The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) has launched an online platform showing the locations of over 140,000 public sector land, buildings and street furniture assets where mobile network equipment can be installed.
Named Infralink-Exchange, it provides details of assets such as land, buildings, streetlights and CCTV, across its pilot area of the Tay Cities region (Fife, Perth and Kinross, Dundee City and Angus).
SFT – the public sector infrastructure body for Scotland – said the platform can be used by local authorities and the telecommunications industry in negotiations for extending mobile connectivity.
It is hosted on the Sitenna platform for managing infrastructure and can be used to promote the assets and the terms they can be leased on.
This has been funded with £500,000 from the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport under the Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator to speed up 4G and 5G deployments,
It follows on from the SFT’s work of the Infralink programme to promote the deployment of macro, small cell and neutral host infrastructure with data relating to assets and site assessments.
Improving coverage
Sarah Eynon, programme director for digital infrastructure at SFT, said: “This is a significant step forward for the project because it means mobile network operators seeking to improve coverage in communities across the region can easily access the robust database of over 140,000 assets and easily find out where they can install macro and small cell equipment as well as details of potential willing landlords.
“Increasing Scotland’s connectivity is a crucial economic driver towards post-pandemic recovery and to further attracting inward investment. Key to the success of the pilot project is having a process for data identification, incorporation and management that is sustainable and can be applied across the whole of Scotland.
“We will share what we have learnt and the approach we have used, to allow others to replicate it and use it across the country to help facilitate swifter and wider adoption of 5G, and the widespread benefits this will bring.”
The Improvement Service for Scottish local government, processed the council asset register and street lighting data from its Spatial Hub for the Infralink-Exchange. It said its next contribution will be the provision of local authority planning designation information.
