A New Model: Utilising street furniture to deploy world-class digital infrastructure

In the race toward technological supremacy, nations typically focus on constructing new infrastructure, which involves erecting towers, digging trenches and laying fibre. India, however, has embraced a profoundly different philosophy that may redefine how the world approaches digital infrastructure deployment. By reimagining millions of everyday urban fixtures as the foundation for next-generation connectivity, India is not just building a network – it is weaving digital capabilities into its existing urban fabric.

The invisible infrastructure revolution

Walk through any Indian city today, and you will be surrounded by what might be the world’s most innovative telecommunications deployment strategy. The traffic light controlling the intersection, the bus shelter providing shade, the electric pole supporting power lines, and the government building providing public services are all being quietly transformed into the backbone of India’s digital future.

This “invisible infrastructure” approach represents a fundamental shift in thinking – instead of viewing digital deployment as requiring dedicated, purpose-built structures, India has recognised that the optimal deployment framework already exists within its urban landscape.

The scale advantage

Under the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, India has mapped an astonishing 26.5 million units of street furniture, each representing a potential mounting point for tomorrow’s digital technologies:

• 23.9 million electric poles providing unparalleled reach into neighbourhoods and communities
• 306,413 government buildings offering strategic elevated positions with built-in security and power
• 26,880 bus terminals situated at mobility hubs with high population density
• 22,200 traffic signals positioned at critical urban intersections
• 3,368 bus shelters located along major transportation corridors.

Together, these assets constitute what may be the world’s largest pre-existing small cell deployment network – one that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and take decades to build from scratch.

India’s digital growth trajectory

The urgency driving this innovative approach becomes evident when examining India’s digital trajectory. With telecommunications contributing over 6.5 per cent to India’s GDP and the digital economy projected to reach $1 trillion by the end of 2025, infrastructure limitations represent the single greatest threat to continued growth.

The telecommunications market, valued at $53.18 billion and growing at 9.4 per cent annually toward a projected $83.34 billion by 2030, demands infrastructure expansion at a pace traditional deployment models simply cannot achieve. With the sector’s gross revenue reaching $10.46 billion in the second quarter of FY2025 alone, the economic imperative for accelerated deployment becomes undeniable.

Foreign direct investment inflows of $39.99 billion between April 2000 and September 2024 further underscore international confidence in India’s digital transformation strategy, largely built upon the country’s willingness to pioneer unconventional deployment approaches.

Coverage to density: The 5G transformation

India’s street furniture strategy has already demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in the 5G realm. With services now available across 99.6 per cent of districts and reaching even remote territories like Lakshadweep, the country has achieved what many considered impossible just a few years ago.

The installation of approximately 478,000 5G base transceiver stations (BTSs) by March 2025, contributing to a total of 3 million BTSs across all technologies, has been facilitated by the strategic utilisation of existing infrastructure. This approach has enabled India to achieve a wireless and wireline teledensity of 85.04 per cent nationally, with urban areas reaching an impressive 131.45 per cent.

What makes this particularly significant is that India has accomplished this expansion while simultaneously investing in BharatNet – perhaps the world’s most ambitious rural connectivity project. By March 2025, this initiative had made 218,347 gram panchayats service-ready, laid 4.21 million route km of fibre, and installed over 104,574 Wi-Fi hotspots across the country.

The amended BharatNet Programme 2023, with its Rs 1.39 trillion investment to create ring topology connectivity, further demonstrates the country’s commitment to building redundancy and resilience into its network architecture.

Enabling innovation through policy

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) forward-thinking recommendations on the “Use of Street Furniture for Small Cells and Aerial Fibre deployment”, issued in November 2022, created the framework for this revolution.

The Telecommunication Act, 2023, and its accompanying Rules 2024, further streamlined deployment by establishing standardised access protocols for public infrastructure, creating unified approval mechanisms across diverse jurisdictions, implementing digital mapping of right of way corridors, and developing frameworks for infrastructure sharing and co-deployment.

By addressing regulatory barriers that had historically impeded deployment, India created an environment where infrastructure innovation could flourish. This represents perhaps the most critical lesson for other nations: regulatory frameworks must evolve from limitation to enablement for true digital transformation to occur.

Beyond connectivity

What truly distinguishes India’s approach is its recognition that street furniture can support far more than telecommunications. The Smart Cities Mission, which has completed 7,549 projects (94 per cent of the planned 8,067) at a cost of Rs 1.51 trillion, demonstrates how a physical asset can simultaneously serve multiple technological functions.

A modern Indian smart pole can simultaneously function as a 5G small cell host, a public Wi-Fi access point, an electric vehicle charging station, an environmental monitoring station, a smart lighting controller, a surveillance and public safety hub, an emergency communication point and a digital information display.

This creates exponential value from a single infrastructure investment while minimising urban clutter and reducing deployment costs across sectors.

6G: Building tomorrow’s foundation today

The Department of Telecommunications’ sixth-generation innovation group is leveraging this distributed infrastructure model to conceptualise applications that will define the next decade of digital innovation.

The ultra-dense network of small cells enabled by street furniture deployment will provide the foundation necessary for technologies that require unprecedented capacity, minimal latency and ubiquitous coverage. These include:

• Holographic communications requiring massive data throughput
• Ambient computing environments with seamless connectivity
• Advanced augmented reality without processing limitations
• Autonomous systems with sub-millisecond response requirements
• Tactile internet applications enabling remote physical interaction.

By addressing 5G deployment through street furniture today, India is simultaneously building the platform for technologies that will emerge over the next decade, many of which we have yet to imagine.

Implementation challenges: The path forward

India’s street furniture revolution faces challenges that require innovative solutions.

A key technical consideration is power provision. Ensuring reliable electricity to distributed small cells requires innovative solutions, including integrated renewable generation. Another challenge is backhaul connectivity. Extending fibre reach to distributed points demands creative implementation strategies. Structural integrity, such as ensuring ageing infrastructure can support additional equipment weight and wind load, is another major challenge. Lastly, developing unified mounting standards across diverse street furniture types is equally vital.

On the administrative front, multi-stakeholder coordination is needed to synchronise deployment across telecommunications providers, municipal authorities and utility companies. Firm maintenance protocols that establish clear responsibilities are essential to ensure the upkeep of dual-purpose infrastructure. In addition, developing equitable frameworks for sharing deployment and operational expenses is vital. Lastly, appropriate safeguards for increasingly distributed network assets need to be implemented.

Successfully addressing these challenges will determine whether India’s street furniture approach reaches its full potential, and whether it can serve as a model for global emulation.

The equity imperative: Bridging digital divides

What makes India’s approach particularly noteworthy is its potential to address longstanding digital divides. Traditional infrastructure models typically prioritise affluent urban centres, leaving rural and economically disadvantaged communities behind in the digital transformation.

Street furniture, by contrast, exists everywhere, from metropolitan centres to small villages. By leveraging these ubiquitous assets, India can achieve more equitable deployment than would be possible through traditional models. This is particularly evident in the rural teledensity figures, which have risen to 59.06 per cent through the combined efforts of BharatNet and innovative deployment strategies.

As this figure continues to rise, millions more citizens gain access to digital opportunities previously beyond their reach, from educational resources and healthcare services to financial inclusion and entrepreneurial platforms.

Global implications: A new paradigm

India’s street furniture revolution offers valuable lessons for nations worldwide as they grapple with the challenge of building next-generation networks amid budget constraints, environmental concerns and accelerating technological change. The approach demonstrates how reimagining existing assets can:

• Accelerate deployment by eliminating the need for new construction
• Reduce capex by leveraging sunk infrastructure costs
• Minimise environmental impact by limiting additional construction
• Enable multi-utility convergence across diverse technological domains
• Achieve more equitable coverage through the utilisation of universally present assets.

As countries worldwide face the imperative to expand digital capacity while managing fiscal constraints, India’s model offers a compelling alternative to traditional deployment paradigms.

Conclusion

India’s transformation of overlooked street furniture into essential digital infrastructure represents more than an innovative deployment strategy – it signals the emergence of a new blueprint for infrastructure development in the digital age. By recognising that tomorrow’s networks can be built on today’s physical assets, India has discovered a pathway to digital transformation that is simultaneously more efficient, more sustainable and more equitable.

India’s street furniture revolution is not merely about building better networks today – it is about creating an adaptable, future-proof foundation for the technologies of tomorrow. This may be the most valuable infrastructure innovation of all.