WASHINGTON, September 16, 2015 – A movement to make cities “smart” by using the power of broadband and information technology processing power is reaching critical mass, with the White House on Monday announcing a comprehensive initiative to support municipal efforts.

Coinciding with the Smart Cities Week conference here this week, the White House released a 4,000-word summary of more than $160 million in federal research investments, leveraging more than 25 technology collaborations with local communities.

The goal of these efforts? Tackling such key challenges, in the words of the White House, as “reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, fostering economic growth, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the delivery of city services.”

“Advances in science and technology have the potential to accelerate these efforts,” read the White House statement. “An emerging community of civic leaders, data scientists, technologists, and companies are joining forces to build ‘Smart Cities’ – communities that are building an infrastructure to continuously improve the collection, aggregation, and use of data to improve the life of their residents – by harnessing the growing data revolution, low-cost sensors, and research collaborations, and doing so securely to protect safety and privacy.”

The launch of White House Smart Cities Initiative

None of these Smart City innovations would be possible without the connectivity enabled by fiber-optic networks. These new opportunities for city services may prove to be the most effective driver of Gigabit Networks. As I wrote in an article last December on “The Year of Community and Municipal Gigabit Broadband,” this is “a world in which cities and municipalities are playing the leadership role.”

The White House Weighs In

Among the most significant facets of the administration’s announcement include:

• More than $45 million in grants and investment for Smart City research and infrastructure by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

• Nearly $70 million in new spending for technologies to promote solutions in public safety, energy, climate preparedness, transportation and health by federal agencies.
• More than 20 cities participating in multi-party efforts “that will help city leaders effectively collaboration with universities and industry.”

In a separate statement on the White House web site, Dan Correa, administration senior adviser for innovation policy, wrote:

By coordinating adjacent traffic signals to optimize local traffic throughput, a pilot project in Pittsburgh has reduced commuting travel times by more than 25 percent, on average. In Louisville, the city is using data gathered from sensor-equipped asthma inhalers to understand the connection between asthma “hotspots” and air quality levels and other environmental factors in order to inform policymaking and community-level interventions.

One new aspect of the Obama Administration’s Smart Cities Initiative will be a focus on creating new technological test beds for “Internet of Things” applications.

Another will  be collaboration with the civic tech movement, the “growing community of individuals, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits interested in harnessing [information technology] to tackle local problems and work directly with city governments.”

In a manner similar to the way open source technology allows new innovators to build upon others’ software, this “open data” movement allows entities outside of government to make use of government data streams in real time.

Additionally, the White House said, the government plans to use other federal agency research — from sensor networks to broadband infrastructure — in its Smart City efforts, and to pursue international collaboration, particularly research aimed at climate and resource demand.

The agency also announced the release of a new framework for coordinating actions by a range of federal agencies, and a science and technologies priorities memo that will impact the administration’s pending 2017 budget proposal.

Actions by Cities and the Private Sector

In addition to White House and federal agency developments, more than 20 city-university collaborations are taking part in what is being called the MetroLab Network.

These collaborations include:

•        Atlanta, with Georgia State University and Georgia Tech

•        Boston, with Boston Area Research Initiative

•        Chicago, with the University of Chicago

•        Cuyahoga County, with Case Western University

•        Dallas, with Texas Research Alliance

•        Detroit, with Wayne State University

•        Houston, with Rice University

•        Madison, with University of Wisconsin-Madison

•        Memphis, with University of Memphis

•        Minneapolis & St. Paul, with University of Minnesota

•        Montgomery County, with University of Maryland and Universities at Shady Grove

•        New York City, with New York University

•        Philadelphia, with Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania

•        Pittsburgh, with Carnegie Mellon University

•        Portland, with Portland State University

•        Providence, with Brown University, College Unbound, and Rhode Island School of Design

•        San Diego, with University of California San Diego

•        San Jose, with San Jose State University

•        Seattle, with University of Washington

•        South Bend, with University of Notre Dame

•        Washington, DC, with Howard University, Georgetown University, and George Washington University

And among the more than 60 Smart City pilots taking place over the next year include:

• City Digital, a Chicago-based consortium, focusing on urban infrastructure challenges

• Dallas Innovation Alliance effort to enhance infrastructure, mobility and connected living

• An IBM deployment of a Smarter Cities Challenge team in Detroit for cost-efficient removal and recycling of debris from abandoned and neglected properties
• The National League of Cities and 25 local government and the 2015 winners of its Multi-City Innovation Campaign: The Bluelight mobile 911 application, and Ride, a collaborative tool for analyzing bicycling data.

• New York City’s new neighborhood innovation labs that will leverage Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s efforts to expand a free public WiFi network throughout the city.

Drew Clark is the Chairman of the Broadband Breakfast Club. He tracks the development of Gigabit Networks, broadband usage, the universal service fund and wireless policy @BroadbandCensus. He is also Of Counsel with the firm of Best Best & Krieger LLP, with offices in California and Washington, DC. He works with cities, special districts and private companies on planning, financing and coordinating efforts of the many partners necessary to construct broadband infrastructure and deploy “Smart City” applications. You can find him on LinkedIN, Google+ and Twitter. The articles and posts on BroadbandBreakfast.com and affiliated social media are not legal advice or legal services, do not constitute the creation of an attorney-client privilege, and represent the views of their respective authors.

Editor’s Note: We received this announcement on Wednesday afternoon about the very exciting Global City Teams Challenge, which has been supported by US Ignite:

The Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) was successfully launched by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and US Ignite with a kick-off event at NIST on September 29-30. At this two day event, we had more than 350 on-site and remote attendees who came together to present project ideas and form Action Clusters on cyber-physical systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT) for smart cities around the world. As of today, we have over 25 Action Clusters formed in energy, transportation, healthcare, disaster response, and many other sectors, working to demonstrate the deployments of scalable, replicable, and interoperable smart city solutions by June 2015. A current list of Action Clusters can be found at globalcityteams.org.

We are excited to announce that the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the primary partners in the Challenge, has released an invitation to GCTC participants to submit proposals for up to $300,000 in funding. Detailed information about NSF’s Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals to support GCTC participants can be found here: http://1.usa.gov/1Eu2jwN

The deadline for submission of EAGERs is January 15, 2015, but earlier submissions are encouraged, and decisions will be made on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Additionally, NSF released a solicitation that makes available up to $4 million for the development of next-generation Internet applications. Many projects being pursued by GCTC participants are aligned with the NSF’s solicitation, as it identifies national priorities including clean energy, transportation, health information technology, public safety/emergency preparedness, cyberlearning, and/or advanced manufacturing.

More detailed information can be found here: NSF 15-508. Application for this solicitation are also due January 15.

Of course, if you have not yet connected your CPS project or your next-generation network/IoT project with the Global City Teams Challenge, it is not too late!

LEARN MORE ABOUT NSF FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES:

US Ignite will host a webinar on Monday. November 17th at 3pm (US-Eastern) that will provide insights into the application process and outline the benefits of being a GCTC participant.

Date: Monday, November 17, 2014
Time: 3:00PM Eastern
Log-in Information:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/765269669
Via Phone: Dial +1 (872) 240-3212
Access Code: 765-269-669

CONNECT YOUR PROJECT TO THE GLOBAL CITY TEAMS CHALLENGE:

• Sign-up on US Ignite’s Collaborative Community Exchange (CCX) on behalf of your organization
• Explore our existing Action Clusters on US Ignite’s Collaborative Community Exchange (CCX) and join one by reaching out to the project contact
• Add your Action Cluster idea, and highlight the type of partners that will strengthen your project
• Contact the organizers of the Challenge to discuss the steps to register your Action Cluster to GCTC.

We are very excited at the progress all the teams are making so far, and would love to see more Action Clusters stand up around the world. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. We are here to help make your GCTC project a great success.

Thank you for your continued interest in the Global City Teams Challenge.

Joe Kochan
US Ignite

WASHINGTON, May 29, 2014 – Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has defended his company and its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable against critics, reports Re/code. Saying that he could accept “some kind of net neutrality law,” he scorned the idea of reclassifying broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Communications Act, which would be tantamount to treating broadband providers as public utilities.

“I don’t think phone regulation ever resulted in a great phone system,” Roberts said. Responding to complaints from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings regarding having to pay Comcast for speedier video traffic, Roberts said: “They would like it all to be free. I don’t blame them for that. I would like to not pay for cable boxes.”

Computer World reported that the White House is leading a one-day Smart America Expo in Washington on June 11 showcasing the potential for the so-called “internet of things” to control cyber-physical systems.

Researchers from the University of California at Irvine and MIT are involved along with vendors like IBM, Sigfox, and French-based cloud communication firm Twilio.

The team is working on a system for a suburban Washington county that aims to closely examine what goes on inside a home, with the hopes of resolving emergencies quicker and more reliably than cell phones could.

Devices included will feature smoke and carbon detection, temperature, gas, light, dust, mold, pollen, motion, battery life, and more.

The goal, according to ComputerWorld, is to connect these devices to municipal networks and ensure increased reliability.

In other news, T-Mobile has filed a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking for clarification on what qualifies as “commercially reasonable” data roaming agreements.

The company wrote that “carriers need this modest guidance to provide necessary clarity in individualized negotiations.”

The petition said that “consumers who rely on [the data roaming marketplace] for ubiquitous, affordable wireless service, would benefit substantially if the Commission provided greater clarity on the meaning of its “commercially reasonable” standard in the context of data roaming.”

Education News Week also reported that a joint analysis released by Consortium for School Networking and Education Super Highway Wednesday called for increased in-school internet funding at an additional $800 million per year.

Doing so would meet President Barack Obama’s goal of equipping all schools with sufficient internet connections according to projections by CoSN and Education Super Highway.

This estimate is said to be the product of over 50 consultations with “chief technology officers, vendors, and education experts.”

Current federal E-Rate funding is already at $2.4 billion. To maintain new in-school wireless networks, it is estimated that an additional $1.6 billion will be needed, reported Education News Week.

On top of that, President Obama’s ConnectED initiative aims to connect “99 percent of U.S. schoolchildren to broadband and high-speed wireless by 2018” would likely increase E-Rate costs further, although Education News Week reported that projections for that initiative’s costs are currently speculative.