Smart Cities Create New Boundaries

Barcelona, Busan Metropolitan City, Incheon Metropolitan City, Holyoke, Songdo, Lavasa, Skolkovo, Chengdu Hi-Tech Development Zone, San Francisco, Bengaluru, and Chongqing have one thing in common. What is that one thing which connects all these cities spread across different geographies? All these cities are planning to transform themselves for facilitating efficient delivery and management of services thereby bringing economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

All these cities are part of “Smart+ Connected Communities (S+CC)”, a global initiative of Cisco whereby network as a platform is used to transform physical communities to connected communities run on networked information to enable economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The new initiative works on new business models where solutions and services are delivered on a service delivery platform (SDP) along with broad system of partners with proven expertise across greenfield and revitalization projects focused on-electricity, security, healthcare, education, sewerage and sanitation, water supply, transport, and housing. All these tracks are either standalone or in combination and provides economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Economic sustainability will help in creating jobs, boosting key industries, and attracting new businesses. Social sustainability will help in providing access to enhance quality of life of citizens and also provide social inclusion whereas environmental sustainability will help in lowering environmental impact and create a greener society.

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S+CC helps in facilitating efficient delivery and management of services within a community. For eg, community+connect helps in delivering comprehensive services to residents and businesses in a connected community whereas community+exchange helps in enabling the management and operation of a connected community to share information and collaborate across a community's ecosystem of government agencies and private sector partners.

New Age Cities

According to some studies it is expected that by 2020, $10 tn will be used for infrastructure build-up and of this 2.5% will be used for ICT technology. Not only this even existing cities will get congested and they need to focus on technology for better management of services like security, healthcare, electricity, education, sewerage and sanitation, water supply, transport and housing.

It seems Cisco is racing ahead with respect to S+CC and has already signed MoUs/pilots/commercial deployment with around 25 cities worldwide. Let's look at some of the new age cities and their plans w.r.t sustainable development.

Busan is a bustling city of approximately 3.6 mn residents and is located on the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula. The second-largest city in Korea, Busan occupies about 766 sq kms and around 8% of the entire Korean peninsula. Busan Metropolitan city is focusing on urban healthcare, electricity, education, sewerage and sanitation, water supply, transport and housing and mobility, distance learning, energy management, and safety and security by 2014 and the aim is to transform the way of life for Busan citizens by improving city management and generating new economic growth in a sustainable environment. The city has launched an innovative center to host variety of services for its citizens. Operating like an application store for developers, the Busan Mobile Application Development Center (BMAC), marks the first phase of the city's deployment of S+CC services, in collaboration with Cisco and Korea Telecom

San Francisco (city and county) is undertaking development of a number of major sustainable urban development projects, at locations including the Hunters Point Shipyard and Treasure Island. The city envisions revitalizing these underutilized properties into some of the most innovative sustainable urban development projects for creating new residential units and creating new opportunities. In San Francisco, the focus is on quality of life, green and technology innovation towards urban development and understanding the evolutionary steps needed to embark on these transitions with initiatives in areas like environment, healthcare, education, utilities, public safety and security and urban services, all designed to enhance the work and play of life for residents, workforce and visitors.

Holyoke is selecting central downtown district as a pilot for providing citizens with critical urban services such as education, healthcare, and improved access to local and state government. The city is focusing on developing a new transportation hub and is investigating the potential for multi-use buildings to improve services in areas such as education, healthcare and support for micro-businesses.

Lavasa, the first complete e-city closer to Pune, is planning to build a next generation intelligent sustainable community. The focus here is on city management services, e-governance, ICT infrastructure, and value-added services, including proposing and implementing intelligent solutions for the home and digital lifestyles based on shared vision of sustainable urbanization. Plans are also to design infrastructure for telecom services for governance, as well as solutions for the residents of Lavasa and their visitors. The telecom based services will help in facilitating smart homes and buildings, including integrated building management systems, physical security requirements, and other on-demand services.

The government of Karnataka has also announced a pilot program in developing a roadmap for an intelligent and sustainable Bengaluru. As part of the pilot program, Cisco will work with Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and Karnataka Police to improve public safety and security around one of the major bus terminals in Bengaluru. The project will help enable public safety and security at strategic points within the terminal, offering remote monitoring capabilities with real-time information.

Chongqing's long-term development plan is to become a connected city that has a high-speed information highway at its heart. The municipal government in the city is planning for a strategic relationship to advance Chongqing's IT manufacturing industry, spur innovation and R&D in green technologies and to develop S+CC solutions. The collaboration aims to support China's long-term strategy of green GDP growth, energy savings, and emissions control.

Cisco's Positioning

For Smart+Connected Communities, Cisco plans to take a leadership role by making cities smart. The company has been working with lot of muncipalities to provide sustainable development in their own way and it will take time when these fructify. In order to make this a reality, the company has been working with large city developers, automation companies, system integrators and telecom service providers to provide complete solution. Not only this, the company has developed a service delivery platform whereby large and small companies in consortium will work together to provide complete solution to cities. Focus is also on developing ecosystem partners or application developers for smarter cities and the focus is both on global and local companies.

Cisco is perfectly positioned to lead smart city due to broad solution profolio, strong balance sheet, and innovative ideas says Anil Menon, president, globalization and smart+connected communities, Cisco Systems.

For Cisco, the S+CC challenge is big and also cumbersome since the company is moving in an unchartered territory where there is lot to learn and lot to invest. Not only this, the company has to do all the right things before the market takes off. Presently, it seems Cisco's solutions are more for greenfield projects rather than older cities and the company needs to make it solutions available as well as affordable for older cities. Not only this, the company will face lot of challenges from local regulators and there would be lot of customization required city to city. Getting the right partners which would be quiet complex and also getting their willingness to invest in future technologies will also be a big daunting task for Cisco.

It looks difficult for Cisco to thrash all its issues in 3-5 year's timeframe but if it succeeds as Cisco has done in the past it will open up new revenue streams which the company can reap in 20-30 years.

Pravin Prashant
pravinp@cybermedia.co.in