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  • Author Author: Instructorman
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Future proofing smart city data communication infrastrucure

Many municipalities are interested in investing in smart city infrastructure to monitor and manage resource consumption, traffic congestion, et cetera, and to add value to urban living through intelligent analysis of data gathered from sensor networks.  The technology that enables monitoring and management on urban scales is emerging.  One issue that is holding back many municipalities is the question of what infrastructure to embed in order to allow data communication for all the anticipated sensors that may be installed in the future.

 

What do you think is the best strategy that will future proof data communication infrastructure in a smart city context?

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  • I looked over some research and white papers. The following condenses what vendors are discussing about Smart City infrastructure:

     

    Cisco doesn’t had clarity or a final word on the subject when it says in its “The Internet of Everything for Cities,” The communication media itself can be fairly diverse (wireless Internet connection, radio frequency, GPRS, 4G/LTE, power line communication, and IP).”

     

    Industry researcher IDC cites in its white paper called “Smart Cities and the Internet of Everything:  The Foundation for Delivering Next-Generation Citizen Services,” a plan by the city of Barcelona for its smart city. Barcelona planned that “the backbone for this is a fiber-optic and WiFi network as the platform to improve service delivery.” This paper is 3 years old, however.

     

    The City of San Jose uses the Starfish network, which is the Sliver Spring Network. I looked it up, Silver Spring says this: "Cellular providers like to brag about how great their coverage is today.  However, cellular is still a tower-based solution, which requires point-to-point connections from expensive cell towers. The price of monthly cellular charges has fallen over the last few years, but operators still have to pay a substantial bill every month for a cellular-only solution for millions of devices. Silver Spring provides a mesh-based solution that is backhaul agnostic.  Our Access Points support Ethernet and cellular backhaul, but network operators can also connect to Wi-Fi, satellite, WiMAX, fiber, or other backhaul methods from the Access Point.  Our Access Points can backhaul traffic from up to 5,000 devices, so monthly OPEX costs are greatly reduced. You can’t see around a corner with a tower-based solution, but you can mesh around a corner.  Our customers deploy mesh networks and dictate the coverage they need for their applications using our self-forming and self-healing mesh."

     

    Randall

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  • I looked over some research and white papers. The following condenses what vendors are discussing about Smart City infrastructure:

     

    Cisco doesn’t had clarity or a final word on the subject when it says in its “The Internet of Everything for Cities,” The communication media itself can be fairly diverse (wireless Internet connection, radio frequency, GPRS, 4G/LTE, power line communication, and IP).”

     

    Industry researcher IDC cites in its white paper called “Smart Cities and the Internet of Everything:  The Foundation for Delivering Next-Generation Citizen Services,” a plan by the city of Barcelona for its smart city. Barcelona planned that “the backbone for this is a fiber-optic and WiFi network as the platform to improve service delivery.” This paper is 3 years old, however.

     

    The City of San Jose uses the Starfish network, which is the Sliver Spring Network. I looked it up, Silver Spring says this: "Cellular providers like to brag about how great their coverage is today.  However, cellular is still a tower-based solution, which requires point-to-point connections from expensive cell towers. The price of monthly cellular charges has fallen over the last few years, but operators still have to pay a substantial bill every month for a cellular-only solution for millions of devices. Silver Spring provides a mesh-based solution that is backhaul agnostic.  Our Access Points support Ethernet and cellular backhaul, but network operators can also connect to Wi-Fi, satellite, WiMAX, fiber, or other backhaul methods from the Access Point.  Our Access Points can backhaul traffic from up to 5,000 devices, so monthly OPEX costs are greatly reduced. You can’t see around a corner with a tower-based solution, but you can mesh around a corner.  Our customers deploy mesh networks and dictate the coverage they need for their applications using our self-forming and self-healing mesh."

     

    Randall

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