The film profiles the EU-funded Metropolitan Telecommunication Network (MTN) in Rzeszów, a city with a population of 187,000 (including 95,000 students) and the largest economic, academic and cultural city in South East Poland. The MTN, deployed using CBNL’s market leading point-to-multipoint (PMP) technology, has driven transformation improvements to key socio-economic hubs across Rzeszów through advanced use of 26GHz – a frequency assigned as a ‘pioneer band’ for 5G by the EU.
The network results speak for themselves: over 500 Wi-Fi hot spots offer broadband to under-served homes and economic areas, 187 schools and city buildings have superfast broadband of up to 200Mbps, whilst over 650 fixed and 400 pan-tilt-zoom CCTV and automatic number plate recognition cameras monitor public safety and traffic. Connectivity for an Intelligent Transport System has reduced travel time by up to 6 minutes on some of the city’s busiest roads, with road capacity increasing by up to 40%. These benefits were delivered at the same time as reducing the City’s annual telecommunication costs by 60%.
Leslaw Bandur, Director of IT for the City of Rzeszów, said:
"The MTN has transformed connectivity across Rzeszów>, creating a comprehensive integrated and uniformed city management system that has driven significant socio-economic benefits. The smart city services enabled by the network have played a major role in increasing investment from major corporations and made it one of most attractive cities in the region to live, learn, visit and do business.
“By leveraging EU funding and CBNL’s pre-5G PMP technology, we’ve deployed a highly efficient network that provides ubiquitous broadband across Rzeszów. This innovative approach has been key to maximising benefits from the network, which was fast to deploy and fast in action. The network has delivered cutting-edge connectivity to the door steps of our residents and revolutionized civic services across the city.”
Lionel Chmilewsky, CEO, CBNL added:
“Rzeszów’s Smart City demonstrates pioneering use of 26GHz and showcases how the latest millimetre wave technology can provide a highly cost effective route to ubiquitous urban connectivity. By creating high levels of spectrum reuse and adopting virtualisation techniques, the project has been able to deliver a level of connectivity that was simply not possible using legacy techniques. It’s a great use case of CBNL’s licensed PMP and a blueprint of how networks are likely to leverage 5G spectrum in the future.”
Jan Dröge, Director, BCOs Support Facility, added:
“The Rzeszów MTN represents a major step forward for European connectivity initiatives. The project is one of several from across the EU that are accelerating access to high-speed broadband, helping us to connect all European citizens to high capacity broadband in line with the goals of the Digital Single Market. Rzeszów’s MTN is a great example of best practice for projects aiming to underwrite Europe’s digital infrastructure, helping to lay the foundations for a new generation of Smart Cities across Europe.”
You can view the full video here.
About Broadband Competence Offices (BCO)
The European network of Broadband Competence Offices (BCOs) inform and give advice to citizens and businesses and provide technical support to representatives of local and regional authorities on ways to invest effectively in broadband – and whenever possible in combination with financial instruments. Member States designate BCOs on a voluntary basis. Set up at the regional or national level, BCOs operate as single point of contact on broadband related issues, be they legal, technical or financial. Member States and regions are also invited to reinforce the BCO function by using appropriate technical assistance.
The official launch of the European network of Broadband Competence Offices will be hosted in Brussels on 20 November 2017.