MWC 2013: IBM Teams Up With Deutsche Telekom For ‘Smarter Cities’ Products

IBM and Deutsche Telekom have announced a new partnership to deliver an integrated solutions portfolio that enables cities to make better use of their services through intelligent data capture and analysis.

The jointly delivered Smarter Cities solutions will build on IBM’s expertise from thousands of smarter city engagements combined with Deutsche Telekom’s Machine-to-Machine (M2M) capabilities, which include M2M solutions integration and advanced network connectivity.

‘Internet of Things’

The M2M communication technology facilitates the automated exchange of information between terminal equipment such as machines, vehicles and containers or with a central control centre – creating an interconnectivity often referred to as the “Internet of Things”, IBM said.

“Cities are asking their trusted providers to deliver new ways to help them become more innovative,” said Michael J Dixon, general manager of the IBM Global Smarter Cities effort, in a statement. “This initiative demonstrates how IBM is working with clients and partners to find new and sustainable ways to solve pressing client challenges.”

By using sensors embedded in an array of systems serving the public – such as a traffic lights, public transport vehicles or parking spaces – M2M technology can report on the status of the system being monitored via the Internet in real-time.

Combining this technology with IBM’s Smarter Cities expertise will enable intelligent, real-time decision-making allowing for services such as intelligent traffic management, route optimisation, bus or train arrival prediction, and parking space management.

These are tenets of IBM’s Smarter Cities strategy, which is part of Big Blue’s overall Smarter Planet initiative. Both efforts leverage IBM’s big data and business analytics expertise and broad portfolio of products and services.

Cost efficiencies

The Smarter Cities solutions from Deutsche Telekom and IBM will benefit municipalities as they deliver cost efficiencies through better use of their existing infrastructure and improved planning of resources, IBM said.

This will help cities more quickly design and deploy next-generation intelligence systems that improve sustainability. It will also improve the quality of life for citizens, who will be able to anticipate traffic delays and bus or train arrivals when travelling, find public parking spots more easily, and gain improved access to an array of relevant city information and services.

“M2M is a technology with enormous growth potential as it adds real value to our daily lives, both in business and privately,” said Thomas Kiessling, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Deutsche Telekom, in a statement. “Our joint Smarter Cities initiative gives us the opportunity to work with cities across the globe and offer them valuable end-to-end solutions that help support public welfare as well as their economic growth in the future.”

The alliance is based on the two companies’ common interest and complementary capabilities in growing the M2M end-to-end solutions market. As part of the collaboration, IBM will contribute its smarter cities expertise, as well as deliver technology systems that gather real time data from various services, applications and device end points, enabling massive amounts of big data to be transformed into insight to help cities make better operational decisions.

Pervasive connectivity

Deutsche Telekom, with a business presence in more than 50 countries around the world and a well established global M2M ecosystem, will provide cities with pervasive M2M connectivity to these technologies and services, as well as SIM card access management and M2M solutions integration expertise.

To highlight the many potential ways this new technology can be applied, Deutsche Telekom and IBM will feature a variety of Smarter City demos in the GSMA Connected City Pavillion at the Mobile World Congress 2013 show running 25 to 28 February in Barcelona.

The Intelligent Transport and Smarter Parking demos will showcase how data collected from roads, buses and parking spots can be leveraged to predict traffic and bus arrival, anticipate delays and proactively coordinate resources to operate cities’ transportation systems more effectively.

Deutsche Telekom is considered one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with more than 131 million mobile customers, 33 million fixed-network lines and over 17 million broadband lines as of 30 September, 2012.

Strategic priority

M2M is a strategic priority for Deutsche Telekom in the coming years. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the number of connected devices will rise tenfold from 5 billion today to 50 billion by 2020.

Deutsche Telekom is positioning itself to be a leading provider of cross-industry M2M solutions and offers its customers, in cooperation with competent partners, complete solutions from a single source.

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Originally published on eWeek.