- Hungary-based European Smart Solutions Center streamlines Smart City expertise and activities
- Attractive WiFi solution for EU-sponsored Smart City initiative Wifi4EU
- Intuitive Mayor’s Dashboard provides easy access and control of implemented Smart City solutions; tracks data in real-time
Deutsche Telekom is working on numerous Smart City initiatives to accelerate the development of the Smart City ecosystem across Europe. As part of these efforts, the company has established a European Smart Solutions Center (ESC), based in Budapest. The goal of the ESC is to consolidate the smart city expertise and activities across Deutsche Telekom Group, support Go2Market activities, and to make its trusted smart city solutions available to municipalities in Europe. The center covers central functions such as marketing, partnering, pre-sales and delivery governance, and works closely with local smart city sales & delivery experts. The center also offers a unique competence in consulting cities to utilize funds for urban development, allocated by the European Union.
A working group of dedicated experts from across the DT Group focuses on productizing key solutions and platforms, as well as expanding existing smart city solutions. One of its focus areas is the development and implementation of smart city solutions based on NarrowBand IoT (NB-IoT), as the NB-IoT technology is ideally suited for many applications in this sector.
WiFi4EU – free WiFi access in public places
As part of its Digital Single Market policies, the European Commission has allocated a budget of 120 million euro to promote free access to wireless connectivity in public places across Europe such as parks, squares public buildings, libraries, health centers and museums. With its many years of experience in the public sector, Deutsche Telekom supports cities to participate in this initiative and secure the relevant funding.
Together with Cisco, Deutsche Telekom has developed a package for cities to implement a tailor-made, secure and user-friendly WiFi4EU solution very easily. The application can be customized by each city and provides additional benefits for citizens and visitors, such as the use of existing city applications for free, or information about city events and e-services. In addition, city administrations can receive real-time and historic crowd monitoring information which will help to improve city services.
“Deutsche Telekom’s aim is to be a leading smart city solutions provider in Europe and a trustworthy, reliable and long-term partner for any city’s move to digitization,” says Ralf Nejedl, Senior Vice President, B2B at Deutsche Telekom Europe. “With the power of IT and the Internet of Things we continue to deliver innovative solutions which help make cities future-proof, improve the quality of life for their citizens and enhance economic development.”
The WiFi4EU scheme will be disbursed in a geographically balanced manner, so that high-speed connections can benefit both residents and visitors of thousands of local communities across the EU - at least 6,000 to 8,000 local communities by 2020. The first call for projects is expected to be launched towards the end of 2017 or early 2018.
Smart City Dashboard provides easy overview and control
A further smart city project, which Deutsche Telekom is offering to cities across Europe, is the Mayor’s Dashboard. The web-based dashboard enables city administrators to monitor, control and optimize their city infrastructure and applications conveniently from any device, be that their smartphone, tablet or the big screen. It is fully customizable and allows data to be tracked in real-time. It also provides the possibility to integrate, save and visualize available data. The dashboard is highly intuitive and can easily be expanded to incorporate additional smart city applications in the future.
Deutsche Telekom at Smart City World Congress
More than 17,000 visitors from about 700 countries are expected to visit the Smart City World Congress (14. – 16. November) in Barcelona this year. At its booth (Hall P2, Street A, Stand 127), Deutsche Telekom shows a wide range of Smart City solutions, as well as live data from already existing projects: From Smart Transport solutions including Smart Parking, Smart Electric Vehicle Charging, Public Transport, Traffic & Passenger Management systems, to Smart Waste Management, Smart Lighting, Smart Metering and Smart Public Safety. Also on display are NarrowBand IoT-based solutions, as well as the Smart City Dashboard and the WiFi4EU solution. Further background on Deutsche Telekom’s vision for the Smart City of tomorrow is available in its newly published white paper ‘Smart Solutions for Sustainable Cities’.
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