Public authorities join corporates in move to develop standards for interoperability and a technology roadmap
Public sector digital groups in Jersey and Greenwich have become founder members of a new international group to support the development of standards for smart places technology.
Digital Jersey – the arm’s length organisation set up by the States of Jersey Government – and Digital Greenwich – the London borough’s in-house smart city team – have joined Cisco, BT, Microsoft and Huawei in the Industry Specification Group City Digital Profile (ISG CDP) within ICT standards association ETSI.
The purpose of the group is to focus on ensuring that internet of things (IoT) technology used by governments to build smart places adheres to open standards and is interoperable with that used in other locations.
The underlying aim is to build confidence among public authorities that technology they procure will be interoperable with similar services in other places, and configurable and extendable.
Digital Jersey said it can provide a testbed for the work. Its chief executive officer, Tony Moretta, said it has a LoRa (long range, low power) network in place and is developing an IoT lab and data platform to support work on different technologies.
Digital Greenwich is already established as a testbed for various initiatives, notably the development of autonomous vehicles. Moretta said the two can complement each other.
“This is a great opportunity for Jersey to use our world leading telecoms infrastructure and ideal demographic profile to test new internet of things solutions that can then be launched around the world,” he said.
“If countries and cities are going to benefit from this work, then open interoperable standards are essential - when investment and best practice is shared, and technologies are developed and tested in one location, we are able to roll new technology out more quickly.”
The members of the group are also aiming to developing a technology roadmap to support the evolution of smart places.
ETSI said the initial round of work will focus on health and social care, building management and connected homes, urban lighting, water and waste management, transport and mobility, and environmental issues such as pollution.
Paul Copping, convenor of City Digital Profile ISG and the chief innovation officer at DG Cities in Greenwich, said: "I am excited that this group will enable city leaders and suppliers to work together to mass market replication of citizen centric systems that are innovative, agile and creative while also fully standards compliant, secure, resilient and cost-effective.”
ETSI is a not-for-profit body recognised by the EU as a European standards organisation, and focuses on fixed, mobile, radio, aeronautical, broadcast and internet technologies.
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