commercial MNOs or new industry vertical players, and also over the role of the Towerco. It’s a tricky situation as we’d like to develop 5G use cases but in order to do this we need to form partnerships with MNOs. So we took time to meet all four MNOs in France and explain why Paris2Connect was an exciting opportunity. A partnership with one or more of the MNOs would certainly strengthen the model but we will otherwise rely on experimental spectrum in the 26-28 GHz band which the regulator has set aside in order to experiment with 5G use cases. The 5G coverage and new functionalities will allow us to explore the complex relationship between infrastructure and automated vehicles.
Paris2Connect is very focussed on infrastructure and the way it can be shared. The way we see it, a lamppost is a future tower in an urban area
TowerXchange: The Paris2Connect project is a great example of some very different bodies working together collaboratively to get the project up and running. Can you talk to us about how you laid the foundations for a successful working relationship with so many different organisations with different goals?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
One of the key ways we’re aiding collaboration in the consortium is by initially focusing on use cases and only turning to the delivery technology (like the sensors, cameras, small cells, etc.) to demonstrate the value of this business model, once the use cases have been defined.
If you want to use lampposts you need to make them “Ready to Service”. That means direct electrification, fibre connexion and probably, at the end, replacement by a smart-pole. This requires investment and we need to understand the commercial model and the need for “affordable” solutions for future customers. At the end of the day, we are here to demonstrate that there are solutions but also a business model which works for Towercos, municipalities and private and public stakeholders.
What is also interesting is that other companies have approached us to join the consortium. The latest one is a company specialised in sensors to measure the level of radio waves in 4G and 5G deployment. So we get new skill sets and competencies joining all the time. In my opinion, a core competency that we already have as a Towerco is to attract customers onto our towers to create value. In an urban environment, you are not limited to MNOs and IoT customers but there’s a much broader ecosystem of partners that can shared the lamppost.
TowerXchange: Tell us about Paris2Connect as a model for Towerco evolution. Is this a roadmap for how Towercos can enter new urban environments?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
Our focus today is on preparing the deployment of the first use case in the next few months, and we’re still trying to solve the question of how to address 5G: what are the use cases and who are the stakeholders, MNOs or new vertical players? And if we go further, into connected/autonomous vehicles on that infrastructure, is there a business model and value for the Towerco ?
We would like to first reduce costs through shared infrastructure and then attract many more stakeholders to explore this business model. We know that a reasonable collocation rate for a French TowerCo is at least 2 MNO tenants, perhaps in the urban environment it will be higher at 3 or 4 users with a mix of Telecom and Smart-city customers.
We are learning every day about how we can address this possible market and who could be our partners or our competitors. The convergence of these stakeholders, in some cases as competition and in others as partners, will form the basis of how this infrastructure rolls out.
TowerXchange: As you’ve got an increasing sense of the use cases, how much is the vision anchored on the lamppost as the point of service, is that where the Towerco lives or is the typology of neutral host sites more diverse?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
As I mentioned before, Paris2connect is an experimental project to demonstrate interest in a shared lamppost. The question is when this will really happen.
From the perspective of a French MNO, the ‘best’ solution for urban coverage currently remains the deployment of macro sites on rooftops. This environment is well understood and the MNOs are comfortable with it. But in reality, it is more and more complicated to densify networks in the urban environment. Data demand and consumption are still growing and the 5G perspective will not help to solve the problem.
When it comes to using urban furniture such as a lamppost, there are no existing operational processes, contractual frameworks or even a clear business model. Some experiments have been done on a site by site basis. But MNOs and other Smart-City stakeholders need a business plan that is replicable and scalable.
Lampposts are really interesting as there are a lot of them in cities. They are elevated above street level and they offer an opportunity to integrate different services like smart parking, pollution sensors, video cameras and Small-Cells. However, the cost of integrating all of this and replacing it with a smart pole, plus running power and fibre to the site, is currently a challenge.
At American Tower, we see Paris2Connect as a step to define our vision and our role in the urban environment – our ability to create an ecosystem, to manage it and to show it’s possible to deploy different sensors and technologies on shared infrastructure – and that’s our core business. But we also need to be able to answer other questions such as: As a Towerco do we have to invest in the sensor or even to go beyond this and provide data services? It’s too early to say how far this will take us from our core business but we are on the journey and have a much better understanding of the complexity of the urban environment and a model to potentially address Smart-City solutions via shared infrastructure that accords with our core business.
TowerXchange: Should Towercos be moving towards entering urban infrastructure?
Laurent Benet, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Business Development, ATC France:
If you want to stay in a pure Towerco business model and focus only on passive sharing, I would say you shouldn’t try to enter the urban environment at all.
American Tower has decided to enter the urban environment in France in an innovative way in order to test the waters, to see if Paris2Connect can demonstrate different ideas which will help us decide where we want to be. If you want to play like this you have to offer more than just passive infrastructure - you have to find a good balance between the infrastructure and being service-ready.
