Smart Cities Miss Key Benefits When Telecommunications Service Providers Lack a Key RoleDoes it make sense that telecommunications service providers (SPs) are not playing a critical role in projects to create smart cities? The facts of the matter are that involvement still remains limited. This is true even though telecommunications itself plays a central role. As a result, telecom SPs compete with cable companies, utilities and other service providers in an effort to provide information and communications technology (ICT) and other services.
Reality is that this competition can create a disconnect in the delivery of valuable services, limiting the reach and capabilities of the resulting smart city.
A recent posting by Alcatel-Lucent "Getting Smart About Smart Cities About Smart Cities,” highlights the importance of leveraging key assets within telecommunications service provider infrastructures to partner with key players in the creation of smart cities using IMS solutions to leverage the migration to end-to-end IP networks. In doing so, these providers significantly change their role from facilitators to strategic partners with key industries and governments in the development of these projects. To gain a better understanding of the current environment and process to develop smart cities, the Alcatel-Lucent Market and Consumer Insight team conducted a three-part analysis of 52 smart cities in 2011. This process included examining smart cities from two angles:
- Key stakeholders and their contribution to concepts and realization
- The impact these stakeholders influenced development
The study revealed that the value propositions for most initiatives involving smart cities do not position Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as key to the value of smart city (and smart grid in general) projects. In addition, they found that the implementation of the necessary capabilities tends to be determined mostly by the motivations of those driving the project and hence not having telecom SPs at the table from the start can be problematic.
A vast ecosystem of key players is at the center of smart city projects, the players include those from multiple disciplines within government entities and representatives from small to large multinational business firms. Governments tend to start the projects for creating smart cities with vendor playing a somewhat background role. And, the study found that these scenarios can create their complications.
While relationships develop among stakeholders involved with smart cities projects, it is not clear how these relationships are created or maintained over the life of a project. This is a classic case of the famous Nelson Mandela quote, “Where one stands depends upon where one sat.” Each project is driven by a multitude of motivations and interests. These include such things as the need to invent or construct a new economic model, the need or wish to reduce energy consumption, or the need to improve the environment of city life.
For telecom and other SPs to find their role in the process and demonstrate the value they bring to the table, it’s critical that they understand how the development of smart cities impacts all other players. This means clear demonstration of the value of critical infrastructure elements as evolving 4G LTE (News - Alert) with integrated and/or predominant Wi-Fi access, along with how to leverage IMS. It also means a clear articulation of how using the vast array of mobile solutions for the key machine-to-machine (M2M) capabilities that are core to smart grids, and making the case as to how, what, when, where and why the planning, deployment and maintenance of such capabilities, are essential to project success. As the ALU posting observes, breaking through some of the ambiguous relationships, motivations and other elements can identify clear patterns for constructing the right strategy for involvement. And, as previously mentioned, telecom SPs must communicate that value of involvement with key stakeholders to ensure them not just a significant seat at the table from project start, but the centrality of their value-added from concept to project completion and beyond. In short, telecom SPs need to change the conversation so that they are involved early and often.
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