5G commercial deployment

​Both Vodafone and EE have announced that parts of Bournemouth will receive 5G by the end of 2020, mostly for the benefit of consumer 5G mobile phones. The key responsibility for the Council is as the statutory Local Planning Authority.

The Council intends to work closely with commercial operators to understand their roll out plans for the local area.

BCP Council 5G Pilot - Smart Place

Across the UK and Europe, local authorities are working with a wide range of partners to roll-out localised pilots that are enabling some early real-world examples of 5G applications and technologies in action such as connected autonomous vehicles in transport and robotics in health and advanced manufacturing.

BCP Council has received funding from the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership to improve connectivity in the Lansdowne area of Bournemouth. This initiative is called Smart Place and the project includes a small scale 5G pilot at Lansdowne, which will include an assessment of the environmental impact.

Any activities under the Smart Place initiative will need to comply with Local Planning Authority Policy.

The Smart Place Pilot (Lansdowne) Cabinet report was considered on 20 December and subsequently approved.

Smart Place 5G Emission monitoring

Electromagnetic Field (EMF) monitoring devices will be installed throughout the Lansdowne area in summer 2020. This is in preparation for the installation of a 5G network in late summer/autumn 2020. These EMF monitoring devices will monitor the levels of non-ionising electromagnetic radiation before and after the installation to show comparative levels.

This installation is part of our commitment to monitoring and ensuring the safety of the future 5G network, in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) regulations for the continued protection of our residents.

Through the Smart Place EMF monitoring platform, you can view the view the fixed locations of the monitoring devices and also propose ad-hoc monitoring locations in the Lansdowne area. The collected data for all locations will then be viewable on the monitoring platform.