The Smart City Common Denominator
Public Sector and Energy Utility Collaboration
Smart cities encompass a full spectrum of city systems, including transportation, energy, water, engaged citizens, health and safety, environmental sustainability, building management and so much more.
The associated applications and citizen services must seamlessly integrate together – enabling the sharing of information between people and their city to deliver more efficient, prosperous and economically thriving communities.
Many different stakeholders are buzzing about smart cities these days, and for good reason. Implementing ‘smart’ solutions can dramatically improve safety, efficiency and economic competitiveness for all citizens.
But many of these efforts are happening in silos, creating more heat than light in delivering real benefits at scale. And, a critical stakeholder is often missing. The local utility may be deploying ‘smart’ in parallel and is already the established player responsible for providing critical infrastructure.
The common denominator in helping both groups is simple: a networking platform on which critical infrastructure connectivity is created – allowing the entire city infrastructure to interact with the community and with itself – by creating an Internet of Things connected by advanced IP technology.
The standards-based wireless IP-based networking that we’re deploying is particularly well suited for connecting all of the devices and infrastructure in hard-to-reach parts of cities. You can imagine that the sensors and control devices that control the distribution of energy, roads and bridges, trains and traffic are often underground, down the ally, in a metal box or behind the doors of a steel vault.
