Opportunities
Smart cities' first successes, such as those of Florida Power & Light (4.8Millions connected meters, 0.5Million connected streetlights) or Dongguan (0.2Million connected streetlights) have shown IoT technologies' tremendous potential in terms of operational efficiency. However, Smart city solutions trigger a new value chain, whose connectivity complexity has often been underestimated.
Today’s reality
The management of cities' utilities through IoT, whether it be waste, traffic or lighting, is barely emergent. Very few cities (as for example Barcelona) have implemented full smart city solutions even if the benefits for the citizen are tangible with more efficient public services and a lower carbon footprint.
Smart city connected objects could be as diverse as outdoor lighting controllers, electric, water and gas meters, parking occupation sensors, Doppler radar sensors, traffic light sensors, fire panels, etc.
For each application, return on investment is extremely sensitive with respect to the characteristics and price of the wireless communication model carrying the data. Many kinds of networks will have to co-exist: LoRA, mesh network, cellular networks, etc.