Yes, it is true that in today's world, customer focus is a critical factor in successful business and smart city planning. And there are a multitude of avenues that need to be considered before any project can go ahead, such as: Infrastructure, technology, transport, housing, public services and security to name a few. Furthermore, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we must learn from our past mistakes if our smart cities are to be a success for the future.

So far our current smart cities have experienced a range of successful AND unsuccessful projects to date. In the early stages of smart city development, there was often a disconnect between the city's plans and the needs of its residents. This led to a lack of adoption in various technologies and services and most importantly, a huge waste of resources, time and money. We must remember that a smart city is not only about technology, but it should also address the social, economic, and environmental issues of the community.

In our race to find new ways to improve our quality of life, we are also faced with the challenge of urbanisation. The worldwide population is forever on the increase, reports suggest 54% of people are currently living in cities and that percentage is predicted to reach 66% by 2050. This inevitably will increase the demand on natural resources and bring with it other challenges such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and housing shortages, making it important for smart cities to prioritise sustainability and find new and innovative technologies that promote resource efficiency and help keep costs down.

The smart city framework is a combination of information and communication technologies (ICT), an essential combination of physical infrastructure, paired with IoT technologies and device integrations, all working together to help with business efficiency, cutting costs and providing faster decision making.

An adoption of fresh and exciting ways of implementing IoT within smart cities can lead to residents benefitting from things such as:

• Improved energy distribution

• A decrease in traffic congestion

• Improved waste collection services

• Improved air quality

The investment in smart cities is crucial, and early recognition of the things that make them successful is of course wireless connectivity and data. A robust and reliable wireless network infrastructure is vital for the deployment of IoT devices and technologies. And the collection of real-time network intelligence data provides important insights and enables city planning projects the opportunity to make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date information.

Metricells suite of network intelligence tools allows for continuous monitoring and analysis of mobile, fixed and private network performance, delivering alerts whenever there's an outage or degraded coverage, voice or data experience. We provide systems and software which help drive insight and improvement on the connections we rely on most for our personal and professional lives - empowering connectivity for both subscribers and businesses.

Our do-it-yourself crowdsourcing app; Aptus collects vital network performance data, and can be easily integrated into any 3rd party application. The data captured provides powerful insights into true coverage, data network performance and 5G availability, as well as insightful footfall and mobility statistics.

To find out more about how Metricell can help you invest in the future of smart cities, contact us on marketing@metricell.com or visit our website here.

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