Value Network Configurations of 5G Light Poles in Smart City Ecosystem

Modern ICT technologies and services have produced significant changes in all areas of the society, thus producing the concept of the smart city. Evolution of cities to smart cities is possible by the exploitation of ICT in urban development. ICT is leveraged to improve living standards. Moreover, the next generation communication networks (5G) is expected to unleash a massive IoT based digital ecosystem which can serve future communication needs for millions of connected devices, sensor networks, with high speed, low latency, and low cost. These specifications make a perfect fit to use 5G for smart cities and its future digital services. This thesis proposes alternative value networks related to smart city ecosystem around the 5G smart light pole. The light poles with integrated BS, small cells, and 5G technology represent a structural evolution for smart cities. There are multiple alternative methods for designing and analyzing value networks, but for this thesis, we have selected scenario planning and value network configuration (VNC) methods. The VNC method pulls together technical architecture and market architecture. This method can help to reduce complexity and to prioritize the forces and parts of the studied ecosystem. We use this information to identify the different technical components, business roles and business actors needed to construct alternative VNC’s that could be adopted by different cities. The six alternate VNC’s resulted are categorized as MNO & Non-MNO driven VNC’s. Key observations include the importance of two central platforms: city connectivity platform and city data platform. Platform here means technical & business platforms that would create value by facilitating exchanges between interdependent groups. Who will be the owner & operator of the 5G Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)? How is the relationship organized between 5G MAN & WAN, or national MNO: cooperation v/s competition? From thesis viewpoint, an excellent technical architecture should be flexible and adapt to all relevant alternate VNC’s. Another critical observation is related to data provisioning, i.e., the value of data. Who will be the owner & operator of the city-centric data integration platform? How is the integration of different sensor data organized? These results can help in identifying the possibilities as who can control the two central platforms for the MNO & Non-MNO driven VNC’s