In order to build ‘smart’ connected communities as part of an Internet of Things initiative, AT&T has partnered with Cisco, Del with Cisco, Deloitte, Ericsson, GE, IBM, Intel, and Qualcomm.
The smart city framework will initially be implemented in roll-outs at the Georgie Institute of Technology in Atlanta to improve sustainability, in Chicago to maximise efficiency and in Dallas’ West End Historic District to enhance operations.
These frameworks will be designed so that cities can monitor road conditions, and venues can maintain public properties like parks. Citizens will have use of mobile apps to prepare for traffic, public transport, and they will also have access to data for public safety.
AT&T, which announced the news at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, has said it is developing an operation centre for these smart cities, to offer a dashboard of community conditions like traffic, power supply/cuts, and water leaks.
AT&T is also introducing LTE modules to satisfy needs of Internet of Things applications, to lower the cost of IoT device designs and improve performance. These modules can run on the AT&T 4G LTE network to make information transfer between IoT devices more efficient.
To read more about AT&T’s plans for connected devices, and its efforts in the IoT space in 2015, read our most recent article here.