GOWEX and Cisco announced that the two companies will promote a comprehensive smart Wi-Fi connectivity solution for cities and their citizens. GOWEX will become a Cisco® Smart+Connected Communities™ (S+CC) global strategic partner.
“We are pleased to announce Cisco’s participation in the GOWEX Smart Cities project, which will help drive the company towards its goal of bringing a free and smart Wi-Fi connection to 600 cities by 2018. We will position ourselves together as a global Internet reference for cities wishing to offer free Wi-Fi connection and smart services to its citizens and visitors,” says Jenaro García, GOWEX CEO. This collaborative approach will significantly increase GOWEX’s current pipeline of city projects which are in different stages of negotiation, and which has almost doubled since 2013. The sustainable GOWEX model is already operating successfully in more than 90 cities worldwide.
This strategic relationship will further the efforts of new Smart Cities projects in the major world regions in the coming years. In addition, it will allow for faster development on a combined smart Wi-Fi connectivity solution, to generate significant business opportunities.
”More than 50 percent of people live in urban areas today, and Smart Cities worldwide are competing for sustainable, economic and social urban services now as their populations rise rapidly,” said Wim Elfrink, Cisco’s EVP of industry solutions and Chief Globalisation Officer. “Cisco’s strategic relationship with GOWEX creates a powerful framework for an end-to-end, Internet of Everything solution for urban services. The combination of proven network infrastructure and critical applications not only can optimise all types of urban services but also provide citizens with a better, more connected quality of life.”
Global Smart City solution
The combination of the Cisco Internet of Everything ecosystem, and innovative business models, provided by GOWEX, will create a more efficient and effective urban services offer to improve quality of life for citizens. This new model can then help influence the way cities enable Wi-Fi and IoE (Internet of Everything) solutions through various S+CC deployments (such as smart transport and parking, urban safety, traffic management, and smart tourism).
GOWEX brings a model of differentiation and an attractive business for cities that can provide WiFi and intelligent geo-located mobile content services for free. The GOWEX model of monetization is based on multi-year commercial exploitation contracts, with a revenue income resulting from hosting services such as the geo-located advertising platform, the roaming and offloading platform, and the Wireless Smart Cities platform.
Through this agreement, GOWEX will widen its global presence in vertical markets (retail, sports and entertainment, etc.). The first Smart Cities project under the new collaboration is being deployed at “Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA).” For this project, Cisco has provided the necessary infrastructure to provide M2M communications and smart services to its citizens and workers.
Re-imagining cities
The two companies’ agreement will be announced at the New Cities Summit Dallas 2014, a roundtable event focused on showcasing the best ideas for the future of cities and on generating particular and scalable solutions that can be adopted and replicated across the world.
