Modern communication technologies have been around for two decades or more and while there have been some incredibly useful innovations in AI, machine learning, and quantum computing, it’s arguably our ability to communicate which enables humanity to rise to any challenge. This ability has been boundlessly enhanced through the use of instant messaging and feedback loops in the modern world. This article takes a look at the application of messaging and communications in smart cities, pondering how modern communications should be applied to the smart cities of the future.

Feedback Loops

Much of the communications technology that we know and cherish is between humans — like in instant messaging, email, and other web-based technologies. But there are other ways that the digital world enables communication, including between internet-enabled objects.

This is what happens when your smart appliances speak to an ecommerce website to tell it that you need more detergent. It’s also what happens when a parking space is full or empty, or when the trains in the city are at 60% capacity. It’s this feedback, centralized to a database, which will drive resource efficiency in the city.

Team Chat

Whatever the project, wherever the team, communications technologies like those introduced by ringcentral review enable groups of individuals to work and talk on the move, with logs of the chats that have taken place open for all in the team to inspect and critique.

In today’s fast-moving world and in a workplace culture when getting feedback and the green light to commence projects is crucial, you’ll find that adding this feature to your team’s work will enhance their productivity and enable them to push ideas and solutions towards completion with increased speed and efficiency.

Centralized Communications

There are some elements to the big smart cities of the future that require centralization to function at their full potential. This is one of the key precepts of the smart city: an urban area in which data is synthesized and interpreted through a central nervous system. For this to happen, of course, there have to be centralized hubs of communication.

These would ordinarily be called datacenters, though it is still up for debate as to how these centers actually look and function. Will there be human monitors in the center, or will every process in the city be automated? In either case, communication systems talking with traffic lights, subway systems and parking monitors are crucial for the smart cities of the future.

Citizen Power

The question as to how the citizens of the twenty-first century can practice active and responsible citizenship has been puzzling philosophers and activists for years. The question is partly solved by the smart city, in that ordinary people can report faults or information to centralized datacenters in order to help improve the service.

We already see this kind of feedback in Google’s products, which show you when the peak times for shops might be based on the phone signals that are sent from its interior. Rolled out en masse, this could be a huge boon for smart cities and efficient living in the future.

There you have it: four important ways in which the communications technologies upon which we rely will be crucial in building the smart cities of the future.