Important considerations when connecting industries often have little to do with bandwidth, bits and bytes and more to do with attributes such as latency (delay), security, availability or upstream bandwidth.

Some networked industries are enabled by low latency and/or latency variation – for example, networked gaming. This involves playing games on tablets and smartphones over a mobile connection in addition to consoles and PCs with a fixed broadband connection. Another example is networked vehicles and applications that enable cars to communicate with each other in real time.

Other networked industries, such as those relating to national security and public safety, are enabled by very high network reliability and availability. Devices such as tablets and smartphones also require very high network reliability, as they are the primary tools of networked professionals who are expected to be connected at all times and locations throughout the working day.

Security or integrity is another attribute that is critical to many networked industries. It is particularly important in finance, in remote healthcare, and for sensitive government applications.

Finally, extended mobile broadband coverage is an enabler for most networked industries. Networked vehicles require 3G and 4G coverage over a broader geographical area than was previously anticipated. Meanwhile, expectations for improved indoor coverage in offices, campuses and so on are also higher than ever before.

Network evolution is necessary to support these new attributes, so they become evident to the user and form a new billing base.

My predictions for the future are:

• as nuances of networking capability become more important, they will determine which industries can become fully networked – and the way in which this development occurs
• a new element – positive service enhancement – will be added to today’s mainstream mobile-data connectivity options
• the primary application for QoS mechanisms and policy-management capabilities will shift toward enhancements of premium apps.

The broadband freeway is here – but broadband speed bumps are required to manage traffic peaks. The next topic up for debate is broadband tolls. They will definitely be necessary, but how and where can we build them? A premium can be charged for valuable networked-industry applications if the network has the right attributes or capabilities.

Today, Ericsson is involved in cutting-edge smart city projects all around the world – for example, the Stockholm Royal Seaport project, for which Ericsson is ICT advisor.

In this video, Staffan Lorentz, Head of Development, Stockholm Royal Seaport, talks about the project:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssf20Qr9gvM

So what makes city residents feel at ease? Social networking. Those who live in the city spend a large chunk of their time socializing. On average, a city dweller spends two hours and 30 minutes socializing a day, with about 45 of these minutes spent online. This is much more than people who live elsewhere. They also have many more online friends, accessing online social networks as much as three to five times a day.One of the reasons for this could be that those of us who commute find our smartphones to be an invaluable tool because it allows us to send and receive e-mails, organize leisure time and keep up to date with the news. This helps us to feel that we aren’t wasting our time. 

Therefore it should come as no surprise that mobile-network coverage ranks fourth on a list of what city residents find most satisfying. An efficient network is really important: being able to interact on social forums while you’re on your long commute; or – for someone like me who drives – being able to use the GPS travel planner that has access to real-time traffic data to save time and stress.

With more than 40 percent of city dwellers owning smartphones, an efficient network can also help people find the best restaurants and cafés, shopping malls, food markets and entertainment facilities: the top three aspects of city life that people claim to be the most happiest about.

Read more about life in the city.

Commuting, traffic and parking are areas that create the most stress and frustration for people living in cities, according to a new Ericsson ConsumerLab report: City Life. If you’re running late for meetings at work or other appointments, you can get the feeling of not being in control. But new technological infrastructure is bringing about fresh innovations and solutions that have the potential to improve the efficiency of physical infrastructures, such as transport.

Skills and technology to deploy and manage mobile-communication services can be applied successfully to traffic management, transport charging systems, vehicle-centric services, traffic-safety programs and more, through a combination of data processing, service enablement and connectivity. This will enable intelligent transport solutions to speed up the flow of people, goods and services and reduce fuel consumption, as well as removing the need for dreaded inner-city travel, by businesses embracing collaborative tools such as video conferencing.

One woman in the report suggested that there should be a system that transport officials could use to predict when there are likely to be delays, which would then allow the authorities to put on additional buses.

Which solutions would make your commute a smoother, less stressful experience?

As  baby boomers, we are digital immigrants. We have embraced digital devices like mobile phones and tablets. But we are texting with one finger and struggling to keep up with the abbreviations our kids use, such as “KWIM?” (“know what I mean?”) We tend to want to separate our social-media interactions into a professional and a private sphere. Few of us have started to explore the use of social media to extend our sphere of professional influence beyond just the people we have met in person at least once. And when we have met them once, we tend to stay in touch by e-mail rather than through the use of social media. Most of us are now comfortable communicating with the 160-character SMS/TXT format, but we struggle with, for example, the 140-character format used on Twitter, where posts always begin with the # symbol.

Finding out your personal impact score in any of the major social-media impact tools is a good way to get an idea of where you stand. It’s normally enough of a motivator to be a call for action. You can start by just reading posts on Twitter to get a feeling for what’s going on. And don’t forget to learn from your screen-agers (teenagers). They know what makes an impact and what does not– and you have an edge when it comes to understanding what it all means from a business perspective.

My predictions for baby boomers are:

• Learning social-media skills for professional purposes will be vital to ensure that we will still be attractive on the labor market in five years’ time.
• Having a decent social-media impact score is already a must for people who are being hired for marketing positions, but the trend is likely to expand to all customer facing roles and management positions within 3-5 years.
• We will have to let go of our ambitions of perfection. We will inevitably make mistakes on the path to establishing our digital personalities, and these mistakes are part of our individual journeys.

Ericsson, together with the New City Foundation, UC Berkeley and the city of San Jose, California, is cooperating with Waze on a project called “connected commuting.” The aim is to study and analyze the impact connectivity among commuters has on the commuting experience itself. Nimish Radia from Ericsson Research, based in San Jose, did a good job presenting this project in a panel on the future of urban transport and mobility.

The last couple of days have brought stakeholders from different sectors together to discuss the future of cities. In short, it is evident that collaboration between stakeholders from different sectors will be crucial. I am convinced that we have a big role to play in the future of our cities, especially when connectivity is key to the redefining of urban life. And this got me thinking

An examination of ICT-driven initiatives within the city of Paris reveals a structured approach to using ICT to foster innovations. The first citywide car-sharing program for electric vehicles, Bolloré, is a case in point. This program could be the start of a new era of public transport solutions with ICT as a major enabler. The municipality is also collaborating with Paris Innovation Labs on the development of high-tech urban outdoor furniture. This will make previously internal municipal data sets, such as detailed statistics and maps, available to the public, with the aim of spurring the development of innovative solutions and improving delivery of public services – as already seen in London and New York. There are direct benefits to making metropolitan data sets available, such as smart applications for citizens, as well as business opportunities for local small and medium-sized software developers. You can read more about this here.

However, I wonder which city will be the first to break the mold by radically changing its transportation system (this should at least be of the same magnitude as transitioning from horse-drawn carriages to trains and subways). Which mega city will be the first to go car-free? Which city will radically change the way we build houses to become truly sustainable in the Networked Society? Which city will be the Paris of the 21st century?

I think many in the audience were a bit puzzled by the setup of the panel; what could these four have in common that could lead to anything interesting? But as soon as Richard took the stage and the panel debate started, it was all very obvious. The discussion that followed was by far the best panel discussion I have ever attended. Members of the audience were kept on their toes for 60 minutes as the urban planner, the academic, the government minister, and the industry leader discussed how cities can and will evolve in the future, and how stakeholders will all need to support this growth in a collaborative way.

I hope we will also be able to link to the panel debate as soon that becomes available. It is worth seeing.

Summarizing the first day, it is clear that the technology evolution in ICT, urban development and growth are completely intertwined. Panelist Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director of Gateway House, stated: “Innovation happens at the intersection of different sectors.” I can only agree with her; this summit is another step in getting the necessary collaboration under way.

So get snapping and share a piece of yourself with the rest of the world!

If you want photography tips or want to learn how to upload your images once they’re taken, visit Aday.org.

Every hour the global urban population grows by 7,500 people, due to migration, urban sprawl and natural population growth. That is more than 5 million new city dwellers every month.

With growth like this, a number of environmental, economic and social challenges will undoubtedly arise in our cities. But cities are not only generating problems, they are also the places where solutions to many of the global challenges will be found. This is what we’re here to discuss: through industry cross-collaborations, what solutions can be generated to create more sustainable and innovative communities?

It will be interesting to see how the fundamental forms of the Networked Society – broadband, mobility and the cloud – can contribute to supporting these solutions.

I look forward to sharing what I learn with you.