Solutions
Street lighting is where a smart city starts.
By using the Internet of Things, cities now have access to technologies that improve quality of life and the efficiency of public services. Street lighting is the default application to introduce them: it already provides the base infrastructure — poles, power, and a citywide footprint — for a mesh or 5G communication network and every future IoT technology layered on top.
The energy consumed for street lighting can account for up to 65% of a city’s electricity costs, and as much as 10% of its overall budget — which is exactly why the system controlling it deserves this much thought before it is chosen.
What cities need from an IoT system
Future-readiness
Built for services that don’t exist yet
Like any large infrastructure project, the system a city picks becomes the foundation for many services over many years. That makes it essential to think through what it should still be able to support a decade from now, not just what it needs to do on day one.
Read the articleSecurity
The same network can carry an emergency alert
A smart city’s digital infrastructure can also improve street safety directly. An emergency public-alert system can broadcast audio and visual alerts describing the nature of an emergency to anyone who can see or hear it — without a separate network to build and maintain.
Read the Sterling Ranch case studyOpenness
The backbone for whatever gets added next
Because street lighting is usually the foundation of a smart-city platform, openness matters most right here: this system becomes the backbone other systems and applications connect to later, and a closed one forecloses options a city hasn’t thought of yet.
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Choosing a system for your own city?
Talk to us about what future-readiness, security and openness should mean for your network specifically.