COPPER CABLING: Smart Cities
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Infrastructure
and Communications
Solutions for a Networked Future
By: Geoff Dear, Technical Manager R&M UK
Geoff Dear evaluates
network connectivity
as a key component of
physical infrastructure.
Introduction
Rapid developments and fast
urbanisation are making it harder for
municipalities to deliver on the promises
normally associated with urban living.
These include better healthcare, higher
education levels and better access to
social, economic and cultural facilities.
Smart Cities and Smart Buildings based
on next-generation networks play a vital
role in solving these issues.
But what is ‘Smartness’? It could
be described as ‘enhancing the quality
and performance of urban services
with information and communication
technologies, catering to the needs of all
inhabitants and stakeholders’. To enable
such new applications and services, the
‘Smart City’ relies on a strong, highly
interconnected and reliable technical
infrastructure and communications
network.
Connecting Systems
A Smart City consists, primarily,
of Smart Buildings connected by
a network backbone. These use
information technology to connect a
variety of subsystems: heating, lighting,
air conditioning, access and so on. A
Smart Building maximizes comfort
and productivity while saving costs and
energy. It can lower environmental
impact throughout its lifetime. As
buildings consume some 40 per cent of
all the energy generated in the world,
introducing energy-saving measures is
beneficial to the entire planet.
Smart Buildings continuously respond
to changes in usage and occupancy,
technology, communications, building
and energy management systems.
Building systems can share data,
learn, adapt and improve. A building
automation system can be linked to
enterprise business systems, helping
further improve building performance
and enhance decision-making. Manual
intervention is required less and less.
Existing structures may be
transformed to Smart Buildings
step-by-step. The introduction of new
systems and technologies often acts as
a starting point for this, allowing facility
managers to gradually incorporate
Smart improvements. A Smart Building
strategy, if properly implemented,
can reduce energy consumption and
environmental impact while improving
tenant satisfaction and operational
efficiency.
At the most basic level, controls based
on Programmable Logic Controllers
(PLCs) can be used to activate or
deactivate certain functionalities at
specific times. Heating and lighting can
be shut down late at night, for example.
By using parameter-based optimisation
more far-reaching, granular
improvements may be introduced.
Based on occupation and type of usage
of individual rooms or sections in a
building, devices and systems can be
switched on or off.
Changing Usage Patterns
A smart building maxmises productivity while saving energy.
20 NETCOMMS europe Volume V Issue 6 2015
More and more people bring their
own devices to work, which requires
more bandwidth and increased
flexibility. That means there need
to be sufficient access points in the
right places, as well as cabling that
can accommodate multiple users. If
the available bandwidth has to be
shared among large numbers of users,
it becomes unusable. Servers, data
storage, networking equipment and
infrastructure management software are
currently being merged with camera
systems, telecommunications, LAN,
access control, video systems, imaging
systems, energy management, safety/
fire and environmental control and
more. As more and more computing
devices are equipped with affordable
communication capabilities, we can
connect everything to everything.
Almost 26 billion devices will
be linked to the Internet by 2020,
according to Gartner. The resulting
Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to
generate large amounts of data from
diverse locations at very high velocity.
Smart Public Spaces rely on a network
of sensors, processors, actuators and
user interfaces that together turn raw
data into processed data to effect
specific actions or produce meaningful
information.
Combining area-wide infrastructure
and sensors in Smart Public Spaces
with, for example, wearable healthcare
devices could result in improved,
innovative personal health services.
Such solutions can help us create cities
that are more efficient, safer, healthier,
more inclusive – and ultimately better
places to live, play and work. However,
this requires reliable technology for
the collection, exchange, storage and
analysis of amounts of data we can’t
even begin to imagine today.
Importance of Monitoring
Introducing structured cabling
ties everything together, boosting
performance and reliability, enabling
innovations and helping smart systems
improve energy efficiency, productivity,
performance and space utilisation. A
structured cabling system should support
all products and vendor platforms.
However, the emphasis is often placed
on the upfront investment, which can be
more easily calculated and verified.
Ensuring your network lives up
to a high standard, is future proof
and capable of supporting multiple
generations of active equipment,
could simply require no more than
investing 1 per cent extra on the total
budget. Between 40 and 50 per cent
of network breakdowns today can be
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