Brownsville, Texas, is in the midst of an extensive private 5G network deployment that will power the city’s smart infrastructure, a deployment that provides clear instructions for how other municipalities might want to approach such an endeavor.

Brownsville CIO Jorge Cardenas explained in an interview with SDxCentral that the project itself is being managed by NTT DATA, which is NTT Group’s consulting and cloud services organization. The firm has a history of working on such private network deployments, including recent efforts with the city of Las Vegas.

Brownsville is providing its already installed fiber assets to power the 5G network access points, which are beaming the quasi-licensed Consumer Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum from Nokia radios and using Cisco servers. These will power local services.

Those services include smart infrastructure and services in support of IoT devices that can provide data analysis, predictions, and real-time recommendations. The first deployment phase will cover the city’s downtown core, including four public parks, the Department of Public Works Yard, and the airport.

Cardenas said the program itself kicked off about 18 months ago, which included looking at the scope and possibilities of the project. That part took about a year, with the town earlier this year moving to a planning phase, which is “putting things in paper and this is how it’s going to look.”

The planning then led to Cardenas’ team bringing the project plans to the city in July, when it was finally approved. It has since moved to ordering equipment, and making sure power and fiber is routed where it’s needed.

“Now we're just waiting for the equipment to be installed, and at the rate we are going I think we will have this critical phase done before the end of the year,” Cardenas said.

Private 5G lessons learned Cardenas noted that while the process is still ongoing, it has already provided a wealth of insight that could be helpful for other city CIOs tasked with a similar project.

The first lesson Cardenas’ cited was the need to go into such a project with a clear “why” on it’s being done. For Brownsville, the “why” was a need to unify what was a multitude of projects running in parallel silos, including smart traffic lights, cameras at intersections, and connectivity for local agencies in city parks and trails.

That last one was complicated by Brownsville’s geographic location on the border with Mexico. “We are so close to the border that in some areas we get the Mexico signal for cell phones so our signal kind of goes up and down when you’re close to the border,” Cardenas said.

Brownsville had spent around $30 million installing some of the infrastructure needed to support these services, but still lacked a way to tie it all together into a cohesive, usable package. Cardenas had a history of working with fiber and private 5G deployments, and realized the technology could be that connectivity answer.

“I said the only thing that we can do is a private 5G, something that will cover a large area and then we can tackle multiple projects,” Cardenas said.

While Cardenas was familiar with the technology, he had to explain it to city officials.

“They didn't really understand what was a private 5G,” Cardenas said. “They thought we were going to partner with T-Mobile or Verizon for coverage.”

This led to Cardenas’ second realization in the need for constant and clear communications. He noted that it was important to keep city officials in the loop and up to date on the project.

“In this case management, the city manager, commissioners, and the mayor on what the project is and how it was going to impact the community,” Cardenas said. “[The project] is not cheap and it was really important to not just day-to-day, but over the life of the project.”

This also tied into Cardenas’ last recommendation, which was consistency of that communication. “It was in bringing back that message over and over again,” Cardenas said.

This point was also important as Cardenas noted a definite lack of worthwhile insight available outside of the technology ecosystem. Cardenas specifically pointed to what he viewed as a lack of municipality buy in to smart city efforts by who was being sent to attend regional broadband events.

“Some of these people that are sent are, you know, the assistant secretary or the secretary for the city manager, or some will send somebody from a random department,” Cardenas said. “They don't know anything. They’re just present and the commitment is not there, so when they put the things together, it doesn't paint the right picture.”

Cardenas added that he was fortunate that Brownsville officials have remained on board with the project, knowing that it can lead to a better community.

“Leadership here is amazing,” Cardenas said. “I might have the technical part of it, but they have the drive and they want to [take the city to] a different place.”