Broadband Communities

MAY-JUN 2016

BROADBAND COMMUNITIES is the leading source of information on digital and broadband technologies for buildings and communities. Our editorial aims to accelerate the deployment of Fiber-To-The-Home and Fiber-To-The-Premises.

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54 | BROADBAND COMMUNITIES | www.broadbandcommunities.com | MAY/JUNE 2016 SUMMIT COVERAGE Highlights of the 2016 BroadBand Communities Summit Broadband's benefts – and the challenges for communities, providers and property owners in realizing those benefts – were the topics of discussion at the April 2016 BroadBand Communities Summit, held in Austin, Texas. A BBC Staf Report O f all the profound changes in information and communications technology, the Internet of Tings (IoT) may prove the most signifcant, said Florence Hudson, senior vice president and chief innovation ofcer for Internet2. By 2025, the economic beneft of this new technology could reach $11 trillion, or as much as 10 percent of total gross domestic product. Lifesaving applications, such as telemedicine stroke diagnosis, are already in place, but expanding the IoT to a network of many billions of sensors presents challenges. IoT applications such as smart buildings represent the convergence of information technology and operational technology. Tis is a challenge because IT and OT professionals think and talk diferently and operate on entirely diferent time frames. Buildings are built to last for 50 years; IT systems are constantly patched. Another challenge, Hudson said, is that every device in the IoT is discoverable and hackable. She showed a video clip demonstrating a hacker easily hijacking a Jeep and remotely driving it into a ditch. (Chrysler is now working on a fx – but plenty of other devices are still vulnerable.) Internet2 is starting a smart-campus initiative with 10 universities, and the University of Washington will lead the risk management group. Brontobytes of data will need to be secured if the IoT is to become useful. Steven Garbrecht, director of GE Digital, commented that the more technologically advanced a system is, the more fragile it is. GE is building industrial IoT systems for power plants, airlines, streetlights and other applications. "Tey need to be rock solid, reliable and secure to take advantage of the opportunities [the IoT] ofers," he said. Paul Hopingardner, deputy CIO for the city of Austin, said many potential municipal IoT applications existed. For example, Austin could use sensors to connect and direct trafc and to allow ambulances to transmit patients' electrocardiograms to emergency rooms as they transported heart attack victims to hospitals. Police vehicles could record and transmit police- civilian interactions, and frefghters trapped inside burning buildings could be located and rescued. Hopingardner also stressed the need to make systems reliable and secure. "Engineering trust into products" will be necessary for the IoT to succeed, said Patrick Sims, CTO of Lightcore Group. "It goes beyond the frewall – it's the devices themselves," Sims added. The Internet of Things Arrives

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