Partnership agreement lays ground for long term provision of networking technology to support smart city initiatives
The Bristol Is Open programme, one of the UK's largest smart city initiatives, has made long term arrangements for infrastructure delivery with a partnership agreement with NEC Corporation.
The company is already providing network technologies such as software defined networking, compatible switches, LTE small cells and iPasolink ultra-compact microwave systems under a memorandum of understanding agreed in March of last year.
A spokesperson for the company said the partnership agreement will ensure that the delivery of the technology continues into the long term.
This will provide the infrastructure for the development of smart city technology around Bristol, which is one of the country's leaders in the movement to harness the internet of things in support of public services.
Both sides have declined to provide details of the length and value of the relevant contract.
Bristol Is Open is a joint venture between the city council and University of Bristol that makes a high performance fibre optic and wireless network available for research, partly as a foundation for new digital services around the city. It takes in the council's BNet high speed fibre optic network and the university's Blue Crystal High Performance Computer, which is capable of 200 trillion calculations per second.
Deep architecture
Paul Wilson, managing director of Bristol Is Open, said: “Bristol’s approach to smart cities has gone deep into the architecture of network provision, creating a technology agnostic, heterogeneous, software defined approach to connectivity, at city scale.
“This elastic approach is addressing many of the architecturally rigid constraints experienced in today’s commercially available networks. As we bring our infrastructure live throughout 2016 we are looking forward to demonstrating new levels of connectivity that will be the hallmarks of the smart city of the future.”
Image from Bristol City Council
