City of Reno moves forward to allow small cells on city owned street lights

On July 25, 2018 the Reno City Council moved forward to allow the installation of small cells on city owned street lights. The agreements with AT&T, Verizon and ExteNet Systems, Inc. are projected to allow the installation of 100 small cell sites in the first year of deployment, and up to 5000 locations after 5 years. Additionally over 150 miles of fiber optic cable will be installed to support the small cells.

Some differences between a small cell and the more common “macro cell” are the size of antennas and equipment, and the range. While a macro cell will typically service a range of one to several miles with multiple directional antennas as large as 8 feet tall, a small cells range is typically no more than 1/4 mile with antennas just a few feet tall and hidden inside a shroud atop a street light or other tall pole.

A small cell pictured here was constructed in mid-2018 on an existing street light at the corner of Evans Avenue and Enterprise Road in Reno, and served as a demonstration of what future small cells would look like.

Edited 11/8/18 to correct that the small cell shown in the picture was a non-operational demonstration of the what small cells would look like.