Australian telecommunications firm Telstra and the City of Joondalup in Western Australia have reached an agreement to carry out a trial of smart city applications using Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.
The telco said that the smart city trial includes IoT-enabled environmental sensors, smart bins and smart parking solutions.
“People are talking a lot about IoT, but through our Smart City partnership Joondalup is getting on with deploying new technologies, such as bins that talk to each other and smarter parking facilities that provide the City with real-time information to help them make decisions faster and more effectively,” Telstra’s Executive Director for the Government segment, Oliver Camplin-Warner, said. “The possibility of the Internet of Things is infinite, it could connect the roads, footpaths and one day, the beach enclosure. We see potential for data driven insights, made possible through technology to enable councils around Australia to manage their towns and cities more efficiently and strive for a better way of living for the community.”
The local government said that the three IoT solutions to be deployed during the smart city trial, alongside a dashboard providing real-time analytics, will be used to improve local governance efficiency and reduce traffic.
In other IoT news, U.K telecoms group Vodafone has confirmed that it will launch commercial NB-IoT networks in Germany and New Zealand during the second half of 2017.
The company also said that it expects to deploy a nationwide NB-IoT network in Australia this year through a gradual process beginning in Victoria, where it has been running NB-IoT trials with Chinese vendor Huawei for the past year.
Vodafone and Huawei have also completed a successful trial of NB-IoT technology across central and suburban Melbourne a year ago.
Earlier this year, Vodafone has launched NB-IoT networks in Spain. The telco currently provides coverage with this technologies in the cities of Madrid, Valencia Barcelona, Bilbao, Malaga and Seville.
