Orange and Telefónica have co-founded a new ETSI specification group aimed at developing open and interoperable smart cities.
The group will focus on Context Information Management for smart applications. In smart cities, this relates to all the real time data that outlines what is happening across the city, from air quality and parking status, to weather and traffic flow.
In a statement, the group said this data can be produced by connected Internet of Things devices and consumed by applications that can improve the efficiency and management of a city.
Other members of the group include NEC, IoT player Easy Global Market and research and development agency iMec.
The group will concentrate on developing specifications that will deliver common context information management APIs and data models.
It said it wanted to encourage open and interoperable smart cities, which will encourage a larger and stronger ecosystem for operators, vendors, IoT players, government bodies, business and citizens.
The group will work alongside the likes of ETSI’s SmartM2M and oneM2M projects and the World Wide Web Consortium standards body.
A report commissioned by Nokia last year said that openness will be at the centre of all successful smart city projects. It recommended practitioners share as much data as possible in order to improve services for citizens and enterprises.
The vendor found that the most successful smart cities had proactive levels of customer engagement and also opted for open infrastructure to avoid vendor lock-in.