The European Commission defines a smart city as “a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and business”. Diffusion and availability of new technologies are required to transform a city into a smart city, contributing to reach high level of urban sustainable development and improved quality of life for its citizens.
Smart cities use Internet of Things (IoT) to collect real time data to better understand how demand patterns are changing, and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions. Broadly speaking, digital city ecosystems are designed to run on ICT frameworks that connect several dedicated networks of mobile devices, sensors, connected cars, home appliances, communication gateways and data centers.
By 2025 the IoT trends suggest the number of connected devices worldwide will rise to 75 billion. The increasing number of objects that interconnect generates an unprecedented volume of data that the city can analyze locally in order to make more informed decisions about what changes or new projects will most benefit residents. The term “Massive IoT” is an apt description of the enormous number of IoT sensors and devices that will be communicating with each other.