The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) hosted a policy session on Wednesday to discuss how governments can work together with wireless service carriers to build smart cities across Illinois. The session included expert panelists from across the nation focusing on the technology and regulatory changes necessary to keep up with the future demands of 5G and beyond, as well as smart city applications such as improvements in public safety, infrastructure management and monitoring of assets and transportation system optimization.
“Small cells are crucial to us continuing to provide the type of service that everybody wants when they pick up their cell phone and look up whatever they need,” said Chris Bondurant, AVP of Construction and Engineering at AT&T Technology Operations. “Presently we can provide speeds of 100 to 200 megabits per second. Our path is to get to one gigabit per second, allowing you to download a movie in about 5 seconds.”