Cincinnati Building Fiber Ring, Pursuing Smart City Projects Downtown

As it builds a downtown fiber network, Cincinnati (OH) is laying the foundation for improved traffic management and other smart city initiatives, as well as offering the kind of communications infrastructure necessary to further grow the region’s economic development efforts. The city is installing 20,000 feet of fiber-optic cable around the central business district, while also bisecting the area with another line of cable. The nearly $9 million project is structured as four separate conduits with two of those being dedicated to municipal needs and the other two available to the private sector. The project is first an effort to modernize Cincinnati’s downtown 1970s-era traffic signal system, which still uses old, copper telephone lines. The ring of fiber isn’t all that’s happening in downtown Cincinnati. The city is in the procurement process for other smart city initiatives. One project will establish a public Wi-Fi and broadband signal along the city’s downtown streetcar route.