‘Smart’ poles might now seem like old news, some five years after early deployments, such as one by Verizon in Denver, showed how they could blend small cells more elegantly and transparently into an urban environment. But, it has actually taken subsequent innovations to help them gain traction and start to become established, almost as repositories of small cells, whose deployment is increasingly driven by telcos in conjunction with other parties, especially city planners. Smart poles are also rising amid the detritus of many smart city projects, which failed through over ambition and lack of clarity over what they should provide. Like IoT, smart city projects are more likely to thrive when built around some portable applications or use cases,…