Current Events

New study on Smart Cities published: self-provisioned networks are more important than profits


We are excited to present our study on smart cities, titeled "Smart City: self-provisioned networks are more important than profits", which a team around Prof. Joachim Henkel and Lucia Baur has been working on over the past year. 115 smart city experts from 107 German cities participated in the survey. The study focuses on the backbone of digitalization in cities: the communication networks. This technological backbone is crucial for network stability, security, and for availability and scalability of smart offers in a city. When selecting a communication technology, financial considerations are of lower importance. Instead, cities care about the possibility to shape, provide, and administrate those networks themselves. The overall purpose of smart city efforts is, in general, to build a reputation as an innovative and liveable city and having efficient internal processes for the benefit of the citizens.

Special thanks to all survey participants for taking the time and for their willingness to share their information. We’d also like to thank the Deutsche Städtetag, namely Ms. Janßen, for her valuable feedback and the support during the distribution of the survey.

On Thursday, 17th November, at 3pm the team will present the results in an online session and time will also allow for questions. You can receive the dial-in details upon request from Ms. Baur.

The study was conducted by Prof. Henkel, Lucia Baur, Niklas Karlin, Sven Leeger, and Valentin Mayer.  
The press release is available here (German only)
The study is available here (German only).