Petah Tikva-based Siklu, a developer of millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications solutions, and Philips lighting unit Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), have announced a strategic partnership agreement to add Siklu’s MultiHaul TG multi-gigabit wireless connectivity technology to Signify’s BrightSites portfolio. The combination will be known as Broadband luminaires.
Street lamps as wireless communications installations is a trend gathering pace around the world, as on the one hand telecommunications companies need to install more and more cellular sites, and on the other hand there is anxiety on the part of the public over the growing number of sites.
Electricity and lighting pillars are an ideal solution that can do a great deal to help mobile telephony carriers, but not just them. Other entities setting up their own cellular networks are also expressing interest in this field. It is particularly important for smart transport, for example.
The companies' announcement states, "Signify’s new innovative BrightSites solution is converting streetlights into a wireless connectivity grid which can facilitate a wide range of digital city services, such as: IoT, security and traffic monitoring, 4G/5G small cells, as well as 'digital inclusion' initiatives including municipal Wi-Fi and residential broadband access.
"The new broadband luminaires, integrate Siklu’s Terragraph-compliant MultiHaul TG multi-gigabit wireless connectivity technology to significantly reduce the dependency on fiber deployment and enable municipalities to create a wireless mesh network by replacing their luminaires with Broadband luminaires. This will significantly accelerate city-wide scalability for secure and reliable multi-gigabit wireless connectivity, at a fraction of the cost and time compared to an all-fiber network deployment."
The companies have collaborated over the past year in the development of the Broadband luminaire portfolio, based on Siklu’s MultiHaul N366 TG node. Following successful market validation, the two companies have agreed to expand the collaboration to jointly develop and commercialize solutions for street lighting infrastructure.
"We aim to radically accelerate the transition to smart cities by enabling the lighting infrastructure as a primary platform for cost-effective and scalable broadband connectivity. With our combined solution, we overcome significant hurdles for the creation of dense networks by ensuring every light point acts as a data hub. This reduces time and cost, and most importantly, it improves the environmental impact as compared to legacy means," said Khalid Aziz, Head of Connectivity Solutions at Signify.
"Siklu products are already enabling a wide range of urban and industrial services that require gigabit broadband access. With the increasing demand for high-speed internet connections everywhere, especially in the COVID era, we share Signify’s vision of utilizing the lighting infrastructure as the connectivity grid of the future." said Siklu CEO Ronen Ben-Hamou.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 25, 2022.
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