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new technology,” said Roz Euan-Smith,
senior analyst for smart cities at IHS.
The majority of the 400 smart
city projects that research firm IHS
Technology tracks are trials or small-
scale deployments. But in the last
two years there has been increasing
interest in the sector and several
countries have unveiled ambitious
smart city development projects bent
on addressing these goals.
The evolution of the wireless net-
work to 5G standards will accelerate
smart-city adoption. According to Erics-
son, during the next five years, traffic
volumes on cellular networks will be
multiplied 1,000 times, and 100 times
more devices will require connectivity.
Some applications will demand data
rates 100 times the speeds that aver-
age networks currently deliver. Some
will require near-zero latency or net-
work delay. And the entire system will
work to enable battery life of 10 years
for low-power IoT devices.
The evolution to 5G, which is archi-
tected to support this new reality, will
spur innovation, making cities more
livable, secure, efficient and responsive
to citizens’ needs. Carriers – and by
extension, channel partners – have a
critical role to play in not only providing
the connectivity that acts as a bedrock
for these projects but also in everything
from rolling out value-added services
such as analytics or device manage-
ment to offering cloud-based video
surveillance to police departments and
providing consumer-facing apps and ki-
osks. At the beginning of the year AT&T,
for instance, launched its smart cities
framework, which is an alliance of tech-
nology partners that it will work with to
develop vertically integrated solutions
for specific applications, such as waste
management or smart water.
Demonstrable Benefits
There are immense benefits on
many levels for implementing smart
city technology. According to Beverly
Ride, head of Cloud IoT & Smart Cities
at Ericsson, the example of connected
light poles shows clear-cut, demon-
strable ROI. Cities can improve energy
savings with a smart management
platform that controls lighting based
on real-time conditions, not just time
of day. They can also increase energy
savings to an estimated 80 percent
or more by connecting the light poles,
versus estimated 50 percent energy
savings when switching to LEDs only.
A two-and-a-half-year pilot project
involving some of the world’s largest
cities (New York, London, Hong Kong,
Toronto and Sydney) found that com-
bining LEDs with smart controls gener-
ated energy savings up to 85 percent
higher. Further savings can be found
through reduced maintenance on the
longer-lasting LED bulbs.
“Making the light poles smart
helps to eliminate overlighting and
overspending on energy,” she ex-
plained. “And once light poles are
connected, sensors can be added
to detect motion, sounds (like gun-
shots), deliver audio announcements
and monitor pollution. Digital signage
(providing traffic instructions, advertis-
ing, maps, and public transportation
information), video surveillance, public
Wi-Fi, and even cellular sites can be
added to light poles.”
Connected lighting essentially cre-
ates a backbone where these sensors
can reside.
“Sharing data across various ap-
plications is critical to gaining the
full benefit from each application
deployed,” she said. “When data is
shared and not siloed within the single
application, additive value occurs for
the city and its citizens. Multi-use infra-
structure, such as light poles, leverag-
es the city’s investments over a wider
range of public and private uses.”
Another example of reaping sec-
ondary, even tertiary, benefits from
connecting things comes from a pilot
program being pioneered by Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology. The Sen-
seable City Laboratory group is working
on a project called Underworlds, which
examines the intersection of the physi-
cal, virtual and biological. It starts with
collecting sewage, filtering it and using
techniques to analyze genetic material
present. From there, it’s possible to
identify viruses and bacteria, as well as
spot specific chemicals using a tech-
nique known as mass spectrometry.
“New techniques in biology al-
low us to characterize bacteria and
viruses leaving our bodies – our mi-
crobiome,” project director Carlo Ratti
explained. “At the urban scale, we are
using waste water to open up a new
world of information on human health
and behavior through a platform we
call ‘smart sewage,’ which allows us
to detect the urban microbiome. This
allows near real-time urban epidemiol-
ogy and understanding human health
INTERNATIONAL AGENTs
SECTION
rrently backhaul
ice:
Technology Already Deployed by Cities
Source: Ericsson
North America UC Market by Delivery Method,
2013 - 2024 ($B)
Source: Grand View Research
Europe UC Market S ze, by Vertical 2012 - 2023 ($B)
0% 90% 100%
LED/other energy-efficient lighting
Low-energy buildings
Energy-efficient appliances/
pumps/other systems
Hybrid vehicles
Solar electric generation
Compressed natural
gas (CNG) vehicles
Energy-efficent water
treatment technology
All-electric vehicles
Methanecapture (landfills, biosolids)
Solar hot water
Geothermal
Waste-to-energy conversion
Cogeneration
(combined heat & power)
Advanced biofuels
Smart grids/smart meters
(percentage of cities)
25.00
20.00
15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
H st d
On-premise
35.00
30.00
25.00
20.00
15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
82%
62%
62%
53%
47%
31%
23%
22%
21%
19%
16%
12%
11%
11%
11%
78
Channel
Vision
|
September - October, 2016