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SAN FRANCISCO-American Tower, one of the largest tower companies in the United States, announced a new partnership with Philips Lighting to build a street light that has a small cell hidden inside. The companies are showing off a prototype of the street light here at the Mobile World Congress Americas trade show, with the goal of getting cities to agree to install the wireless-capable light poles.
Importantly, the action represents a further step by American Tower into the small cell game. The company mainly has focused on its portfolio on macro cell towers, although it also has roughly 350 DAS (distributed antenna system) sites across the country. The company’s new agreement with Philips Lighting, a major supplier of lighting for cities, for light poles represents another step by American Tower into the network densification business.
Indeed, network densification is an important trend for wireless carriers, which are generally working to densify their networks with DAS, small cells and other techniques in order to add more capacity to their systems.
American Tower’s move into small cells...