The Internet-of-Things Steamroller and the Economic Competitiveness of Cities
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16 responses to “The Internet-of-Things Steamroller and the Economic Competitiveness of Cities”
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I volunteered for a Dominion Power project to allow them to take control of my thermostat, supposedly limited to summertime afternoons, only when the temperature is above “something”, and only between the hours of 2 pm – 6 pm. I forget what the tipping point is, because no one is in my home on summer afternoons, and my thermostat is programmed for that part of the day higher than what they would ‘remotely adjust’ the temperature for anyway. For enrolling in this they pledge to pay me $40 a year. Along with the programmed charging of my Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) between 0100 – 0500 at a highly reduced rate of 5.5 cents per KilowattHour, the Electric Company is pretty good to me (or should I say, all those who pay normal and peak rates are pretty good to me 🙂 ).
On a darker note, this IoT is one step toward the inevitable and total domination of the human race by SkyNet (or Cylons, if you prefer Battlestar Gallactica). Chips will be implanted in newborn humans (IoHumans) to direct them where to go, when to eat, and how to compliment our IoT Cylon Overlords for treating us so well. Adult humans who resist the implants will be herded to spend the rest of their days to the as-yet unused FEMA chain-link prisons until death, or eliminated on the spot if more efficacious.
I can’t wait to become a willing mind-numbed human robot. I will become like those who watch NBC News.
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“He gave the example of the Trees Near You app that draws from New York City’s tree census data to provide information about some 500,000 trees that live on city sidewalks. “No one at Cisco is ever going to think this app up,” he said, and if someone did, it would never win corporate approval.”
You sure you don’t have Chancey Gardiner with you? Cisco probably wouldn’t think up the tree app. And the National Arboretum wouldn’t implement IPv6 on data communication devices. However, without the data communication devices invented and perfected by companies like Cisco nobody would have been able to make up the tree app.
Is there ever a point buried anywhere within Anthony Townsend’s anti-corporate ramblings?
” He made the point that citizens and entrepreneurs operating outside the framework of government-funded infrastructure initiatives also have a lot to contribute. ”
“In the spring the flowers will grow”.
What government-funded infrastructure? The cellular networks? The companies which use that spectrum pay a fortune to the government for the right to use it. It’s whatever the opposite of “government funded” might be.
Here’s the very next sentence (I am not making this up) – “Tapping IoT technologies and accessing government databases that have long languished unused, grassroots movements can make cities more environmentally friendly, more responsive to citizens and just plain more fun to live in.”
Weren’t Townsend’s citizens and entrepreneurs operating outside of the government-funded infrastructure initiatives? Now, unused government databases need to be accessed?
I guess we know who can replace Peter Sellers in Being There II.
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I told Townsend that IBM was holding a conference a couple blocks away and that if he wouldn’t mind being tarred and feathered, there were a few IBM executives who might like to meet him. He seemed a little taken aback — he told me that he’s acknowledged that IBM and other big companies have an important role to play. (Admittedly, he doesn’t talk about that role very much.)
In his remarks, he did not dis IBM or the other big companies — he just emphasized that there is a role for bottom-up innovation. I really don’t see how anyone can disagree with that. Mapping the tree census may not be the best example of a useful application. The website appears to have been deactivated! But, Don, do you really want to dispute Townsend’s larger point that civic activists, hackers and entrepreneurs have a lot to contribute? Are you suggesting that the IBMs and Ciscos are the only ones capable of contributing to smart cities innovation?
One more point: Why would you have a problem with civic activists tapping government data sources that just sit around unused? The government collects a lot of data and usually keeps that data to itself. The whole trend these days is towards transparency, openness and sharing. Why not release that data to citizens to see what they can do with it?
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re: ” government data sources that just sit around unused”
you mean the govt collects data that it has no use for and it’s just pure serendipity happenstance that citizens find a use for it?
isn’t this like saying the govt put up a GPS satellite system for no particular reason and it took the private sector to figure out what it was good for?
you sure have a low opinion of the govt Jim .. they just do things like NOAA and the census just to be spending money and it takes bottom-up folks to figure out it’s use?
😉
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I have never criticized civic activists, hackers or entrepreneurs who want to contribute. I once ran an open source software company so hackers and entrepreneurs are pretty safe with me. As for civic activists – I am not sure what role they will play but if they want to help push the ball forward – good.
I just don’t understand Townsend’s rhetoric or logic. Cisco wouldn’t have written the tree app? Cisco doesn’t write apps. At least they are not known for their application development focus. What did that mean? Apple doesn’t write 99+% of the apps in its App Store. So what?
From you prior blog posting …
“Taking the position that smart cities are hype, Townsend raised the specter of tech companies creating proprietary “urban operating systems” and ecosystems of software vendors that extract royalties for “shuttling our money and data around smart cities.” Worse, he said, “once ensconced, these firms will be nearly impossible to dislodge.”
Urban operating system? I guess he’s referring to this – http://living-planit.com/UOS_overview.htm#&panel1-1
Of course the companies which are selected by municipalities to implement the systems will want to be paid for their work. Is that really an issue? Or is Townsend talking about the ownership of the derivative data? If so, he is brushing up against a real question – who owns the data? If I drive my car through a state mandated gantry to get onto a state run toll road – who owns the data point of my car going through the gantry? Me? The state? The vendor who built the gantry? The company who runs the toll road?
It seems to me that the only way the company which provides the “urban operating system” owns the data it collects is if the municipality agrees to that as part of the contract.
As far as “government databases” – my point was the lack of consistency in Townsend’s comments. In one sentence of your blog he’s bemoaning the use of “government funded infrastructure” while in the next he’s advocating for “accessing government databases”. I must say that I’m a bit lost here. Is government funded technology good or bad in Townsend’s mind?
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re: ” Of course the companies which are selected by municipalities to implement the systems will want to be paid for their work. Is that really an issue? Or is Townsend talking about the ownership of the derivative data? If so, he is brushing up against a real question – who owns the data? If I drive my car through a state mandated gantry to get onto a state run toll road – who owns the data point of my car going through the gantry? Me? The state? The vendor who built the gantry? The company who runs the toll road?”
yes. the CREATION of the DATA is specified BY THE GOVERNMENT!
and the “activists” are acting like the data just simply exists and is not being used/exploited like it should be – completely forgetting the data would not exist at all in the first place – if it were not for the government.
but it’s even worse than that – they think the govt stupidly ..with no forethought or thinking .. just accidently created that data.. and don’t know what to do with it….
both Smart Growth types and Libertarian types have this same problem.
they just simply discount the fundamental role of government and assume that all of this stuff would get created and happen anyhow even if it was not done by government.
it’s LA LA land on steroids.
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“In a non-govt, libertarian world – there are no public roads or public rights-of-ways or regulation of communication spectrum or GPS satellites.”
I have never heard anyone state that. It’s an assertion of a non-existent extreme point of view in order to discredit an entire collective thought that you find uncomfortable. Most of your comments are really good, this one is disingenuous.
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re: disingenuous
actually what’s disingenuous is speaking about these issues as if there is no role for govt which is my point.
what’s “extreme” , in my point of view – is folks like Libertarians and self-identified Conservatives who believe govt should be “limited” but they never really specify the dividing line and they continue to blame government for harming the free-market.
my point is that govt is the reason why we have the most advanced economy in the world – it’s precisely because of government that we have the most robust commerce infrastructure that powers the most powerful economy..
I want to hear the folks who hammer the role of govt here -to admit the legitimate role of government.. when they say “limited” or “free market”.
define what it means and define what it does not.
that’s not extreme – it’s asking for some rationale for the “limited govt” idea.
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DJ is on it. People who think they understand technology apparently do not understand or acknowledge government’s role.
what kind of “connected” … “internet of things” would we have if any company could use any communications frequency for it’s proprietary network?
and the idea of citizens showing the government how to do things when the entire field of “location” is based on US government GPS satellites really illustrates who some folks don’t even know what technologies are regulated or even created by government.
it’s nutty.
we have electricity because of the government. how would you ever get electricity or cable or internet without the govt creating public rights-of-ways?
I totally believe in the private sector and the free market – but I also think without govt – we’d have a Somolia world to live in.
In a non-govt, libertarian world – there are no public roads or public rights-of-ways or regulation of communication spectrum or GPS satellites.
we should revel in the advances in technology that provides us with more and better but to suggest that we got here without govt or that technology evolved without govt and now will supplant govt is just looney..
in my personal opinion of course.
Just a couple of thoughts – first, just to be sure we’re talking about the same thing, Internet of Things generally refers to the distinction between an Internet composed of computers and networking devices, to an Internet where all sorts of devices – RFID tagged anything, cars, refrigerators, thermostats, building controls, power plants and manufacturing facilities via SCADA, your pacemaker, x-ray machines – are networked.
The reason I make this point is, I would guess every engineering school in Virginia, every computer science department in Virginia, and many many entrepreneurs in Virginia, lots of schoolkids with Raspberry Pis, and many established businesses are working on Internet of Things applications, going by various things I’ve seen over the years. I would think Tech’s work on smart highways is probably the best known but I wouldn’t count on it being the biggest.
Some of them are old and established and important (SCADA systems, whose connection to the Internet presents vulnerabilities), some still need to prove a demand (a refrigerator that orders your groceries for you), and there’s every other possible permutation and combination of dreams and market you ca think of. I don’t think anyone is going to corner this area any more than anyone is going to corner the traditional Internet, because it’s not one market, it’s hundreds and thousands.
Municipal Internet is a term used for the type of low-cost, high- availability broadband provided by Bristol – basically Internet provided by the municipality as an economic development platform. Best I can tell, Virginia has made it almost impossible to replicate this in other areas. Not sure why as it seems counter-productive to economic growth.
Oh, and what is Richmond doing with big data?
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“Best I can tell, Virginia has made it almost impossible to replicate this in other areas. Not sure why as it seems counter-productive to economic growth.”
The only economics that concerns Virginia’s General Assembly are the economics of campaign contributions. Oh, and gifts too. I don’t know the Bristol topology but let me assume some type of municipal WiFi. If there was free WiFi across Virginia’s municipalities I wouldn’t need an unlimited data plan from my cellular carrier. My kids might not even need voice plans as they could use VoIP over WiFi. We could use Whatsapp instead of text messages.
Who loses money? Hint: Verizon alone donated over $5.1M to Virginia politicians since 1997.
Virginia is the center of special interest politics in the world.
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Bristol has a fiber optic network – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband#Successful_implementation_in_Bristol.2C_VA and http://www.bvu-optinet.com/templates/default.php?purl=about_us_history&turl=inside_3col_std_template.htm
I also found this next doc while looking for links – FWIW, have not really sat down and reviewed carefully but it seems to have some good info – on the Blacksburg electronic village from Tech – http://top.bev.net/tamp/7-Common_Appendices/Main_Project_Papers/Virginia_Regulatory_Issues_Pertaining_to_Municipal_Broadband.pdf
I find your analysis plausible. And sad.
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there’s an interesting dichotomy on city vs private provisioning of services.
take – water/sewer or fire service… no complaints from the private sector on cities doing this..
ditto for roads and road maintenance…
ditto for trash and leaf collection although we do see contracting of those services.
some cities still provide electricity although in Va.. very few and it’s provided by the private sector.
but the linkage with Dillon Rule is only ancillary in my view…
Dillon is basically a concept that says the parent governing authority has purview over subordinate authorities.
some only restrict explicitly – others only allow explicitly but the US does this to states.. states do it to counties/cities and county/cities do it to subordinate authorities – like water/sewer, transit, libraries, jails. etc except for those rare multi-state critters which get their own federal charters .
Dillon is why we have DMV, DEQ, state police, weights and measures, insurance regulation, criminal and civil laws.. i.e. murder defined by the state not the locality.. etc.
the interesting thing, at least to me, is can someone like GOOGLE or the GATES ( or local bottom-up crowd-sourcing )foundation come to a locality and provide service for free and be subjected to different rules than for-profit private sector providers?
Can, for instance, internet “collectives” like food or other collectives be formed to provide services -at cost.
We have a Food Bank. It provides food at 19 cents a pound ( to cover warehouse costs).
the area groceries willingly participate by donating food (rather than throwing it out so people will have to buy from the grocery store).
the distinction is (I think) that they’re not selling it to ANYONE at 19 cents a pound – only those who are qualified as “needy”.
locally, Comcast provides internet to low income for 9.95 a month:
http://www.internetessentials.com/
some of this might boil down to sentiment that internet should be cheaper or even free to everyone, not just low income.
but we don’t have that same perspective with regard to electricity..do we?
we have some “lifeline” services provided by the company but as far as I know – no one claiming that electricity or phone service should be provided”free” in a”bottom up” process.
interesting subject.
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Good comments especially about Bristol and vs other places in Va with regard to fundamental services for citizens – like electricity and communications.
there’s a simple almost totally unrecognized concept that makes our world go around and that is called public-right-of-way.
it’s HOW you get electricity, cable, phone, etc to your private property – past other private properties.
it’s not exclusively a government-only function ..there are such things are private roads that have dedicated public rights of way – for utilities and for other public access.
when we talk about city-wide wi-fi or things like parking sensors and the like the question is – not the private sector innovation and entrepreneurship that occurs and continues to occur but whether or not the private sector can do it soup-to-nuts without a government role.
I do not think so but perhaps I am wrong.
but talking about these things without acknowledging/recognition the existing important and key functions that government does currently do – makes such discussion look more like misguided naivete. If we really want to advocate bottom-up – we ought to recognize all the parts of the elephant needed to do it OR we need to admit there is a legitimate and necessary role for government.
so much of this kind of talk just totally misses the mark when you talk about what Bristol has done – and conversely what the private sector has NOT DONE – in any other city. We talk like government has been prevented from doing it… okay.. fine… but what is preventing the private sector from doing it “bottom up”?
On a prior post, it was mentioned that people would propagate WiFi with their own antennas… without every mentioning where the source internet was coming from – or the fact that it was not “free”.
we need to have more realistic discussions about this in my view.
and one tiny, small point – how much of our deficit/debt could we reduce if the Government was allowed to charge royalties for GPS and NOAA weather?
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What I find really interesting is that shortly after Bristol’s implementation, Virginia passed a law basically making it impossible for other communities to set up their own municipal Internet – if I remember correctly, requiring that any price be at least as high as commercial offerings, and forbidding using public funds to reduce the cost of the service.
Given that high speed broadband is pretty much the oxygen of business today, why are we making it impossible for communities to use low cost broadband as an economic stimulus? I would love to understand the reasoning, but I don’t.
As far as right of way, you can provide broadband without right of way, but you need some kind of government rights for most – you can use cell towers (would require spectrum,permitting) or even weather balloons (Google’s Project Loon, not making it up, which I am sure would require FAA and other permissions if you were to do it in the US.) And there are mesh networks.
Mesh networks are pretty cool, but as you’ve pointed out, you probably want to connect to the wider Internet. You can’t just ask a person to act as the Internet gateway for a thousand users – they couldn’t keep their existing ISP contract while acting as a server– plus keep in mind, the connection will be funneling all the data for all the users – which would be a tad expensive. To be practical, a mesh network needs a dedicated Internet connection, and IMHO a high bandwidth connection.
Mesh networks have promise if you can work out that link to the broader Internet, and definitely make sense for emergencies – but there are some caveats and complexities, it’s not all sunshine and puppies. See http://www.wired.com/2014/01/its-time-to-take-mesh-networks-seriously-and-not-just-for-the-reasons-you-think/ and http://www.wired.com/2014/03/apple-multipeer-connectivity/
Bottom up is possible for some of these things, within reason – but as you note, sometimes you need government to take a role. In many cases, you need to avoid having government used to block the ability for new players to do good things that threaten incumbent industries and businesses. What’s that term, regulatory capture?
Re charging royalties or user fees for GPS and NOAA weather, I am not sure I would be in favor of that – we would not have nearly universal use of GPS and location technologies if we had charged for it. Even a small charge would block innovative uses and small startups – who’s going to pay royalties to have a map on their website, if they’re not retail?
To me the dilemma is between the reasonable question about fairness for big users who are able to directly make profits from government investments they didn’t pay for, versus the benefits of freely available technology like GPS and html in stimulating the economy and giving people tools for innovation. Think about how different the web would be if Tim Berners-Lee had charged royalties. I think I tend towards leaving them free, but it’s based on concern that any charges would hurt ordinary people and small businesses.
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“What I find really interesting is that shortly after Bristol’s implementation, Virginia passed a law basically making it impossible for other communities to set up their own municipal Internet – if I remember correctly, requiring that any price be at least as high as commercial offerings, and forbidding using public funds to reduce the cost of the service.”
not cognizant of it but have no reason to doubt it….
“Given that high speed broadband is pretty much the oxygen of business today, why are we making it impossible for communities to use low cost broadband as an economic stimulus? I would love to understand the reasoning, but I don’t.”
well the “reasoning” is pretty simple. The cable providers went to Richmond and said they don’t want to be forced to sell internet spectrum to municipalities who will then give it away – when they could make a profit selling it.
I hope they don’t figure out that most locality libraries offer “free” wi-fi… that would be a booger.
“As far as right of way, you can provide broadband without right of way, but you need some kind of government rights for most – you can use cell towers (would require spectrum,permitting) or even weather balloons (Google’s Project Loon, not making it up, which I am sure would require FAA and other permissions if you were to do it in the US.) And there are mesh networks.”
I’m not convinced you could have wide-spread coverage without right-of-way but this goes back to the private sector doing it without govt – either as a business/company or “bottom-up/crowd sourcing”.
“Mesh networks are pretty cool, but as you’ve pointed out, you probably want to connect to the wider Internet. You can’t just ask a person to act as the Internet gateway for a thousand users – they couldn’t keep their existing ISP contract while acting as a server– plus keep in mind, the connection will be funneling all the data for all the users – which would be a tad expensive. To be practical, a mesh network needs a dedicated Internet connection, and IMHO a high bandwidth connection.”
basically the cable provider would be contractor with you as a 3rd party provider – re-selling spectrum.
“Mesh networks have promise if you can work out that link to the broader Internet, and definitely make sense for emergencies – but there are some caveats and complexities, it’s not all sunshine and puppies. See http://www.wired.com/2014/01/its-time-to-take-mesh-networks-seriously-and-not-just-for-the-reasons-you-think/ and http://www.wired.com/2014/03/apple-multipeer-connectivity/”
I LIKE – WIRED also! I’m not opposed at all to non-govt solutions – but skeptical that it happens without some reliance on the govt.
“Bottom up is possible for some of these things, within reason – but as you note, sometimes you need government to take a role. In many cases, you need to avoid having government used to block the ability for new players to do good things that threaten incumbent industries and businesses. What’s that term, regulatory capture?”
agree… remember the private sector has their own “interests” here also and they do not take kindly to the idea of being forced to sell services at dirt-cheap prices so the govt can then give it away.
“Re charging royalties or user fees for GPS and NOAA weather, I am not sure I would be in favor of that – we would not have nearly universal use of GPS and location technologies if we had charged for it. Even a small charge would block innovative uses and small startups – who’s going to pay royalties to have a map on their website, if they’re not retail?”
you’d do govt royalties the same way the private sector does. “charging” does not “block” innovation guy. If that were the case – Apple and Microsoft would be accused of “killing” innovation because they “charge” for their proprietary products. The government could, with royalties, totally recoup the investment costs of GPS – reducing govt spending… reducing the deficit and debt.
“To me the dilemma is between the reasonable question about fairness for big users who are able to directly make profits from government investments they didn’t pay for, versus the benefits of freely available technology like GPS and html in stimulating the economy and giving people tools for innovation. Think about how different the web would be if Tim Berners-Lee had charged royalties. I think I tend towards leaving them free, but it’s based on concern that any charges would hurt ordinary people and small businesses.”
GPS is not “free”. it cost a pretty penny. We give away GPS and Apple and Google make a killing selling phones and apps.. and why would they any more or less “hurt” innovation for charging than the govt would – for charging?
not getting the difference….
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