The Internet of Things is changing everyday lives for the better.
That’s the opinion of Shukri Eid, Managing Director East Region, Cisco, who believes the positive outcomes from innovations such as Smart Cities are now becoming abundantly clear especially for issues such as road management and air pollution.
“I think there is this excitement that these are not just wishy-washy aspirations. There are actual numbers that are starting to reflect themselves on the ground,” said Eid.
“We can talk about how we reduced traffic in major cities by a certain percentage and how we improved even the air that we breathe quite significantly.
“The network itself is part of that continuous sensor in the city and that allows us to get a response on the street – whether that’s a pedestrian crossing or a vibration of a human body somewhere in the street or pavement that shouldn’t be there.”
He added that advances in technology are such that fibre in the ground can itself act as a sensor, meaning that vibrations at street level can provide important information about traffic conditions.
“This means the network is actually part of that nervous system,” said Eid. “It’s everywhere in the city and now we are thinking increasingly that the network itself is not just a network that connects sensors.
“If you think about a city like Dubai, we’re saying for the first time there is enough intelligence and insight that comes from the network itself as a source of information.
“Not only from the sensors that it connects, the network itself is a source of that insight, of that intelligence sensing the environment around it.
“The network is learning from all the insights that Cisco brings worldwide because a lot of the internet traffic worldwide is going through Cisco boxes.”