The idea of a truly “smart” city has been around for years, but in recent times, the conversation has shifted. It’s no longer just about free public Wi-Fi or fancy lighting systems. Around the world, cities are facing a new challenge: how to keep their citizens safe in an era of rapid urbanization, increasing public events, and growing digital threats. And they’re finding that public safety systems built on outdated, congested, or vulnerable networks simply can’t keep up.
In this high-stakes environment, a new trend is emerging—cities are building and owning their own private 5G networks. These aren’t just faster internet connections; they are purpose-built infrastructures designed to give police, fire departments, and emergency services unprecedented control, reliability, and security. And one of the people helping cities make this leap is Rahul Bangera, a quiet but formidable force in the global private wireless industry.
Rahul’s career is the kind of upward trajectory that’s rare in such a technically demanding field. Starting as an RF engineer, he climbed through the ranks to become Director of Wireless Technology at Communication Technology Services (CTS), where he was a key member who helped build their private wireless business from scratch. His expertise eventually drew the attention of NTT DATA, where he now serves as Director of 5G Solution Architecture & Product Management.
“I’ve always believed that public safety requires more than good intentions; it needs robust, purpose-built infrastructure,” he says. His work today focuses on designing and deploying private LTE/5G networks for cities, campuses, and industrial environments, ensuring that these systems are secure, reliable, and capable of scaling as needs evolve.
One of his most talked-about projects is in Brownsville, Texas, a city that not long ago carried the label “worst connected in the US.” In partnership with NTT DATA, Brownsville is now on track to become one of the most connected cities in the world, with public safety at the heart of the transformation.
The city’s new private 5G network serves as the backbone for a wide range of initiatives: AI-powered cameras monitoring public parks, license plate recognition systems that help recover stolen vehicles, and free public Wi-Fi in green spaces to bridge the digital divide. “For Brownsville, it’s not just about safety,” he explains. “It’s about inclusion, making sure connectivity is a right, not a privilege.”
The numbers tell the story. By avoiding the high recurring costs of carrier data plans and the massive expense of trenching fiber for backhaul, Brownsville is saving tens of thousands of dollars annually, while also boosting its ability to respond to emergencies in real time.
If Brownsville was about closing a connectivity gap, Las Vegas is about pushing the limits of what’s possible. The city is deploying the largest private wireless network in the United States, a system designed to handle everything from wrong-way driver detection to AI-powered crowd monitoring.
“The goal isn’t just to react faster, it’s to anticipate incidents before they happen,” says Rahul. In practice, that means the network processes 436GB of data an hour, running it through 35 machine-learning models that make over 14,000 predictions a week. The city expects wrong-way driving incidents to drop by more than 90%, potentially saving $1 million a year in avoided accidents and related costs.
What makes this possible is the network’s architecture: high-speed, ultra-low-latency connections with network slicing that prioritize public safety applications, even during peak usage. For first responders, that means critical data gets through—always.
In his opinion, the shift to private 5G is as much about security as it is about performance. Traditional public safety networks often rely on Wi-Fi with password-based access, easy targets for bad actors.
“From day one, we build these networks on a ‘secure by design’ principle,” he says. That includes SIM-based authentication, keeping core network infrastructure behind city firewalls, and segmenting access based on role. The result, as in Brownsville, is a network that is “virtually impossible to hack” and built to protect sensitive data across police, fire, and municipal operations.
While the technical capabilities of private 5G are impressive, deploying it can be daunting for city governments. He recognized this early and developed a “Network as a Service” model that packages everything—design, installation, and ongoing management—into a single, predictable offering.
“Cities shouldn’t have to become telecom experts to protect their citizens,” he says. This approach has allowed even municipalities without deep technical teams to roll out advanced networks quickly and cost-effectively, often with the help of federal or state funding.
Rahul sees the future of public safety as deeply intertwined with edge AI. “When you bring AI processing to the edge of the network, right where the data is generated, you can make life-saving decisions in milliseconds,” he explains. That could mean drones providing live feeds during a wildfire, or AI models predicting crime patterns before they escalate.
But he’s quick to add that technology alone isn’t enough. “Start with the problem, not the gadget,” he advises. “The most successful projects are those that clearly define the public safety outcomes they’re trying to achieve.” For all the futuristic capabilities, his message is grounded: the time to act is now. Cities that wait for public carrier networks to catch up will continue to face avoidable risks and costs.
“Private 5G gives you control,” he says simply. “Control over your data, your security, your priorities. In an emergency, that control can save lives.”
When cities take ownership of their digital backbone, the benefits ripple far beyond public safety, into education, economic development, and quality of life. In Rahul’s view, that’s the real promise of the smart city: not just a safer place, but a more connected and equitable one.