By Kamal Mokrani, Global Vice President, InfiNet Wireless

We now find ourselves steeped in the Fourth Industrial Revolution – an era that could potentially see every one of us humans, and every piece of machinery we use, seamlessly networked together. Every aspect of our lives, from our classroom experiences to our daily commute, is being digitised, as we move inexorably towards the smart city paradigm.

But unlike the jetpacks and flying cars we looked forward to in the 1980s, smart cities are not only more viable, but are taking shape around us as you read this. Governments within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) have shown unparalleled ambition in creating these digital societies, embarking on medium-term economic visions that leverage technology to lay the foundations for smart cities. In addition, the region’s conference centres are regular hosts for smart-city-themed events aimed at creating awareness and igniting innovation.

The way forward

So, what is the blueprint for the smart society? What constitutes best practice? And how can we ensure the foundations are sound enough to support value-adding solutions that revolutionise civic life?

The first thing to recognise is that legacy cable infrastructures can only take the smart-city pioneer so far. Many of the unique selling points of smart cities involve the necessary feature of mobility. Traffic optimisation, automated public safety and remote health monitoring are just three examples where key elements (vehicles, CCTV cameras and people) can be anywhere, and data needs to be available from them in real time. Cabled solutions severely hamper the delivery of such solutions.

In addition, cabled solutions are extraordinarily disruptive in their deployment, requiring significant undertakings from the perspectives of both civil engineering and the public purse. Both factors also amount to considerable lifespans for cabling projects, thereby dampening the momentum of smart city initiatives.

Wireless presents itself as an obvious candidate for any government intent on crafting its own smart city. But care must be taken when selecting the platform on which all future smart solutions will be built. Choose the wrong one, and visionary advances could grind to a halt.

Mobile matters

According to GSMA Intelligence’s 2017 Mobile Economy report, mobile Internet subscriber penetration in the Middle East and North Africa reached 36% in 2016 and is projected to top 46% by 2020. In its 2015 report, GSMA Intelligence predicted 327 million smartphone connections in the Arab world – or around two thirds of the total connection base – by 2020.

Figures like these call out for diligence in selection of wireless platforms, as many smart city solutions involve data feedback to citizens as well as municipal authorities. Certainly, significant capacity is required to serve the rising numbers of connected citizens. Always-on reliability is a standard assumption among solutions providers and government innovators. And flexibility in configuration is also a must, so that policy-makers and enterprises can respond quickly to shifts in behaviour.

An effective smart infrastructure also needs to be capable of split-second decision making, in the order of 3ms or lower. Adopting a 3G platform with latency of 100 to 120ms, clearly will not meet the stringent requirements of “smart”. And 4G networks only reach 50 or 60ms in latency. Even 5G, projected to deliver response times of between 1 and 5ms, will be delivered as a series of shared networks, used by millions of consumers and businesses.

Quality of service

A suitable, quality-of-service mobile-Internet solution needs to be IP-based, provide guaranteed delivery of each and every packet and be capable of connecting seamlessly to any data source and any current or future sensors. Consider the CCTV-based public safety system mentioned earlier. Real-time image-processing is computationally expensive. Low latency, fidelity of data transfer and extraordinary software capabilities come together to deliver features such as facial recognition, ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) and a host of other crowd-based analytics services that translate into safer, more secure environments.

The previous examples also illustrate the need for any smart mobile infrastructure to mitigate interference and radio noise, especially as the number of wireless networks increases within the fledgling smart city. Failure to do so will lead to a degradation in fidelity of data transfer. The more corrupted the data is, the less desirable the results from real-time analytics engines.

Stay the course

Our journey towards the smart cities of tomorrow must be less of a sprint and more of a methodical march. Healthcare, education, security and public safety all await the innovators. Their solutions – if built on the back of a robust, flexible, responsive and reliable wireless platform – will usher in that new smart city age we have all been waiting for.

Telecom Review GITEX Technology Week 2017 - s 79