By creating an example of the experience and best practices regarding the operation of a smart city based on 5G networks, Barcelona’s pilot program will serve as inspiration to other cities that are looking to position themselves for a smarter era.
The new era of mobile communication is just around the corner, and its scale is something that today’s users are only beginning to understand. It is estimated that by 2025, the volume of global mobile data will reach 164 exabytes per month, which is five times the current amount. What’s more, 45% of this data traffic is expected to be handled over 5G networks, allowing future applications to benefit from higher bandwidth, faster transmission, and lower latency.
The list of 5G-enabled use cases continues to grow. From business solutions such as the application of the Internet of Things (IoT) to healthcare and industrial manufacturing to consumer applications like content experience and immersive entertainment, currently, a race is on to offer 5G connection to citizens of the world. Because of the robustness, scale, and security it offers, edge computing plays a crucial role in the development of this innovation that will provide the next generation of network infrastructures.
One of the great cities leading the way in adoption of 5G networks is Barcelona. A consortium of leading telecommunications firms, IT service providers and local government is contributing to the roll out of a large-scale 5G pilot program for the city, where edge computing plays a key role.
The Barcelona Smart City Pilot
Barcelona was one of the first European cities to implement data-driven smart city technologies to improve its services. Being a recognized telecommunications nexus, as well as an important venue for activities and events, such as the Mobile World Congress, the city was an ideal setting to demonstrate the 5G solutions that will support future lifestyles.
Naturally, the concept of a smart city is not a new one, but 5G networks bring the advantage of a mobile network instead of the bulkier, more expensive fixed wiring. In addition, 5G technology can also support the multiple IoT applications required to take full advantage of a smart city.
The city began a process for a network transformation back in 2015. By 2019, Red.es, a public corporate entity belonging to the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda (MINETAD), and which depends on the Secretary of State for Information Society and Digital Agenda (SESIAD), who develops programs to stimulate the digital economy, innovation, entrepreneurship, training for young people and professionals and to support SMEs by encouraging efficient and intensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), launched an initiative to run different 5G pilots across Spain.
A consortium of eight companies led by Cellnex Telecom and the MASMOVIL Group will roll out a 5G pilot (“Piloto 5G Catalunya”) in the Barcelona metropolitan area to test and develop innovative solutions based on this new technology in sectors that include education, industry, commerce, tourism, transport, and safety and emergency management. The project will launch in September and run until December 2022.
This consortium — which also involves Lenovo technology, Catalan operator Parlem Telecom; Aumenta Solutions, a company specialized in augmented reality for the industry; Atos engineering; Nae consultants; and the Nearby Computing start-up, a spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center — was one of the successful bidders in the second call for grants to develop 5G pilots.
Barcelona Urban Scenarios
The variety of solutions made possible by 5G technology will transform businesses, consumers, and citizens alike. Specifically, the scenarios being explored in the Barcelona smart city pilot, together with cloud-based computing infrastructures include:
- Emergency Response and Public Safety: Deliver a smarter approach to public safety.
- Education: Showing how holographic solutions can facilitate remote learning through immersive education.
- ECommerce: Facilitating immersive remote shopping experiences through augmented reality that allow businesses to continue operating independently to what is happening in other parts of the world.
- Automotive: Demonstrating how autonomous and connected vehicles can help people get around more easily.
- Manufacturing: Helping businesses move products throughout the supply chain in the most efficient way possible by reacting to real-time data.
- Connectivity: in tourist zones by implementing a multi-operator neutral network.
- Broadcasting: HD audiovisual signals in live events with a remote performance.
- Design and deployment: of a fully 5G network, enabled to carry out the use cases in the project and which will remain in operation once the project is completed.
The potential to expand frontiers in all these areas is enormous, and the 5G business model is generating new revenue streams and monetization opportunities. It will not only create commercial breakthroughs but also greater participation of citizens.
Going forward, 5G technology will expand beyond smart cities to become a ubiquitous element of the way we learn, work, and communicate in an age where everything will be connected.
Capturing Potential Value
5G communication presents great opportunities for the telecommunications sector, but it also creates additional pressure for mobile network operators (MNOs). As a larger quantity of data is managed from IoT devices and smart grids, operators must focus not only on improving bandwidth and latency, but also look for ways to use the infrastructure to reduce costs and generate new sources of revenue.
To answer these questions, operators are looking at edge solutions. By moving network capabilities from centralized data centers to a growing number of edge devices, MNOs can bring the network’s speed and capacity closer to the end user, reducing traffic load, improving performance, increasing scalability, and reducing operating costs.
This is the goal of the multi-access edge computing (MEC) network architecture. MEC technology alleviates bandwidth congestion and enables new applications and services to run at the network’s edge, including IoT, RA, and local content delivery.
For the Barcelona pilot, Lenovo has provided a single MEC platform and architecture that deploys, automates, and manages edge computing solutions all from a central control point.
Thanks to different products such as ThinkSystem SE350 Edge Server hardware and Lenovo Open Cloud Automation (LOC-A) software, the system can rapidly deploy, optimize, and manage the cloud infrastructure of communication service providers on edge servers, dedicated bare metal servers, containers and virtual machines.
LOC-A combines the advantages of public cloud, including speed, scalability, flexibility, and high velocity of service, with those of private cloud, such as data protection and security, to offer the seamless integration needed to take advantage of the full potential that 5G communication has to offer. The system also includes support for Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, OpenStack, and VMware Cloud Foundation. This way the ecosystem represents a solution that is smart, open, modular, future-proof, and that has capacity for multiple use cases within this pilot.
The Future of 5G and Smart Cities
5G technology offers enormous potential for innovation, but only if the use cases and resulting service scenarios solve real-world problems and generate new revenue streams. These possibilities can only be fully explored through pilots like the one in Barcelona, where the potential of 5G communication with support from edge computing can demonstrate the possibility of generating real benefits for people and businesses.
The work of the Barcelona consortium will be instrumental in demonstrating the potential of 5G to facilitate a new era of immense data speeds and bandwidth requirements. In addition, the smart city pilot will help reinforce the city’s reputation, not only as a leader in telecommunications but as a thriving business center in a truly digital economy.
Learn more at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/data-center/solutions/telco-nfv
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January 17, 2021 at 08:30PM
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Inside Barcelona, the 5G Smart City of the Future - SDxCentral
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