Enabling Digital Urban Transformation through IoT

By VS Shridhar, Senior Vice President and Head of the Internet of Things (IoT) business at Tata Communications

By 2030, urban areas will be home to 40 per cent of India's population and will contribute 75 per cent of India's GDP. In order to sustain this unprecedented urbanization, careful planning of physical, economic and social infrastructure is paramount. Thus, our vision of 100 Smart Cities isn't a good to have but a must to have solution.

It's a necessity; it will intelligently solve many critical problems such as environment, security, healthcare and safety, mobility, smart metering, asset management and more. What underpins the smart city ecosystem of India’s future is the Internet of Things (IoT) which is making an impact on every field imaginable. These IoT-enabled smart cities will not only significantly enhance the overall quality of life, but also generate quality employment to many, ultimately leading to the overall progress of the nation.

According to a study by Intel and Juniper Research, Smart Cities can give back nearly 125 hours to every resident every year, combined across four areas which are mobility, health, public safety, and productivity. Take, mobility for instance. Singapore has applied smart, connected traffic solutions in an effort to reduce the number of vehicles on its roads. The same report ranks it as the world's leading city in effectively addressing urban transportation challenges. It is estimated that globally, large cities could save as much as $800 billion annually through smart transport systems alone.

VS Shridhar, Senior Vice President and Head of the Internet of Things (IoT) business at Tata Communications

The digitisation of city infrastructure and services is driven by economics, at large. We need to bring technology to every doorstep, every day. But, to make this happen, the first step is to make technology available at an affordable price point.

Machines and devices need to communicate seamlessly. Therefore, the need of the hour is to establish a network first that is highly available and secure, consumes very little power and provides the right amount of bandwidth. Studies show that less than 50 Kbps connectivity should suffice for the majority of these requirements. Further, machine interaction also means the ability to collect all information from connected sources on to a single platform - it's no longer about just sensing it; it's measuring, analysing, and continually acting on it.

For this, we have embraced the LPWAN technology from the LoRa Alliance. LoRa is dedicated to IoT applications and is a highly secured wireless technology developed to create the low-power, wide-area networks (LPWANs). It is highly secured, consumes less energy, works over a long range and has multiservice capabilities.

Tata Communications has rolled out India's first LoRaWAN based network. It is the world's largest LoRaWAN network, spanning nearly 2,000 communities and touching over 400 million people. In 2017, we had already deployed LoRaWAN network in 38 cities in India, with the aim to expand to cover most of India by 2019 end.

This enables connecting devices, applications and other IoT solutions over the LoRaWAN network in smart buildings, campus, utilities, fleet management, security and healthcare services - a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. With the LoRaWAN network in place, India will have the capability to better manage essential utilities such as water, for example, more effectively and affordably, which will help to solve issues around clean drinking water, irrigation and more.

Challenges will differ from region to region; a solution that has worked efficiently in one area, may not work in another. To effectively deal with this, working in collaboration is the key to achieve amplified results. IoT is slowly coming into the mainstream, entering manufacturing process of all sorts of different devices, ranging from streetlights to personal security devices through to track and trace devices that are built into the manufacturing process of goods—making cities smarter and safer.

But, we need massive collaboration, among all players – small and big, public and private alike to accelerate the Government of India’s (GoI) vision of unleashing the full potential of IoT to make ‘Smart Cities’ a reality.