The Smart Cities Mission is an innovative initiative of the Indian government that is aimed at improving the quality of life by enabling local development and harnessing technology for creating smart outcomes. The government has envisaged the creation of 100 smart cities with an initial investment of Rs 1 billion per city per year for the next five years. An equal amount is to be contributed by state governments/urban local bodies.

A robust information and communications technology (ICT) network and digitisation have been stipulated as the core infrastructure elements of a smart city. With the aim of providing citizen-friendly and cost-effective governance, the government has advocated increased reliance on online services to bring about accountability and transparency. This involves using mobile phones to avail of services conveniently and at a low cost. The government has also proposed the setting up of e-groups to obtain feedback from citizens, as well as the online monitoring of programmes and activities with the help of cyber tours of worksites.

Given the immense significance of ICT in the proposed architecture, the Smart Cities Mission is being viewed as the next big opportunity in the Indian telecom sector.

Telecom requirements

Smart cities will require high speed and high-capacity communication networks for transportation, security and energy, making well-established telecom infrastructure a vital aspect in their development. Applications and technologies like location-based services, mobility, analytics, cloud computing, advanced metering, near-field communication, big data, internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications will also be essential tools for setting up an interconnected smart city.

tele.net takes a look at the significance of these technologies and the progress in their development…

  • M2M communications: Through M2M technology, data can automatically be collected and transmitted from various sensors through a network module. With specific gateways, it can then be decoded and used by analysts for the automation of machines.

Some policy progress has been made on this front. In May 2015, the telecom ministry unveiled the National Telecom M2M Roadmap for providing guidance to all stakeholders in nurturing M2M communications. Recently, the Tele­com­mu­nications Engineering Centre recommended to the Department of Tele­com­munications to set aside at least 10-12 MHz of spectrum for sensors and other connected devices. At present, around 2 MHz of spectrum in the 865-867 MHz band is available for connected devices to communicate with each other.

  • IoT: IoT offers a horizontal view by integrating different industry verticals into one process. It forms the basis of a smart city by facilitating the interconnection of a large number of machines, devices, sensors and actuators with each other and with other higher-level systems, including the cloud. According to a report by Gartner, the number of IoT devices to be used in smart cities is expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2016; marking an increase of 39 per cent over 2015. Commercial security cameras and webcams as well as indoor LEDs will drive the overall growth of IoT and account for 24 per cent of the total IoT market for smart cities. Smart commercial buildings will be the biggest users of IoT till 2017, after which smart homes will take the lead with around 1 billion connected parts in 2018.
  • Cloud services: With the help of the cloud, domain-specific applications and services can be scaled up without in­creasing investments in infrastructure. The elasticity of cloud resource provisioning can help virtual verticals manage fluctuating user demands. A smart city will require a cloud-based service delivery platform that integrates smart devices and infrastructure and processes data from the large amount of scattered sources in real time.

A large number of enterprises in the re­tail, banking, finance, education, health care and IT sectors have adopted the cloud. Government departments are us­­­­­ing the GI Cloud (Meghraj) to host in­for­mation. Gartner expects India’s cloud computing market to reach $1.9 billion by 2019.

Key players in the market

Since the announcement of the Smart Cities Mission, many vendors have been showcasing their offerings to tap the opportunities in the market. In Septem­ber 2014, Cisco launched its own smart city in Bengaluru. It showcased how a pervasive physical network infrastructure could easily be connected to devices like sensors, information access points and mobile devices with a high degree of security. The company is in talks with various state governments to transform 20 cities into smart cities. It is working on project proposals in Jaipur, Pune, Navi Mumbai and Lucknow. Tele­com gear manufacturer Ericsson has also an­­­­nounced the setting up of a new unit call­ed “Industry and Society”, which will focus on providing solutions for smart cities.

Among telecom operators, Bharti Air­tel is currently working on smart metering solutions with electricity boards. It has also collaborated with the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation to deploy a satellite-based vehicle tracking system and fuel monitoring system.

Vodafone Business Services, the enterprise unit of Vodafone India, has partnered with construction equipment manufacturer JCB India to provide M2M solutions for powering Livelink, the latter’s ad­vanced telematics system. This will enable the remote monitoring of construction equipment and also provide information related to its operations and security. The operator is working with system integrators, device manufacturers and application service providers to offer new services like health monitoring, school bus tracking and personal emergency systems.

Reliance Communications has also announced that it is testing its own M2M solutions across associated companies in the power, cement distribution and health care industries.

The way forward

The successful implementation of the Smart Cities Mission will require meticulous planning, effective capital disbursement and large investments in infrastructure. There are also challenges related to standardisation and security. On the security side, the main challenge is to find ways of mitigating the threat of cyberattacks that could hit vital systems and affect daily life by impeding patient monitoring devices, traffic signalling systems and mobile wallets, etc. On the standardisation side, the problem lies in the fragmentation of the IoT industry into many organisations and platforms and the lack of a unified standard.

Going forward, the development of smart cities will require a pragmatic approach towards technological development. In this regard, ICT is expected to play a major role.