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#SmartCityChallenge: U.S. DoT Secretary Introduction

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

Anthony Foxx, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, along with Constance Sayers, president of Government Executive Media, introduce the final round of pitches from the seven finalist cities involved in the Smart City Challenge, which will award the winner with $40 million in federal funding for driving smart city initiatives.

#SmartCityChallenge: Kansas City Pitch

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

Sly James, mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, lays out his vision for smart mobility and transport, as well the economic and social benefits it will create.

#SmartCityChallenge: San Francisco Pitch

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee gives the city's final pitch to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which will award $40 million to the winner of the Smart City Challenge.

NFV And SDN Development And Deployment Update – NFV/SDN Reality Check Episode 63

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

This week’s featured interview is with Current Analysis where we discuss the current pace of NFV and SDN development and deployment by telecom operators and what could be holding up the process.

But first, let’s take a look at some top headlines from across the space over the past week.

AT&T was tabbed as being furthest along in NFV deployments, though telecom rival Verizon is becoming more vocal in its own advances, according to a recent report from Technology Business Research.

In touting AT&T’s progress, TBR highlighted the telecom operator’s own touting of its moves towards network virtualization technology using NFV and SDN.

The research firm explained AT&T has been aggressive in its deployments, citing its AT&T Integrated Cloud, Network on Demand and its ECOMP project, which AT&T said is designed to automate network services and infrastructure running in a cloud environment.

TBR added AT&T’s aggressive rollout plans ahead of some standardization work are somewhat reliant on the industry adopting common platforms for critical functions, “which is why AT&T is promoting open source solutions and may, in turn, share parts of its internal solutions with the open source community.”

TBR said this method is expected to allow AT&T to “achieve substantial benefits from NFV deployments within the next two years, including lower spend and increased revenue.”

As for Verizon, TBR found the telecom operator has been highlighting its work on managed software-defined WAN, virtual network security solutions and cloud interconnect through its Secure Cloud Interconnect platform. The carrier is expected this year to further boost those options with SDN WAN multitenant, NFV orchestration and NFV hosting.

Verizon was also cited for being tough on the vendor community, with TBR noting criticism from Verizon on “incomplete orchestrators, not delivering on multitenant solutions capabilities, providing ‘gray’ boxes rather than true commodity white boxes and not fully addressing service assurance.”

The carrier has also been critical of suppliers charging for increment of new software functionality added to” a solution rather than business value from end-customer benefits; and “to understand that delivery options for the solution must be aligned to the service provider’s needs, not the vendor’s.”

TBR also noted Verizon’s efforts also look to be targeting support for “5G” technology plans, with indications the carrier is “looking at aligning NFV/SDN to fulfill 5G requirements and planning to move its wireless network services closer to the edge of the network using NFV.”

Also this week, a new report from Strategy Analytics suggests service providers should first move on virtualizing their network and service platforms to reduce risks associated with deploying NFV into cloud environments.

The firm cited ongoing concerns regarding “carrier class” reliability of NFV and SDN solutions in support of commercial services, which has sequestered initial deployments to more limited enterprise models.

The firm also noted service providers faced with changing operations processes while simultaneously installing unproven ‘bare metal’ solutions could dramatically increase the risks of NFV deployment and delay the rollout of SDN/NFV next generation networks.

In looking to help service providers clear these hurdles, Strategy Analytics suggests 16 requirements for virtualizing networking platforms as “a first step on the road to the NFV compliant public ‘telco cloud,’” and highlighting five vendor platforms it claims meet the requirements across different network and services.

For this week’s featured interview, we spoke with Peter Jarich, VP of infrastructure and consumer at Current Analysis to get his insight into the current pace of NFV and SDN development and deployment in the telecom space, and what issues are still holding up that progress.

That will do it for this week’s show. Make sure to check us out again next week when we are scheduled to speak with TM Forum to wrap up news and events from its recent Live event in Nice, France.

MulteFire Alliance Chairman Discusses The Totally Unlicensed Technology

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

In this interview, Stephan Litjens, MulteFire Alliance Board Chair and head of Innovation Steering at Nokia, discusses MulteFire, a flavor of LTE that is deployed in unlicensed spectrum without the need for an anchor band in licensed spectrum. He also discusses the work of the MulteFire Alliance, potential use cases and outlook for commercialization.

Understanding MulteFire: HetNet Happenings - Episode 53

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

In this episode of HetNet Happenings, MulteFire Alliance Chairman Stephan Litjens gives an overview of the LTE in unlicensed spectrum technology, as well as an outlook for commercialization. We also see Qualcomm demonstrate MulteFire and hear from Senza Fili Consulting President Monica Paolini on the topic.

Building Blocks Of A Smart City: A Smart City Talk

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

Interview discussion on lessons learned in building smart infrastructure projects, from buildings to transportation, the challenges and opportunities of working with public, private partnerships at a large city level and within the real estate community that owns a large portion of the city skyline. This is a unique opportunity to explore an emerging sector from those in the technology sector who have both paved the way and are inventing its next evolution.

Panelists:
• Darlene Pope, Sr. Vice President, Energy and Sustainability Services, JLL
• Mark Parr, CEO, Bandwidth Logic
• Chelsea Collier , Digi.City
• Brandon Knicely, Third Drive

The Definition Of A Smart City And Why It Matters

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

Patrick Russell , a Masters of Science student in Urban Planning at the University of Texas at Austin who is studying smart city development for his thesis statement defines what the term smart city means to him and his research, as well as why it matters to the future of all cities.

Smart City Challenges And Opportunties

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:05 +0000

Vijay George, a Senior Consultant at NMG Group, discusses Smart City Innovation Summit highlights, as well as the power of cities coming together in collaboration to determine challenges and opportunities in the smart city space.

Making The Voice Of The Connected Citizen Heard

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

Nick Mastronardi, Founder and CEO of Polco, explains why more smart city and IoT conversations need to involve the voice of the connected citizen. These are the people that will be using smart city technology in their daily lives so it is critical to get feedback from them.

Polco enables this with a collection of products and services designed to increase civic engagement, improve government transparency, and inform municipal governments of constituents’ input which, in turn, will help better guide public policy.

Smart City Technology Enables Upward Mobility Opportunity

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

Joseph Kopser, President of moovel (formerly RideScout), explains what topics at the Smart City Innovation Summit excite him the most, as well as what the key takeaway for him is, which is the realization of opportunity and access toward upwards mobility for people in society thanks to smart city initiatives.

Trends In Technology Over The Decades That Inform The Direction Of IoT

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

George Brody, Chairman at Richardson US IGNITE Executive Steering Committee, discusses his view of technology trends over the past two decades how it has informed the Internet of Things movement, as well as smart cities.

Smart City Innovation Summit Highlights IoT, Smart City

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

Mitch Jacobson, Director of the Austin Technology Incubator explains how the Smart City Innovation Summit came about, what topics it covers, and why this event is critical for bridging the gap between companies and government to enable an IoT and Smart City future.

Supernormal And The Role Of Universities In Smart City Design

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

Elizabeth Christoforetti, Founder and Design Lead at Supernormal discusses how her work at MIT lead to the formation of the company Supernormal, as well as how collection of urban data to can inform smart city development. Learn how cross-disciplinary collaboration is key to utilizing newly collected urban data and putting to use in the technology of tomorrow.

Maryland County Creates Thingstitute For IoT Innovation

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:04 +0000

Dan Hoffman, Chief Innovation Officer for Montgomery County, Maryland explains how his county functions uniquely like a city in terms of infrastructure building and planning for the future.

Instead of creating another boring governmental department, Dan and others created The Thingstitute, a first-of-a-kind living laboratory for internet of things (IoT) technology, providing an unparalleled testbed for start-ups, established companies, and research institutions.

The cornerstone project in the Thingstitute is the Safe Community Alert (SCALE) Network. SCALE seeks to test and build our capacity to deliver IoT technologies to vulnerable populations.The lab features co-working space for our teammates and equipment for fabricating and testing devices. The space also hosts Thingstitute events that bring together IoT thought leaders and educate the public on the benefits of connected devices.

Portland: Sharing Technology To Enable Urban Development

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:03 +0000

Wilfred Pinfold, CEO of Urban Systems, Professor at Portland State University and technology representative on the Mayor of Portland's oversight committee discusses his background at Intel and his three current positions and how he uses those to push forward smart city technology and initiatives.

Learn why interconnectivity between the private, public and university sectors have enabled Portland to lead the way in smart city data, such as transit data that even Google Maps modeled itself after.

Improving the lives of citizens is at the city of smart cities and technology is merely the enabler of urban development and improving communities.

Learn about new and exciting smart city projects coming to Portland in the near future thanks to its winnings at this summit.

San Francisco Uses Smart City Tech For Emergency Response

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:03 +0000

Mike Dayton, Deputy Director of the Department of Emergency Management in San Francisco and Ahmad Wani, Co-Founder of OneConcern explain the benefits of One Concern, which provides situational intelligence for natural disaster response with a map of San Francisco as the example of how its data would help the city in the event of a disaster.

Mike explains how the city of San Francisco uses the technology to train its emergency response teams in order to respond to a given situation in the most strategic way possible.

Using Technology, Open Data To Improve Life In Austin

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:03 +0000

Mateo Clarke, Brigade Captain of Open Austin explains what Open Austin is

Open Austin is a volunteer citizen brigade advocating for open government, open data, and civic application development since 2009. It is an official brigade affiliated with the nonprofit Code for America which believes government can work for the people, by the people in the 21st century. Open Austin is focused on the needs of our own community and we use design, technology, and open data to improve the quality of life in the city.

Learn why incorporating more technologists into city offices and planning could lead to less civic lag behind private companies and enable a brighter future for the city.

Chula Vista Building A Smart City From The Ground Up

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:03 +0000

Dennis Gakunga, Chief Sustainability Officer of Chula Vista, explains why his city is in a unique position, with 500 acres of land set aside by the San Diego Bay for the express purpose of creating a smart city.

Learn more about this exciting project and what it takes accomplish such a goal in this video.

The Food Supply Chain Of The Smart City

Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:07:03 +0000

Jennifer Heitler, the Program Director for Food and City, explains a very important topic related to smart cities that nobody is talking about: food. How do populations in a smart city get food shipped to them, how does their access change with evolving technology? What does the food supply chain in a smart city look like?

Learn how this non-profit organization is pushing the critical yet overlooked food supply chain industry into a connected future.