We’re only a few days into the New Year and all we can say is the outlook is uncertain. The enthusiastic hype that has filled the news in the past with promises of 5G solving the world’s problems has turned to skepticism. “Smart” cities are being discussed as not such a smart idea anymore. The latest battles in the “pole wars” we’ve written about before now focus on placement of small cells for 4G/5G, not on installing aerial fiber optic cables.
As cities get smarter, they are becoming more livable and more responsive—and today we are seeing only a preview of what technology could eventually do in the urban environment. Now technology is being injected more directly into the lives of residents. Smartphones have become the keys to the city, putting instant information about transit, traffic, health services, safety alerts, and community news into millions of hands.
The winners of this year’s Digital Cities Survey from the Center for Digital Government are those making smart investments in technologies from infrastructure and citizen engagement to data storage and cybersecurity.
The Smart City multi-trillion-dollar market has become an umbrella for a lot of smarts – Smart: Healthcare, Building, Industry, Logistics, Transportation, Agriculture, IoT, and more. Each one of those smarts have a gazillion applications and products that support them. But we need a better way to define the market that will allow us to talk more specifically about the needs and discern appropriate solutions quicker. A decoder ring, if you will.
It’s happening again; this time, we’re obsessing over all things “smart.” At first, there were just smartphones. Then came smart watches, smart homes, smart grids, smart switches and smart cities. At some point, the term “smart” became diluted as marketers started applying it to more and more solutions. It’s time to stop and ask: What do we really mean by “smart”? Hidden in that definition is the need for connectivity and the ability to inform the user in order to guide decisions.
Everstream is building an enterprise grade fiber network to support Milwaukee and its businesses as they scale and grow in the coming years. The build-out also includes the construction of new small cell sites to provide high-bandwidth connectivity to the city and businesses. This will deliver the increased bandwidth and data required to support the upcoming 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC).
ABB Electrification has launched an interactive ‘Smart City’ tool that shows some of the safe, smart and sustainable solutions that can contribute to the design of a comprehensive ‘smart city’. The Smart City tool breaks down the collective technical elements of smart buildings, e-mobility, energy management and data centers, all of which can contribute to the design of a comprehensive ‘smart city’.
To realize the potential of Smart Cities, we’re going to have to figure out the Municipal Internet-of-Things (IoT). We know “smart communities” will utilize an assortment of devices, networks, data and analytics – what we’ll call Municipal IoT. And we know these technologies collectively have the potential to improve many aspects of public service delivery. The best way for the public sector to start making the smart city movement a reality is also the most obvious. Public sector agencies should build and deploy their own IoT networks and identify, test, scale, and share use-cases and applications that are designed specifically to solve their challenges.
Which American city has the most sophisticated fiber network? San Francisco? Nope. New York? Nah.It’s Ammon, Idaho, population 16,500, which offers residents performance, pricing, and options that inhabitants of a metropolis dominated by one or two internet service providers can only dream of. Ammon is a true local network, where residents own the fiber and providers compete to serve them.
When IT pros from around the world come together to solve a problem with IoT for smart cities, everyone learns something new. Itron’s Smart City Challenge drew on the IoT expertise of tech startups from more than 20 countries to help the cities of London and Glasgow solve difficult challenges.
