New standards group aims to ensure smart city technologies are interoperable

Public sector digital groups in Greenwich and Jersey are among the founder members of a new international group working on the development of standards for smart city technology.

Digital Greenwich and Digital Jersey have joined Cisco, BT, Microsoft, IBM and Huawei in the Industry Specification Group ‘City Digital Profile’ (ISG CDP), part of ETSI, the European ICT standards association.

According to ETSI, the new group will provide a technology framework and clear roadmap for smart city technology investment and deployment.

The aim is to enable cities to procure smart solutions with confidence that the technologies adhere to open standards and are extendable, configurable and interoperable with other services and locations.

Initially, the work will focus on health and social care; building management and connected homes; urban lighting; water and waste management and energy; transportation and mobility; and environmental issues such as pollution and resource optimisation.

Other key issues such as citizen-related data retention and privacy protection will also be considered.

“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,” said Paul Copping, convenor of the City Digital Profile ISG, and chief innovation officer at DG Cities Ltd in Greenwich.

Digital Jersey chief executive Tony Moretta believes that Jersey could be used as a testbed for new Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.

He said: “If countries and cites around the world are to benefit from smart IoT solutions, open interoperable standards are essential. Investment and best practice can then be shared, and technologies developed and tested in one location can then be quickly rolled out globally.

“This is a great opportunity for Jersey to use our world leading telecoms infrastructure to test new IoT solutions that can then be launched around the world.”

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