The smart city will run a cloud-native, open architecture that is powered by single, secure high-speed 5G communications network.
Thailand’s National Telecom Public Company Limited has announced plans to launch the first 5G Open RAN Smart City in the city of Ban Chang that links Pattaya and Bangkok.
The launch of the 5G Smart City is expected to create synergies between public and private sectors, taking into account its close proximity to U-Tapao International Airport, Map Ta Phut Industrial Zone and the new master planned Ban Chang Smart City that are strategically important infrastructures for the Digital Economy in Thailand and the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).
These characteristics make Ban Chang a good candidate for taking advantage of 5G use cases across industrial robots, factory automation, remote telemedicine, aviation, logistics and agriculture.
The Ban Chang Smart City 5G Private Network will operate on Millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, spectrum which is suited for a network operating IoT sensors, drones and smart poles—all applications that require fast data uplinks to the core for real-time analysis and city management.
Tech partners involved
The smart city’s cloud-native, open architecture transforms a mobile communication private network into a completely virtualized and automated environment where devices, applications, and services run using open architecture, containers, and AI.
The end-to-end 5G Open RAN mmWave radios and 5G Core with Open API technology standards, in sync with cloud-native solutions supporting private on-premises applications, power smart city features such as real-time diagnostics of traffic, public safety, digital signage and sensitive environmental conditions.
The technology partners involved include Mavenir, a cloud-native network software provider; 5GCT, a local partner specialized in delivering end-to-end 5G Smart Cities solutions; and Cisco Systems (Thailand).
Mavenir’s GM (Emerging Business Unit), Aniruddho Basu, said: “We are proud to be part of this ambitious 5G project which sees a whole city connected on a series of 5G applications running in parallel. Connectivity is at the heart of this deployment: connecting people, communities, government services, and private sector services through local government data combined with new data acquired through IoT, sensors, drones, and external collected data, to enable efficient city management and citizen knowledge.”
5GCT’s CEO Shannon Kalayanamitr said: “The partnership with Mavenir as an infrastructure provider enables us to deliver robust, secure and reliable 5G Private Network infrastructure across enterprises, including smart city applications, industry 4.0 applications—automated industry and modern medicine.”
Cisco’s MD (Thailand & Indochina), Taweewat Chantaraseno, said: “With Cisco’s partnership with Mavenir, we can create a single, secure communications network to support all needs that are simpler to deploy and manage from end-to-end visibility, ranging from smart kiosks and outdoor Wi-Fi, to smart street lighting, parking, waste management and more. Smart city infrastructure is enabling efficiency, cost reduction and improved living for city occupants, and a network infrastructure platform helps create these efficiencies.”
The smart city’s 5G-connected cameras and sensors will provide real-time analysis of images for traffic and public safety and law-enforcement purposes.
