The City College of New York (CCNY) announced that it is now directly connected to the COSMOS beyond-5G testbed, which is supported by multi-million dollar investment from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
According to its website, the COSMOS project is working on the design, development, and deployment of a city-scale advanced wireless testbed to support real-world experimentation on next-generation wireless technologies and applications. COSMOS, based in New York City, was one of the first two testbeds to receive funding under the NSF’s Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) initiative. The COSMOS testbed research is led by researchers at Rutgers, Columbia, and New York University and is focused on ultra-high bandwidth and low-latency wireless communications.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated the testbed envisioned coverage area as one of the nation’s first innovation zones, which enables research institutions and the wireless industry to test new advanced technologies within the designated zone.
CCNY was able to connect to the testbed via an in-kind contribution of dark fiber by Crown Castle, a communications infrastructure provider, that directly connects the testbed facilities at CCNY and Columbia.
“With the number of internet connected devices estimated to have reached more than 46 billion in 2021 – a 200 percent increase since 2016 – it is more important than ever before that we invest in infrastructure that can process all that data in real time,” said Mark Reudink, vice president of technology strategy at Crown Castle. “This test bed will do just that, facilitating important research on technologies that have the potential to change our lives for the better, while also serving as a model for future infrastructure investments on a larger scale.”
In a press release, CCNY sad the testbed will create new opportunities for CCNY students and faculty to learn about high-speed internet communications and experiment with new concepts. CCNY said that one of the projects that CCNY lab students are currently working on is secure vehicular communication, which will help ensure safety for pedestrians by informing vehicle’s presence to them and allowing the vehicle to automatically control its speed while avoiding collision with people and other vehicles.
Through the COSMOS initiative, CCNY said it believes it will “help transform wireless networks to support future wireless services such as extreme broadband wireless systems, massive connected IoT devices, local emergency systems, and other smart-city applications.”
