TRAI begins pilot study at Delhi airport for telecom infra deployment using street furniture

New Delhi, Mar 22 (PTI) Telecom regulator TRAI has started a pilot study at the Delhi International Airport for next-generation telecom infrastructure deployment using street furniture, according to a statement.

The findings of the study will help in enabling small cell deployment at Indian airports using existing street furniture such as traffic signals, lit signage, lamp posts, light poles, utility poles and billboards, among others.

Street furniture is a generic term for pieces of equipment installed and deployed along streets and roads for various purposes.

"In order to expedite the availability of digital infrastructure for quick roll-out of next generation networks, TRAI has started a pilot study at GMR International Airport at Delhi," the regulator said in a statement.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) further said that the pilot aims to put in place the enabling regulatory and policy framework for all stakeholders much ahead of the actual deployment.

For overseeing the pilot study and ensure smooth coordination, TRAI has set up a working group which will have representatives from various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Civil aviation, Department of Telecom, mobile operators' association COAI, telecom service providers and GMR.

Leveraging existing infrastructure in place of building new mounting towers will enable deployments at reduced cost, which will ultimately help in offering high capacity bandwidth at competitive price.

"This is supposed to immensely benefit not only customers at airports but also enable respective controlling airport authorities to launch new business cases for providing more efficient passenger and cargo handling services," according to the regulator.

As 5G services will also be rolled out in higher frequency bands that have lower coverage penetration, it will become imperative to deploy a large number of small cells to cater to coverage and capacity requirements.

Accordingly small cell deployments are considered as key elements of next generation networks.

That said, there are certain challenges in small cell deployment like access to right of way, procedural simplification, provision of high-capacity backhauls and availability of stable power that needs to be addressed.

"The study will help in understanding these issues and ironing them out through proper planning, regulatory support and cross sectoral collaborations," it said.

The pilot is in sync with the PM Gati Shakti initiative as it will help in co-creation and sharing of infrastructure.

"Similar pilots are also being initiated by TRAI one each at a port, metro rail and smart city. For the same Kandla Port in Gujarat, Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation and Bhopal Smart City have been selected as pilot locations," TRAI said.