Smartening up the city

New technologies promise a breakthrough

for efforts to improve urban living
By David Pringle

MAY 2016

Report Sponsor: Featured Analyst

 FEATURE REPORT

As the world becomes more and more urban, mayors and municipalities are striving to make their
cities smarter. In theory at least, information and communications technologies can keep traffic mov-
ing; detect and prevent crime; monitor the condition of roads, lighting, parks and other urban infra-
structure; and efficiently allocate public resources.
In practice, making existing cities smart is proving difficult. Many different stakeholders need to be
involved, while sensors, controls and connectivity can be difficult to install in dense urban environ-
ments. In response, some cities are now experimenting with low-cost, low-power “Internet of Things”
technologies that could usher in a new wave of smart city applications. In the medium-term, “5G”
technologies are also promising to give municipalities access to ultra-reliable, low-latency band-
width. Is the smart city era finally upon us?

THE RISE OF THE SMART CITY Of course, both people and employers levels of air pollution: Ambient air
Strain in the city tend to gravitate towards cities pollution, made of high concentra-
The world is quickly urbanizing. perceived to offer a high quality tions of small and fine particulate
Every week, more than 1 million of life. For example, Vienna, the matter,  causes 3 million people to
people move into cities across the historic and picturesque capital of die prematurely every year, accord-
world. At the end of 2015, more than Austria, claims to be welcoming five ing to the WHO. As more newcom-
half (54%) of the world’s population new inhabitants every hour. ers arrive, cities’ limited bus, rail,
lived in cities, according to the CIA Although urbanization can have energy and water networks also
Factbook, following a 2% increase in a positive socio-economic impact, come under massive pressure.
the urban population each year be- it can also happen too quickly. In In China, where the number of
tween 2010 and 2015. much of the world, the strain on people living in cities is rising 3%
In rich countries, urbanization is city administrations is all too ap- every year, air quality in Beijing
a two-way street, as economic and parent. Across Africa, developing and some other urban areas is of-
cultural factors prompt population Asia and Latin America, cities are ten dangerous to health, while grid-
shifts between cities. People are increasingly densely populated, locked road networks mean people
migrating to highly diversified cities, congested and polluted. In May spend hours sitting in traffic jams
such as London and Houston, while 2016, the World Health Organiza- each day. When urbanization reach-
abandoning conurbations, such tion warned that more than 80% of es 50% to 70%, social problems aris-
as Leipzig and Detroit, which rely people in urban areas around the ing from overcrowding also tend to
heavily on now declining industries. world are exposed to dangerous increase, notes Dr. Wan  Biyu,  chief

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 FEATURE REPORT

scientist of  National Smart City FIG. 1: Google searches for smart city over time
Joint Labs in China.
In other words, city infrastructure
around the world is under severe
strain and local governments are
grappling with pressing problems
that need to be urgently addressed.

Source: Google Trends

Has the smart city come of age?
ICT has long been regarded as
key to addressing the growing chal-
lenges faced by crowded cities. In
2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
fact, the notion of using connected
sensors and controls to create a so-
called smart city has been around
for decades. Few cities have man-
aged to actually become smart –
FIG. 2: Total Smart City ICT Revenue by Solution Area
(US$ Millions)
many solutions have been trialled
1M
and piloted, but few have been de-
ployed on a large scale. The smart 900,000
city has been a slow burn. Platform
800,000
That may be about to change. In Consulting

the past year or so, interest in smart 700,000 System Integration

Source: Strategy Analytics, October 2015

city concepts has leapt (see Figure 600,000
1) as urban challenges intensify
500,000
and technologies improve – the ca-
pabilities of connectivity and sen- 400,000

sors (including digital cameras) are 300,000

increasing even as the cost of this
200,000
equipment falls.
For the ICT industry, the smart 100,000

city represents a major business

opportunity. Strategy Analytics, 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

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 FEATURE REPORT

fast. So, yes, there is something of a lights on and keeping the desktops
tipping point. But we still have an- running. They are managing the
other 10 or 20 years of work to do. ” current estate rather than think-
However, some experts remain ing about the next five years.”
skeptical about how fast smart cit- Recognizing this issue, some cities
ies can develop, noting large-scale have set up dedicated smart city
deployments are still relatively rare. units. Atlanta, for example, created
“We have lots of really good pilots, a centralized smart city team with
and some of them have made it to a dedicated director who works on
production grade. But they are gen- nothing else. “We have competing
erally not in the operational guts of priorities and we are never going to
the cities,” said Jeremy Green, prin- move the needle unless we have a
cipal analyst at Machina Research. dedicated team working on it,” said
Jeremy Green, Principal Analyst at “I don’t think we are at tipping Samir Saini, commissioner and CIO
Machina Research
point, not yet.” for Atlanta. “You need the buy-in
from your department heads and
for example, has forecast “urban Pilots and trials abound
ICT revenues” will reach $977 bil- One of factors holding back the
lion by 2022 (see Figure 2). The re- arrival of the smart city is politics.
search firm believes smart health, Many different stakeholders can
smart infrastructure and smart be involved in the decision-making
government represent the largest process, both inside and outside the
ICT opportunities. city administration, leading to ei-
“It is definitely the case that the ther gridlock or an uncoordinated,
pace of the excitement and engage- piecemeal approach.
ment in this topic is accelerating,” “City administrations can amount
said Paul Wilson, managing direc- to a ramshackle collection of sepa-
tor of Bristol Is Open, the smart rate organizations under loose po-
city unit for Bristol, England. “It litical control with a lot of statutory
is a complete fast-paced ride right obligations and nondiscretionary
now. Ten years ago people were do- spending,” noted Green. “Cities typi-
Samir Saini, Commissioner and
ing this work and it was slow and cally don’t have a CIO, and if they CIO for Atlanta
visionary. Today, it is extremely do they are in charge of keeping the

4
 FEATURE REPORT

your commissioners. All the data which differ greatly in many ways, who visited Yinchuan in 2015.
in the world won’t solve anything said Dr. Biyu, who has visited more
unless your department heads use than 200 pilot cities and towns. Greenfield versus brownfield
that data to make decisions.” Some of the pilots are well ad- Of course, the most advanced smart
National and international poli- vanced. Yinchuan, China, for exam- cities tend to be those that have been
tics can also muddy the waters. ple, started a smart city initiative in built from scratch – so-called green-
Green notes European Union 2009. After striking a partnership field, as opposed to brownfield, cit-
funding for smart city pilots is with telecommunications equip- ies. New urban developments typi-
spread far and wide, rather than ment vendor ZTE in 2014, Yinch- cally embed ICT, including fiber
focused on the creation of a few uan’s initiative now spans 10 do- broadband links, into the core in-
centers of excellence. He says this mains, including smart governance, frastructure. In China, South Korea,
approach tends to lead to duplica- smart transportation and smart cli- Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Spain and Portu-
tion and can hold back the learn- mate. Some of the technologies be- gal, smart cities or smart districts are
ing process about what works and ing deployed appear futuristic: Bus effectively being built from scratch:
what doesn’t. passengers, for example, can now street lights, car parks, traffic con-
Elsewhere in the world, some pay their fare via face recognition trols, waste disposal facilities and
countries are embracing the – they simply look at a camera as other city infrastructure are all built
smart city concept at a national they board the bus, said Carl  Piva, with connected sensors installed.
level, developing comprehensive VP strategic programs at TM Forum, Andrew Brown, executive director
strategies. China, for example, is
employing a top-down approach
in which the government is di-
recting the use of ICT to improve
urban living. Across the country,
more than 300 metropolises are pi-
loting smart city solutions, which
use a combination of sensors, con-
nectivity, data analytics and au-
tomation to make more efficient
use of resources and provide inno-
vative new services. These pilot
smart cities are located in more
than 30 provinces around China, The 22@Barcelona district.

5
 FEATURE REPORT

for enterprise and IoT at Strategy In response, both startups and the next 12 months, before thrashing
Analytics, points to the 22@Barcelo- major equipment vendors are de- out the standards for the next
na project in Spain as a good exam- veloping new LPWA technologies generation of cellular technologies
ple of what is possible when entire designed to make it increasingly vi- (5G), which is set to arrive towards
districts are being created or rede- able to connect large numbers of de- the end of the decade.
veloped. Funded by taxpayers, the vices, machines, vehicles and appli-
180 million euro ($201 million) proj- ances. As the name suggests, these Step change in data processing
ect involved changing 100 hectares networks are frugal with power, en- Digital sensors are also improving
of industrial land on Barcelona’s abling a connected device to have a fast. Green points to dramatic im-
seafront into a business district be- battery life measured in years, rath- provements in image processing ca-
tween 2000 and 2010. With the help er than weeks, and dramatically re- pabilities, which can enable a video
of Cisco and other technology part- ducing maintenance costs, making camera to analyze images and then
ners, the district employs tempera- it more feasible to deploy connected transmit the salient information
ture, humidity, dust, noise and gas sensors in inaccessible locations. Al- back to the city administration.
sensors; a parking management sys- though some proponents of LPWA “You can now increasingly do pro-
tem; connected waste containers; technologies forecast battery lives cessing at the edge of the network,”
smart lighting, a connected water- of 10 years, Green believes that may Green says. This technology could
ing system; and bus stops equipped not be realistic in practice. enable a city to deploy connected
with digital kiosks. Still, LPWA networks are seen as cameras to fulfill a number or
low cost to deploy and run – con- roles, such as security, congestion
SMART CITY TECHNOLOGY: nectivity costs could fall to a few monitoring and road charging.
Lowering power requirements and costs dollars for each connection per The combination of these tech-
Mobile operators have typically year, rather than per month. These nology advances is seen as giving
used their existing 2G and 3G cel- advances promise to make it easier, the smart city a new sense of mo-
lular networks to support M2M con- quicker and cheaper for cities to use mentum. “Why now? There is a
nections. Designed primarily to con- wireless networks to monitor and perfect storm of technology evolu-
nect mobile phones, these existing control large numbers of connec- tion that has enabled these things
networks aren’t well suited to serv- tions in a small area. For example, to happen,” said Brown of Strategy
ing the emerging IoT market, which it is becoming increasingly viable Analytics. “The platforms are there.
increasingly requires dedicated to connect every streetlight, every We are seeing M2M morph into IoT
networks specifically designed to parking space or every waste bin. with the involvement of the big
meet the requirements of machines, The mobile industry is set to data analytics players, such as IBM,
vehicles and appliances. finalize the LPWA standards over Accenture, Cisco and Oracle. The

6
CREATE. CONNECT. LIVE. ^
Connections have the power to change the world.
Seamless collaboration will connect people, spurring
innovation. Connected devices will provide access to
critical data, saving lives. Continuous connectivity will
create new business models and services, enabling
endless possibilities.

This is future connectivity, this is the Living Network.

Learn how InterDigital is helping to connect it here:
www.interdigital.com/iot
 FEATURE REPORT

communications part and the IT to how it will transform over the which is adopting FIWARE as a
part are starting to operate togeth- next two to five years. The Shang- standard, is supported by 89 cit-
er and there are signs that the mar- hai Academy plans to use the TM ies in 19 countries. Proponents see
ket is moving from piecemeal pilots Forum model to support 200 smart FIWARE as an international in-
to a more systematic approach.” city pilots in China. formation hub, which will enable
Indeed, smart cities are rising up services to be connected across
the agenda of the TM Forum, a trade Harnessing data analytics multiple territories.
body that looks to straddles IT and There is also a sense the focus Hierro envisions service provid-
telecoms. In May 2016, TM Forum of smart city projects is moving ers will be able to mashup data
launched a smart city maturity from cost savings and greater ef- from multiple sources, including
and benchmarking model, which ficiency towards innovative so- both the city administration and
is designed to enable an aspiring lutions designed to enhance the third parties, to create new proposi-
smart city to assess its strengths lives of inhabitants and increase tions and business models. “It is es-
and weaknesses in five key dimen- economic activity. sential to have central application
sion areas and to set clear goals as “Traditionally the vision of a programming interfaces, a common
smart city has been focused on infrastructure, and common data
making the city more efficient for models and a common single mar-
citizens,” said Juanjo Hierro, CTO of ket,” Hierro explained.
the industrial IoT and smart cities Others also see data analytics as
platform product unit at Telefóni- the key to unlocking the potential
ca. “But what is coming now, with of ICT to transform urban living.
the economy of data, are engines Jane Chen, chairperson of ZTESoft,
of growth. We are looking at how to the software arm of ZTE, says the
transform the city and enable new “Smart City 3.0” (the next phase in
services that are created around the evolution of smart cities) will
data. Data is the gold mine.” use software platforms to analyze
Telefónica and rival operator data from multiple sources to en-
Orange are advocating the wide- able the deployment of innovative
spread use of the open source new solutions.
framework FIWARE to enable
Juanjo Hierro, CTO of Industrial
data interoperability and porta- Setting data free
IoT and Smart Cities Platform at
bility. Telefónica says the Open Uber and its rivals have shown
Telefónica
and Agile Smart Cities initiative, how real-time data can be used to

8
 FEATURE REPORT

or a change in behavior that might

indicate the occupant has a prob-
lem, and enable care workers to pri-
oritize which houses they visit. The
next step is to put people in the pilot
house to find out which sensors they
consider the most intrusive, and
which feel acceptable and ignor-

Source: Advantage Engineers

able. Once the pilot team have these
insights, Bristol plans to scale up the
solution to 50 houses, and then mak-
ing a model that can be scaled up to
thousands of houses.

The programmable city

Millennium Square Bristol
The growing use of software
allocate resources in real time to the traffic flow in the city in a five within telecom networks could
make the process of finding a ride second delay environment,” said also give a smart city more control
faster and more efficient. Cities are Wilson. “The second one was around over the available connectivity
increasingly experimenting with air quality.” and how it is deployed. In particu-
the idea of opening up their data Bristol is also looking to harness lar, the advent of software-defined
and enabling private companies to the creativity of its citizens and com- networks and network functions
come up with solutions designed to panies in other domains. The city is virtualization are making it easier
meet the needs of local consumers working with the local university on to adapt telecom networks to serve
and businesses. Bristol, which is a project to improve the quality of life the needs of specific applications.
the third most congested city in the of elderly people occupying assisted Bristol is working with the local
U.K., is giving developers access to living homes in the city. The project university, NEC and InterDigital to
near real-time data about the state involves the development and deploy- deploy SDN across the city and en-
of the transport network. ment of a large number of low-power able NFV.
“The first API put out by the coun- sensors throughout a pilot house: in “We describe what we are doing
cil is a transport API, which relates the shower, the kitchen, the floor and in Bristol as a programmable city,”
to all interactions of buses and off many other places. These sensors are said Wilson. “The phrase smart city
the traffic lights, so you can model designed to detect a fall, an accident has so many meanings … what we

9
 FEATURE REPORT

are doing involves programmable streetlight providers may even pro- vary dramatically.
networks, it involves software- vide this technology for free, if they “We collect all this information
defined networks. We are taking are allowed to harness the data to and build an API and give all this
quite a technical approach to the provide ongoing maintenance and data to the garbage company, so
whole thing.” other services, reckons Peter Sany, they know how often to visit each
Bristol is seen as one Britain’s CEO of the TM Forum. building,” Chen says.
leading smart cities, according to There is also a clear business case Smart parking is also gaining
new research commissioned by for connecting waste bins. Sensors traction. In this case, a connected
Huawei and conducted by Navigant can monitor when a bin is full, and sensor can signal whether a space
Consulting. “I see London, Bristol, then a wireless connection can is empty or occupied, and that in-
Birmingham, Manchester Milton relay that data back to the waste formation can be aggregated and
Keynes, Leeds and Peterborough disposal team. They can then use made available to drivers looking
as cities that I count amongst Euro- the information to optimize the for a vacant lot. As a result, driv-
pean pathfinders,” said Eric Woods, deployment of waste trucks and ers spend less time seeking some-
research director at Navigant. ensure bins don’t overflow. Chen where to park, congestion could
of ZTEsoft says that in China the drop, pollution can be reduced and
SMART CITY APPLICATIONS: business case is even stronger. As the parking provider could poten-
The low hanging fruit some new buildings are full and tially increase charges. In fact,
Right now, the most widely de- others half empty, the speed at connected parking sensors could
ployed smart city solutions tend to which garbage bins fill up can be used to enable dynamic pricing
be those for which there is a very
straightforward business case. That
business case is usually based on
significant cost savings. Strategy
Analytics says cities are embrac-
ing smart street lighting simply
because the cost of the sensors re-
quired to check whether the lights
actually need to be on is lower than
Source: 123RF

the potential energy savings. If the

sensors are connected, they can also
flag when a particular streetlight is
broken and needs replacing. Some Singapore skyline

10
 FEATURE REPORT

in which parking charges surge at

times of high demand (Uber-style)
and then fall when there are many
spaces available.
Transport for London, for ex-
ample, has introduced intelligent
smart parking technology across
its 61 car parks, which have ap-
proximately 10,000 spaces. The
technology provides real-time in-
formation on space availability ac-
cessible through smartphones and
navigation devices to help commut-
ers plan their journeys..

Tackling transportation travails North Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia

In a similar vein, many cities be-

lieve ICT could help them optimize torists to be charged according to the by connectivity to encourage
the use of precious road space and distance they travel on congested greater usage of public transport
encourage greater usage of public roads and whether they travel dur- and bike-sharing schemes, as well
transport. In February 2016, Sin- ing off-peak. It’s set to be implement- as to inform people of the cost
gapore announced it has awarded ed progressively beginning in 2020. and carbon dioxide emissions
a $556 million tender to develop a For some cities, the focus is on of individual journeys using
next-generation electronic road getting people out of their cars different forms of transport.
pricing system to the consortium of entirely. Vienna has set some But, transport and related pollu-
NCS Pte and Mitsubishi Heavy In- aggressive targets to reduce car tion can be a tough domain to ad-
dustries Engine System Asia. usage, says Andreas Trisko, head dress, primarily because of the num-
Singapore’s Land Transport Au- of urban development department ber of different parties involved,
thority said the system could allow Vienna. The city administration notes Green. “There are many dif-
for more flexibility in managing wants to reduce the proportion ferent elements, a complex set of
traffic congestion through dis- of journeys by car from 27% systems and multiple players and it
tance-based road pricing, where an today, to 15% by 2030. Vienna is can be hard to align their interests,”
on-board tracking unit enables mo- using real-time data collected he explained.

11
 FEATURE REPORT

Neighborhood by neighborhood “We have got peak congestion at will attach that array to the 180
Some cities are following a dif- key intersections and we have poles we have on North Avenue.”
ferent model. Rather than trying excess capacity at others. We have
to address a specific challenge, a completely underutilized bus and NEXT STEPS FOR SMART CITIES:
such as congestion or waste col- rail system.” Fast fiber links required
lection, they are taking a street- The city has started by working A core foundation of a smart city
by-street approach. Atlanta has with AT&T to install cellular-con- is fast and responsive connectivity
begun by focusing on North Av- nected cameras at a single inter- throughout the urban area. In prac-
enue, a major artery that is home section to get traffic flow data in tice, that typically means having
to Coca-Cola, Georgia Institute of real time. “We will also do this on an extensive fiber network in the
Technology, theaters, parks and the other 18 signal intersections on ground that can be used to connect
public transport stations. It is now North,” explained Saini. “We’ll have wireless hot spots and cellular base
using North Avenue as a testing a complete picture of what is hap- stations. Atlanta is using a $250
ground for how ICT can help the pening on North, counting bikes million dollar infrastructure grant,
city pursue all three of its prima- and people, as well as vehicles.” which was approved in a special
ry goals – improving mobility, pub- Atlanta then plans to feed the election in 2015, to lay strands of
lic safety and sustainability.. data collected by the cameras into fiber in main corridors to connect
“We are in proof of concept mode,” a traffic management system and traffic lights and embed sensors in
Atlanta CIO Saini told delegates at start changing lights based on re- the concrete.
the recent TM Forum Live! event. If al-time traffic information. It is “We are rolling out our own mu-
the results on North Avenue are en- also planning to pilot a bike-share nicipal fiber network, built by the
couraging, the city plans to expand scheme, deploy a citizen informa- city, run by the city, that will be
the pilot to another district. tion kiosk and set up a public Wi-Fi the backbone of all the smart city
Saini notes North Avenue, which network across North Avenue. devices we lay on top,” said Saini.
suffers from crime, congestion and Saini says the city also intends to “This is a major undertaking that
water leakage, is a microcosm of install sensors into the water net- will take us several years.” Howev-
the challenges facing the rest of work to monitor flow, detect leaks er, the city isn’t going it alone – it
the city. and analyze the resulting data to has partnerships with AT&T, Cisco
“None of the traffic signals see how the network can be im- and Google Fi to improve connec-
on North Avenue have proved. “We are going to implement tivity across Atlanta.
communications. When they go a sensor array with Georgia Tech A citywide fiber network can
down, we have to wait for a phone that will measure air quality, sound be used to provide backhaul for
call from a citizen,” Saini explained. and vibration,” he Saini noted. “We the wireless connectivity used

12
 FEATURE REPORT

to connect individual pieces of holding everything up is a lack of squander $341 billion by 2025, if
infrastructure. For example, standards and a lack of confidence. they adopt a fragmented, rather
in Bristol, a wireless mesh Standards give you economies of than a standardized approach to
network supplied by SilverSpring scale, confidence and interopera- IoT solution deployment, Machina
Networks complements the city’s bility. I do think it is a serious prob- claims in a new white paper, com-
fiber network. lem. … 5G will be a big moment, but missioned by mobile technology
I am not sure it is a cure all.” and research company InterDigital.
Settling on standards Machina Research has warned Machina believes standardization
Bristol is also making use of Wi-Fi, using nonstandardized technol- could stimulate deployments and
2G, 3G, LTE and even an experimen- ogy for IoT will increase the cost wider usage of smart city solutions
tal form of 5G to provide connectiv- of deployment, hinder mass scale (see Figure 3).
ity for its smart city solutions. adoption and stifle technology in- “There is a lot of buzz about the
“Then you start plugging in all novation for smart city initiatives different radios and networks, but
sorts of devices and deciding what worldwide. City authorities and for us, that is not the biggest prob-
these devices use to connect: then their technology partners could lem,” said Rafael Cepeda, smart
the nightmare begins,” said Wilson.
“Almost all industries are heavily
FIG. 3: Machina Research’s estimates of how
pregnant with all of this. What’s
standardization could increase smart city deployments

800
Wide Area IoT Communications 2025

700

600

Source: Machina Research.

500

400

300

200

100

0
Base Case Full Standardization Case

Alarms & Monitors CCTV Street Lighting

Rafael Cepeda, Smart Cities Lead
Waste Management Public Transport Road Traffic Management
at InterDigital
Parking Other

13
 FEATURE REPORT

cities lead at InterDigital. “The Bristol is alert to this issue. “We said Woods at Navigant. “But the
real problem is how you integrate are not going to rely on a vendor to nature of these innovation pro-
all the data that the sensors will sort this out for us,” says Wilson. “If grams means that they are mostly
produce and how you make sense you outsource to a consultant, you being shaped by local needs, pri-
of it.” can end up with lock-in. The local orities and opportunities,” Woods
Cepeda says the leading standards authority has been astute enough adds. “There are opportunities for
bodies need to address this issue. In- to hire people with quite sophis- more sharing of successful ideas/
terDigital is supporting the use of ticated technology and procure- projects and perhaps the chance
the open standard OneM2M, which ment backgrounds to say: we are to collaborate on deploying those
covers requirements, architecture, the city and we are the platform. solutions more widely or testing
API specifications and security We know our strategy and we will them in different environments
solutions. InterDigital said it has go to vendors to fulfill aspects of without reinventing the wheel.”
developed an OneM2M-compatible our strategy.”
platform, which it is deploying with Vendor lock-in isn’t the only po- The security challenge
cities in the U.K. to help integrate tential pitfall. City administra- Beyond standardization, secu-
data that was previously isolated. tions also need to consider how rity is probably the other major
“We started this project two their solutions will fit into the hurdle the smart city sector will
years ago as a feasibility study,” broader ICT fabric of their region. have to clear. If a city deploys con-
said Cepeda. “We are now in the “Smart cities are not alone,” not- nectivity and computing power in
pilot phase with four municipali- ed Cepeda. “As cities become suc- public spaces, there is a danger
ties and we really see benefits in cessful, property prices rise and criminals or terrorists will try to
sharing knowledge with the local people travel longer distances. Cit- hack into a smart city solution
authorities.” ies need to start integrating what and cause damage.
InterDigital envisions city ad- they are doing on a regional scale “The risks are very big,” noted
ministrations may be able to earn and ensure their solutions are in- Green. “You could break quite a lot.
revenue by making data available teroperable with deployments in This technology exposes some of
in a standardized format to large other cities. You shouldn’t have to the interfaces that wouldn’t have
enterprises and startups that be- download new apps to navigate in been exposed and the more you ex-
come successful. Cepeda adds each city you visit.” pose, the more scary it becomes.”
that the use of an open standard U.K. cities are working on com- Green also flags that installing sen-
to manage and organize data will mon approaches through the Brit- sors and cameras across public spac-
also help cities avoid being locked- ish Standards Institute and the es raises serious privacy concerns.
in to a single vendor. Future Cities Catapult initiative, However, if cities follow best

14
 FEATURE REPORT

Source: iBarcelona
CityOS Data Flow

practice in both security and privacy, All eyes on the economics Employing cloud-based “CityOS”
Green believes these challenges can Assuming standardization contin- solutions could help to keep costs
be overcome. The key in many cases ues apace and the security and pri- down and maintain flexibility,
will be balancing the commercial vacy challenges are contained, the Brown adds. But the major chal-
interests required to fund smart city speed at which smart city solutions lenge will still lie in addressing and
deployments with the broader public are deployed is likely to boil down integrating legacy infrastructure
interest in maintaining individual to hard economics. Brown at Strat- systems. 
privacy and collective security. egy Analytics notes cash-strapped “Cities need to make sure the path
“In 10 or 20 years, we will wake up cities will judge each solution on they go down is one that they can
and say who owns the data,” Wilson the net overall benefit, compared switch out,” Brown said. “They need
said. “Who owns the data is actually with other infrastructure invest- to be careful not to be using obso-
super important and if it just cor- ments, as well as the likely sustain- lete technology. … You can’t afford
porations that own the data, there ability of new solutions: will they to rip and replace if someone turns
will be a backlash.” stand the test of time? the lights off.”

15
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tion as sponsored guest and recognition as sponsor in all promotional materi- SEPTEMBER 2016
als. Sponsors will receive webinar registration and attendee list, responses to
pre and post surveys and polling responses gathered during webinar. HetNet Series:
Densification Strategies: Indoor or Outdoor?
Editorial Feature Report – in addition to recognition as sponsor in
program promotion, sponsorship includes 250 guaranteed leads, distinct from HetNet Series:
webinar leads, 2-page ad spread or advertorial in feature report, and respons-
es to lead capture survey questions. Breaking Down the 5G Future

For information contact 25% discount OCTOBER 2016

[email protected] When you sponsor 2 or more programs
IoT Innovation Series:
Testing the Internet of Things: Making IoT Functional
and Secure

Fast facts about RCR Wireless News digital network (October 2015) HetNet Series:
Building Tomorrow’s Networks: Best Practices for
372,863 monthly page views Deploying Hetnets
262,599 unique monthly visitors to websites
76,000+ opt in newsletter subscribers NOVEMBER 2016
269,957 monthly video minutes viewed on RCR Wireless News Youtube channel
Telecom Software Series:
68,522 monthly videos viewed on RCR Wireless News Youtube channel Securing Mobility in the Age of Analytics
Industry leading demand generation programs and results
Analyst Angle Series:
Mobile Backhaul and Fronthaul

DECEMBER 2016

Connected Car Series:

Connectivity and Services—Is the Industry Ready?

Each program is limited to three (3) sponsors

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