Murray Dickson, Director of Sales, Enterprise, South Pacific, CommScope looks at what is needed to create a truly smart city.
Nations around the world have been channelling more investment dollars into smart city technologies as each nation looks to embrace the global trend towards making major urban centres more productive and user friendly for citizens.
The Australian government introduced New Smart Cities Plan in 2018 to review different-allocated public budgets already in place, to better coordinate and drive smart city policies across the country as well as establish clear models of infrastructure, innovation and sustainability within the realms of modern urban society.
Complementary to the New Smart Cities Plan, the push locally to create cities of the future has been to deploy public Wi-Fi. While this is the right first step, it is by no means the be all and end all. The new wave of smart cities spreads improvements beyond Wi-Fi connectivity. Wi-Fi in isolation does not make a city smart; it is a tool that allows for a smart city ecosystem to be developed. In order to make things “smart” and improve overall efficiency IoT devices are connected through a network to the cloud.
Once the IoT sensors are connected to the data centre brain, the development of intelligent data to drive new analytics and services can begin – in addition to more processing power shifting to the edge, with the deployment of mobile edge computing (MEC). As these IoT edge devices and MECs are required to be in close proximity to users, city streetlights are increasingly transforming into smart poles.
Additionally, the introduction of 5G networks in the future will bring sophisticated connectivity to the edge along with IoT devices with even higher speeds, more machine-to-machine connections with very low latencies – enabling a new generation of applications and use cases that we have yet to see.
A truly effective smart city strategy should be based on creating real benefits for the community and one that successfully addresses social issues.
What makes a city truly ‘smart’?
In June 2019, the nation’s largest smart city project, Switching on Darwin, was successfully completed making Darwin one of the world’s leading smart cities. The $10 million project included 912 new LED lights, 138 new CCTV cameras, 39 new hotpots to extend free Wi-Fi, environmental sensors and hundreds of smart parking sensors.
Smart city applications provide the ability to remotely monitor, manage and control devices – and they require networks that are much faster, offer lower latency, and seamlessly integrate with IoT devices. To work well, 5G must be available anywhere a device needs access to it.
When connectivity is treated as a utility, cities can facilitate citywide rollouts of 5G services so they are uniformly available. A great example of this is the use of fibre-fed light poles or other “street furniture” as locations for 5G small cells. With 5G, operators are densifying their networks, deploying small cells in urban locations.
It’s clear that connectivity is the basic requirement for smart cities. However, fibre-fed 5G wireless is the infrastructure making it all possible. To successfully enable 5G universally, cities and service providers must work in harmony – and a shared infrastructure makes 5G a realistic and viable business model for both cities and service providers.
Implementing a strategic smart city blueprint
Strategic partnerships between local authorities and corporates who have the know-how and funds to build a smart city are crucial. There are three key trends shaping the way smart cities are built and developed: long term planning, creative financing and network convergence.
Nowadays instead of building out siloed applications specifically for use case like surveillance cameras, smart lightning or traffic sensors, organisations need to think long-term and build basic infrastructure that is configured to support all smart city applications. More projects that combine government funding with public-private partnerships are emerging. This is due to the simple fact that cities today are not always the end provider for public utilities like water, gas, electricity and connectivity, but they enable construction of the basic infrastructure that delivers these services.
Now that wireless infrastructure is becoming more centralised, wireless backhaul traffic should be converged onto the fibre used by wireline services. There are real-life examples where a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network was built for a street and several months later that same street dug up to lay fibre for a wireless cell site. Such practices are expensive, disruptive and to be avoided.
The network convergence approach where a single infrastructure deployment is used for multiple service delivery platforms makes sense, especially for large incumbent service providers who are providing wide-scale wireline and wireless offerings. With 5G expected to make an impact in 2020 and beyond, it is important that smart cities are already working with these service providers to lay out the infrastructure for network convergence.
Delivering huge social benefits
There is also heightened competition between councils as they look to access a share of the initial $50 million the Australian Government has allocated to its Smart Cities and Suburbs Program (SCSP). There should be a collaborative approach to ensure that no one misses out on the benefits of smart city living.
For instance, a smart city not only makes lives easier for the citizens, but also boost tourism. One of the key drivers behind providing public Wi-Fi was to provide visitors in popular tourist regions with access to services such as online payment platforms like Alipay as soon as they arrive, thus encouraging them to stay longer, spend more, and enjoy a better experience.
Free public Wi-Fi as a starting point to smart city planning democratises access for those who cannot afford a contract, gives internet access to even the most marginalised citizens, such as the homeless. It also makes it easier for visitors who rely on internet access during their stay, rather than being hit with expensive data roaming fees. This in turn, helps encourage spending for the local economy.
Furthermore, we are just getting started with 5G networks in Australia. Once the technology takes off, 5G’s high-speed connectivity could drive the next wave of innovations such as autonomous vehicles, on-demand, on-the-go digital healthcare, and also power virtual reality/augmented reality commercial and industrial applications.
In addition to high tech initiatives, smart city innovations also help to address social or economic challenges that have a direct impact on people’s lives such as better transportation, cleaner streets, reduced power consumption, and improved emergency responses.
The sleek, futuristic sci-fi visions often used to promote the utopian dream of smart cities with isolated high-tech buildings, streets, or cities tend to alienate citizens. In reality, the vision of building a smart city is clear; to harness technology to improve the lives of citizens, create more economic opportunities and build stronger communities.
In the quest to build smart cities that deliver positive social impacts, technology and connectivity will undoubtedly be key enablers, underpinned by infrastructure, proper long-term planning and strategic partnerships.
