Smart city development is on the rise. In fact, the smart city market is set to experience a compound annual growth rate of 22.5% between 2014 and 2019, growing from roughly $411 billion to $1.13 trillion during that five-year period, according to MarketsandMarkets.
For example, a smart city initiative is currently underway that would position Kansas City, Mo., as the largest smart city in North America. City officials partnered with Cisco in a $15 million investment to build an intuitive smart city network, according to local reports.
This development will boost the city’s appeal and operational structure with such things as digital kiosks that share relevant city information with citizens, as well as sensors that collect and aggregate traffic data in real time.
Metropolitan areas currently consume about 75% of all global energy and produce 80% of global carbon emissions. However, the adoption of smart city technology has the potential to cut those numbers significantly.
Of course, Kansas City is only one of many smart city developments in production. In New York City, one of the world’s most populated regions, smart city projects like City 24/7 are being implemented in an effort to better inform and engage with residents and tourists. The platform aggregates data collected by government and business entities – even information that is publicly shared by citizens – to create a central knowledge hub accessible by anyone, anywhere.
In Boston, residents and visitors can enjoy using Soofas – solar-powered benches capable of charging users’ Internet-connected devices. The benches can even improve air quality via embedded technology that continually monitors air quality levels.
It’s imperative that smart cities be powered by secure, efficient and ubiquitous connectivity solutions that can support these unique and often challenging “Internet of Things” initiatives. However, many current developments are still being supported by technologies like Wi-Fi or 2G, which given the use case are unreliable or outdated. For instance, the Kansas City development is expected to run on a public Wi-Fi connection that, although cost-efficient and widely available to users, could hinder the smart city project, as Wi-Fi connections can be spotty and, if too many users are connected, become bandwidth-constrained.
The bottom line is that IoT – connected devices and systems for streamlining everyday operations and communications – is a huge boon for metropolitan/urban regions. But to maximize the extremely costly infrastructure investments cities are making, city decision makers and regulators should consider adopting 4G LTE.
Even more critical, with new low-cost chipsets, 4G LTE solutions are now being offered at a historically low price point, making it an ideal choice for smart city IoT deployments.
It is clear that smart cities offer tremendous economic, social and environmental benefits. As the U.S. continues to invest in machine-to-machine and IoT technologies to power incredible smart city applications, 4G LTE will pay a vital role in the creation and realization of a truly smart nation.
Eran Eshed is the co-founder and VP marketing and business development at Altair Semiconductor, a developer of single-mode LTE chipsets. Altair’s portfolio covers the complete spectrum of cellular 4G market needs, from supercharged video-centric applications all the way to ultra-low power, low-cost IoT and M2M.
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