Lexington is preparing to move into the realm of fifth generation cellular network technology - also known as 5G.
Lexington’s Chief Information Officer Aldona Valicenti briefed the city council’s Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee this week. “5g is the next threshold, so in other words, better, quicker, faster, more reliable, greater amounts of data. But, that requires new investments by the telecom companies,” said Valicenti.
Valicenti said 5G technology may already be available at some areas with high cell phone use. She said the city’s only real authority is in the area of appearance.
“The control that the city has is the aesthetics, so we don’t want a whole lot more poles. As you heard engineering talk about it, where there are existing poles, they want to small cell, the 5G device, placed on that existing pole,” she said.
Valicenti said the Federal Communications Commission is challenging telecom industries to install the new wireless technology faster.
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