DEVELOPING A SMART CITY-READY WORKFORCE

BY LETICIA LATINO

While dreaming about the bells and whistles of smart cities is quite exciting, we must recognize that the goal is still far within reach. One of the most critical aspects to achieving this vision often goes unaddressed: We need a trained and upskilled workforce. No matter how much we talk about features and technology, if the workforce to deploy the infrastructure needed is not there, it won’t happen. Did you know that it wasn’t until 2020 that the Department of Labor deemed the telecom workforce essential? Yet it was the one that kept us connected, working, and studying throughout the pandemic.

In 2019, I was honored to be appointed to the Broadband Development Advisory Committee of the FCC, where I chaired the Jobs Skills and Training Working Group. A group of 27 industry stakeholders worked tirelessly to understand why 40% of American companies report that they can’t find employees with the training needed to fill the 5G skills gap. The U.S. is currently short 20,000 tower climbers and telecom technicians to deliver on its 5G vision. Things have improved a bit recently, but we are certainly not where we need to be. There’s a talent pipeline issue and a telecom industry branding issue. The general population is taking the workforce that enables their own communication for granted. Broadband has become the fourth utility; hence, there’s the expectation of getting service without really thinking much about what needs to happen behind the scenes, which is a lot. Fiber networks sit at the core of smart cities’ service delivery, and this should be an issue on everyone’s radar.

Small-cell development will be a substantial enabler of IoT devices and applications. The U.S. currently has about 150,000 cell sites; between macro sites and small-cell sites, the forecast for 2030 is 900,000 sites! Besides the workforce shortage, there’s a permit bottleneck. The local government does not know how to handle the tsunami of permit requests that are piling up as the technology adoption goes mainstream. The people needed to handle the tsunami, both on the field and at offices, never get mentioned. So the situation really begs the question: How will we get this done?

We have entered a new era. For the first time in history, more people live in cities than rural areas. By 2050, 70% of humans will be in urban areas, 3 billion people will be added to urban centers, and more than 60% of metro areas that will exist in 2050 haven’t even been built. We are entering the age of urban data gathering. There’s an acceleration and a digital revolution that I like to call smart urbanity.

In this new smart urbanity reality, most jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been created. This is something that we need to talk about. What skills are needed? How can we upskill and create valid and appealing career pathways for the current workforce to prepare them for what’s coming?

In 2021, the United States passed the biggest infrastructure bill in history. Out of that historic bill, $65 billion will be allocated for broadband development. As mentioned, broadband is the new utility, and we cannot deliver on the smart city vision unless we have fiber-ready cities, 5G deployed at full speed, and maybe other satellite technologies. Much of the funding that hasn’t been allocated yet to develop broadband can be used, if we do it smartly, to create projects that intersect to make the smart city project a reality.

If you are unfamiliar with the BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) program and operate in the United States, check out www.fcc.gov. This is when plans are being drafted and collaborators and contributors are sought. Thought leadership is a powerful way to create traction and ensure that this massive funding is used in the best way. At the state level, there is a funding allocation for institutions and entities that develop broadband-related curricula and training. Why not leverage this, be forwardthinking, and create programs geared toward enabling a smart city-ready workforce?

At Neptuno, we are trying to be proactive about it, so we partnered with Broward

College in Florida to start to create the pipeline of workers we will need. We are exchanging ideas and broadening our conversation because the points intersect. The more we connect the dots and are open to breaking the silos, the better we will realize the vision. We shall strive to create a diverse and inclusive workforce that has stackable credentials and ensures that workers can move from job to job, having a certifiable way to show they have the skills needed to get the job done. We have also embraced registered apprenticeship programs, TIRAP specifically, to develop smart city-ready technicians. TIRAP (Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program) was created by the Department of Labor in collaboration with the Wireless Infrastructure Association. Two years ago, there were only three occupations in this program. But because of the industry’s push, we now have 15 approved apprenticeship programs under TIRAP. Nothing says there could not be a smart city registered apprenticeship program where you develop your curriculum to the kind of jobs we need.

I didn’t know about apprenticeship programs at all a few years ago. I was surprised to learn that the embracement of apprenticeship programs and trade skills has been very successful in European countries like Germany and the Netherlands. The concept that you don’t have to attend university to have a middle-class, well-paying job is a bit foreign in the U.S.

An apprenticeship is an industry-driven, high-quality career pathway where employers can develop and prepare their

Smart City-Ready Workforce

How can we upskill and create valid and appealing career pathways for the current workforce to prepare them for what’s coming?

future workforce, and individuals can obtain paid work experience, classroom instruction, mentorship, and a portable credential. People confuse apprentices with interns. They are not the same thing. An apprentice is a paid full-time employee that has been trained specifically to the skills you require. One of the biggest and unknown employer benefits of apprenticeships is that through federal and local grant programs, an employer can recover up to $12,000 of the first year of salary of an apprentice. It’s an undeniable win-win proposition, especially when thinking of creating a smart city-ready workforce.

I’d like to close this article with one of my favorite quotes from Socrates: “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” That relates to infrastructure and workforce all the same.

CEO, Neptuno USA

Hollywood, Florida

With over 25 years of experience in the telecom industry, Leticia Latino van-Splunteren went from working for Merrill Lynch and Nortel Networks to extending her family business, Neptuno Group, in the U.S. in 2002. Her father founded the company in 1972 in South America, where they helped deploy some of the first cellular networks in the region and built over 10,000 towers. She has received many industry accolades, including being the “Most Connected Woman in Telecom” in 2022 by Conecta Latam and a “Transformative CIO” in 2021 by CIO. She has served in multiple Federal Communications Commission committees, including being part of the Telecommunications Interagency Working Group, which presented a report to the U.S. Congress in January 2023 on the state of the U.S. workforce. Neptuno has developed a neutral host with multi-edge computing technology branded as SmartTecPort.

The smart pole of the future includes: 5G wireless radio infrastructure, a wrap-around digital LED panel, multi-access edge compute + storage, and Edge DC system facilities