An exploration of user-generated wireless broadband infrastructures in digital cities

This paper examines the broadband connectivity options available in digital cities. It offers an overview of services provided by commercial operators, the public sector and by citizens themselves, arguing that shortcomings in existing fixed broadband and commercial mobile broadband services provide an opportunity for citizens to share their own wireless broadband connections. It explores Wi-Fi hotspot provider FON’s approach to extending mobile broadband infrastructure by enabling shared connections within communities. The paper outlines some reasons why this specific user-generated approach to infrastructure provision has been unable to deliver highly robust broadband infrastructure, and discusses ways in which users and the public sector can be involved in developing new mobile infrastructures that will meet citizens’ needs.     

The challenge of e-participation in the digital city: Exploring generational influences among community telecentre users

A primary challenge for the development of e-government and the digital city is participation by low-income, older and technology-challenged citizens. This paper reports on the role of inter-generational interactions in community telecentres in facilitating low-income, older and technology-challenged citizens in gaining access and using digital city infrastructure. Our research also finds that virtual communities are playing a role in supporting e-participation among older, technology-challenged citizens. We examine the influence and interaction of members of offline communities, who use telecentres, on virtual community participation. These communities and telecentres can provide support for the provision of e-services and the development of the digital city. We explore these issues based on empirical field research in community-based telecentres in a developing country. Inter-generational interactions are explored through an analysis using social networks, social identity and social representations theories.     

Information and Telecommunications Project for a Digital City: A Brazilian case study

Making information and telecommunications available is a permanent challenge for cities concerned to their social, urban and local planning and development, focused on life quality of their citizens and on the effectiveness of public management. Such a challenge requires the involvement of everyone in the city. The objective is to describe the information and telecommunications project from the planning of a digital city carried out in Vinhedo-SP, Brazil. It was built as a telecommunications infrastructure of the kind of “open access metropolitan area networks” which enables the integration of citizens in a single telecommunications environment. The research methodology was emphasized by a case study which turned to be a research-action, comprising the municipal administration and its local units. The results achieved describe, by means of a methodology, the phases, sub-phases, activities, approval points and resulting products, and formalize their respective challenges and difficulties. The contributions have to do with the practical feasibility of the project and execution of its methodology. The conclusion reiterates the importance of the project, collectively implemented and accepted, as a tool to help the management of cities, in the implementation of Strategic Digital City Projects, in the decisions of public administration managers, and in the quality of life of their citizens.     

Assessment of domestic photovoltaic systems based on real options theory

In the last decade, the financial attractiveness of photovoltaic (PV) systems has been increasing due to the rapid and constant improvements of PV technologies and the introduction of renewable energy support mechanisms. Under these circumstances, residential electricity consumers can benefit from investments in domestic PV systems. Investment decisions in PV systems can be assessed with well‐known discounted cash flows criteria such as the cost of energy and the net present value. These types of analyses either recommend abandoning the project or investing immediately. However, due to fast improvements in PV technologies, especially in the last few years, options to postpone investments in PV systems can be valuable. These options can be assessed with real options theory. This paper proposes a real options methodology for the assessment of domestic PV systems, considering the expected evolution of PV technologies and the option to delay investment. The methodology employs a normalization technique to illustrate, in a simple and intuitive manner, the convenience of the delay option. Two case studies based on real aggregated data for the UK are presented. The first case study illustrates the methodology, whereas the second is an extensive study meant to provide insights about investments in domestic PV systems in the UK. The results indicate the circumstances that drive and disincentivize investments in different PV technologies. Additionally, it is shown that the option to delay investment is a potential driver for investments in emerging organic‐based PV technologies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Twitter information for contributing to the strategic digital city: Towards citizens as co-managers

Actions towards an effective city management require a focus on citizens, and it is a role of local governments to search for ways to provide their participation in the decision-making process. Among other information technology resources, local governments use social platforms thus facing the challenge of extracting and classifying information for strategic use. The objective of this study is to analyze Twitter information to contribute to the strategic digital city. The research methodology used was a case study of a Brazilian city. Twitter was analyzed, and the information assessed according to its characteristics, source, nature, quality, intelligence and organizational level. Results reveal Twitter allows communication, rudiments of public services and exchange and sharing information on municipal themes inherent to strategic digital cities. Information has quality and intelligence to serve the strategic level of government. The conclusion confirms that Twitter enhances transparency and strengthens bonds between local government and citizens.     

Geography- and infrastructure-aware topology design methodology for broadband access networks (FTTx)

We present a topology design methodology for broadband (FTTx) access networks. The calculations are based on real geographic data (digital maps) and infrastructural information of the targeted area, using detailed and realistic cost models in order to provide results of practical interest. The developed heuristics offer low time consumption and nearly optimal solutions for the highly complex problem of minimal cost network deployment, due to the properly chosen and customized heuristic algorithms for the various network technologies. We review the specific properties of the FTTx network technologies, present a formal representation of the problem including a detailed cost function and network model and discuss complexity issues. The various solution techniques are presented along with case studies of real-life scenarios in order to show the potential of the methodology. The developed heuristic algorithms offer an approximation of the optimum within 10–15%, while time consumption remains in the range of a few minutes, even for large-scale scenarios with 10,000s of customers. Beyond topology design, the results provided by these methods are useful for a preliminary CAPEX estimation and techno-economic comparison.     

Wireless provision of true VoD services and fast access to Internet

The evolution of digital compression techniques has made possible the provision of full‐motion video services through networking infrastructures of sufficient bandwidth. This paper presents a wireless broadband network, which is capable of providing true interactive VoD services (with full VCR functions) and fast access to Internet to a number of simultaneous clients. The network is based on frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) technology operating in the 2.4 GHz frequency band. The paper describes the system architecture and configuration adopted in a real environment trial and elaborates on the provided picture quality in a multi‐client environment. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digital Cities: Towards an integrated decision support methodology

This paper deals with the problem of the low ICT adoption rate by many cities or urban regions. The consequences of the poor ICT environment in these authorities may be summarized into (i) the cutback of local business competitiveness, (ii) the incapability of attracting new business investments, (iii) the poor service of citizens needs (living in the local area or abroad – a foreign country or another city, namely emigrants), (iv) the poor service of visitors that have or want to have transactions in the local area. The main shortcomings of local authorities refer to lack of capabilities and expertise, negligence of local needs and urban characteristics, absence of ICT adoption models to local needs, ignorance of development and exploitation models etc. These regions need support so as to select the most appropriate ICT best practices, integrated them into their strategic plans and implement them with success. This procedure is particularly complex, since many factors and restrictions have to be considered. The overall objective of this paper is to illustrate the Digital City concept and to propose an integrated methodology for Digital City development that will act in a supportive way for the regions or cities that have low rates in ICT penetration and try to adopt ICT best practices into their core functions and services.     

DORS: A data overhead reduction scheme for hybrid networks in smart cities

Today, smart cities represent an effective digital platform for facilitating our lives by shifting all stakeholders toward more sustainable behavior. Consequently, the field of smart cities has become an increasingly important research area. The smart city comprises a huge number of hybrid networks, with each network containing an enormous number of nodes that transmit massive amounts of data, thus giving rise to many network problems, such as delay and loss of connectivity. Decreasing the amount of such transmitted data is a great challenge. This paper presents a data overhead reduction scheme (DORS) for heterogeneous networks in smart city environments that comprise five different methods: median, nonlinear least squares, compression, data merging, and prioritization. Each method is applied according to the current status of quality of service. To measure the performance of the proposed model, a simulation environment is constructed for a smart city using network simulation package, NS2. The obtained results indicate that DORS has the capability to decrease the size of transmitted data in the simulated smart city environment while attaining a notable performance enhancement in terms of data reduction rate, end‐to‐end delay, packet loss ratio, throughput, and energy consumption ratio.     

采用Option60区分广电新业务

随着有线网络双向数字化改造的深入,基于机项盒的新业务得到长足发展,其中包括VOD和宽带上网,但这两个业务在业务管理模式上区别很大,很有必要区别对待。徐州广电创造性地通过RFC中Option60,给两个业务划分不同段的IP来区分,并根据徐州广电网络的实际情况,在不同阶段采用了不同的两种方法。     

Participatory technologies in smart cities: What citizens want and how to ask them

This article deals with the process of prioritization of requirements on one selected participatory technology, which is citizen reporting on issues of public infrastructure (CRIsPI). Reporting is the activity that expresses the interest of citizens about the place they live. Traditionally, older citizens are more active in this activity, but modern technologies have the potential to motivate also young people to become active participants in public issues. There are two objectives of the article: 1) determination of which CRIsPI features would motivate young citizens to higher participation, and 2) comparative analysis of six prioritization methods to select the most appropriate method for engagement of this group of citizens. In total, 155 respondents (students) participated in the study. Results revealed that respondents require easy-to-use tools and positive feedback from the local government. Moreover, they prefer mobile solutions. The most suitable prioritization method, according to five given criteria, is adjusted cumulative voting ($100).     

An Object Oriented Architectural Library for the Design and Implementation of Network Protocols

The society of telecommunication and computer networks encompasses a wide variety of organizations, forums and industry companies that specify, standardize, evaluate, implement and deploy network infrastructures. These infrastructures are well defined and deployed in order to offer high quality end-user services and meet the need for interconnectivity, expandability and upgradeability. What users see and experience is the tip of the iceberg. Great amount of time and money is spent in specification, standardization, design, debugging, testing (both conformance and stress) and finally evaluating network components or subsystems before the deployment takes place. The framework, proposed in the current paper and implemented in open source software library, provides an object oriented methodology for the implementation of network protocols and the software realization of network components. The method is formed in respect to: (a) operating system architecture (b) network architecture and (c) Object Oriented (OO) methodology.     

Wiring small-town China: the fiber-optic tentacles of China's Internet extend deep into the heartland

This paper describes how Internet connectivity has transformed the lives of citizens in the various small cities in China. The assumption that China's exploding population of Internet users are concentrated in and around Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and other metropolises is just plain wrong. A 2003 study showed that cities and towns all over China were using sophisticated information technology to promote e-government, find new markets, rationalize work flows in businesses and municipal governments, and even enjoy real-time combat and conversation. A more recent study revealed that change is continuing apace and the once prevalent dial-up links have given way almost entirely to high-speed broadband connections.     

Are public makerspaces a means to empowering citizens? The case of Ateneus de Fabricació in Barcelona

Since the beginning of the 2010s, the existence of widespread shared workshops has enabled access to digital manufacturing tools. Mainly located in urban areas, these facilities seek to make means of production, to design, prototype and repair all kinds of objects available to the citizens. These practices have been supported by activists of the “democratization” of digital manufacturing spearheaded by the maker movement. Urban authorities have gradually been won over by the these activits’ promises to encourage entrepreneurship, generate new knowledge, mobilize citizens and even transform the perceptions of and the way in which manufacturing is conducted in the city. However, these activists’ attractive discourse overly mechanically equates the accessibility of these digital tools to the idea of empowerment. Under what conditions can these practices of making lead to an increase in citizens’ individual and collective power to act, or even to social change? This article aims to answer this question by firstly constructing an analytical framework of makerspaces empowerment, and secondly by analysing the case of the public network of makerspaces in Barcelona: the Ateneus de Fabricació. To do so, our qualitative research will be based on the documentary analysis of official publications, direct observations carried out at the aforementioned workshops, and in-depth interviews with key players Barcelona makerspaces’ scene. Our results will demonstrate that in the context of smart cities, the public acceptance of these places leads to the transformation of administrative practices. Free access to public makerspaces is accompanied by a change in the relationship between public organizations and users in order to promote the empowerment of the inhabitants of Barcelona thanks to these fabrication practices.     

Understanding the impacts of Internet use on senior Citizens’ social participation in China: Evidence from longitudinal panel data

Scholars have appealed to build a digitally inclusive society to include senior citizens. However, conclusions on the impacts of Internet use on senior citizens’ social participation are divided. In order to address the above issue, this study addresses two questions: 1) how Internet use is related to senior citizens’ social participation; and 2) what the specific impacts of Internet use are on different subgroups’ social participation. We aim to understand the specific impacts of Internet use on senior citizens’ social participation meanwhile explore the reasons causing the abovementioned inconsistence in prior studies. We ran different panel regression models to address these questions based on a dataset drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Our empirical results indicate that seniors who are Internet users have higher social participation than those who do not use the Internet even after controlling out other influencing factors; however, frequent Internet use leads to less social participation among senior citizens. For senior citizens with higher cognitive functioning, both using Internet or not and the frequency of Internet use lead to more social participation. Both using Internet or not and the frequency of Internet use cause senior citizens with pensions to engage in fewer social activities. For female senior citizens, frequent Internet use leads to lower social participation. These findings suggest that government and communities should improve digital infrastructures and offer senior citizens more opportunities to access the Internet; meanwhile, local communities, social workers, and family members should direct senior citizens to use the Internet in a reasonable manner.     

RENAN--An Experimental ISDN Project in France

The French telephone network has reached the level of nearly 50 percent digitization in 1985. This makes France, among industrialized nations, a ripe territory for the offering of a wide range of general public digital services. As of 1985, any two users nationwide can be linked by a 64 kbit/s digital connection via the Telecom 1 satellite communications network or the digital connection ground network. The RENAN project, launched in 1983, aims at the full-size experimentation of the ISDN as defined by the CCITT during its last work period. It has two main objectives: one is purely technical, whereas the other is service-oriented. This second aspect is approached in close cooperation with the business subscribers addressed by the experiment. All equipment to be installed for the project has been developed by French industry. They have been greatly involved with the project and can thereby achieve optimal integration within the existing network structure, and can profit from the investments made over the past several years. The RENAN project should help to define future policies of the French Direction Générale des Télécommunications regarding services and networks, and extend for several years to come the lead taken by France in the area of digital networks.     

France's grass roots data net

The authors describe how France introduced the Minitel information highway network in 1982, and now 80 percent of the French nation's businesses and 20 percent of its citizens use it. Network addresses are equivalent to 800 freephone numbers in the United States, but Minitel still manages to run at a profit     

区域范围小功率单频网覆盖方案设计

地面数字电视是公共服务,明确由国家财政投入,已建广播电视＂村村通＂工程起点低、入户率较低、节目套数少、没有经费保障,无法维持＂长期通＂。普通地市只规划了一个地面数字电视频道,最多也就是十几套节目,与当前建设社会主义新农村的要求、与广大农民群众的迫切需求不适应,而有线网络覆盖成本又太高,客观上迫切需要节目丰富的地面数字电视市场化产业来解决广大边远地区的农村电视收看问题,为此仅从技术角度探讨区域范围内广大农村的国标无线数字电视单频网小功率覆盖设计问题。     

Community research activities in secure and trustworthy ICT infrastructures

Secure and trusted Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures are key enablers for the development of a trustworthy Information Society. The European Union, recognising this, has launched over the last few years a number of research initiatives aiming at designing and building secure and dependable ICT systems and networks, which respect citizens’ rights and protect their privacy and personal data. The European Commission is already funding more than 37 R&D projects in this area under the IST programme, which is part of the 6th Framework Programme (2002 to 2006). The paper first presents the main research challenges in the development of secure, dependable and trusted ICT infrastructures. It then describes a representative set of these IST projects dealing with advanced research in network and service security. The paper also presents upcoming opportunities for research funding in this area under the newly launched ICT programme, part of the 7th Framework Programme that extends from 2007 to 2013.