04.03.2019 by Daniel Kunz

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At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Deutsche Telekom presented innovative solutions and visions relating to the Internet of Things: smart city, smart factory, smart gaming.

Mobile World Congress, Monday morning: Instead of trying out the latest models at the smartphone manufacturers’ booths, various trade fair visitors are jumping around wildly and typing on their smartphone displays. They seem to be captivated by the new augmented reality game "Codename: Neon," which is celebrating its premiere here in Barcelona. The goal: to shoot down real opponents with virtual, neon-colored balls. It's no coincidence that the pattern of movement evokes certain memories. The game was developed by Niantic, a San Francisco-based game developer, who in 2016 used "Pokémon Go" to make people stumble through German pedestrian zones like zombies.

MOBILE EDGE COMPUTING AS A PRELUDE TO 5G

The gaming arena is Deutsche Telekom’s MWC booth. It has turned its mobile network into a so-called mobile edge network and brought the computing power for data exchange between smartphone and cloud very close to the end devices. The low delays achieved in this way are an elementary component of the new 5G mobile communications.

The first playgrounds for 5G could be so-called campus networks – tailor-made mobile networks for industry. A company network and the public Internet are connected, while the private network is not accessible from the outside. Latency and bandwidth on the campus, for example on a factory site, are provided reliably and securely at a continuously high quality.

SMART FACTORY WITH CAMPUS NETWORK

Deutsche Telekom board members Adel Al-Saleh and Claudia Nemat were joined by Stefan Fritz, Vice President Digital Factory at lighting specialist Osram, to launch the new data network at the Osram plant in Schwabmünchen from the MWC with a symbolic push of a button. It marked the prelude to the smart factory there. The lamp manufacturer wants to upgrade the site to a high-tech plant – and the new campus network is to form the digital backbone. Instead of WLAN, the factory is now completely networked with LTE; 5G will then follow later as the data connection. The push of a button in Barcelona set in motion an autonomous transport robot in Schwabmünchen. "Our goal is the 'smart factory' in which all machines and planning processes are digitally networked with each other in real time," said Fritz.

CityTree: SMARTER AIR FILTER

At Telekom's booth in Barcelona, trade fair visitors were also able to try out a very special bench: The CityTree, a four-meter high and three-meter wide moss wall with two built-in seats. The idea for this construction came from the start-up Green City Solutions and it’s not just an extraordinary piece of seating furniture for the city, but also a green air filter and WLAN hotspot. "Worldwide, 90 percent of people living in cities breathe polluted air every day," says Dénes Honus, co-founder and managing director of Green City Solution. "One in every seven deaths today is due to the effects of particulate matter."

The moss in the CityTree filters fine dust particles and nitrogen oxides from the air and simultaneously produces oxygen. According to a field study by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, a CityTree absorbs up to 23 percent of the particulate matter in its immediate environment. The clever seating furniture works largely independently. Fans behind the moss plants ensure even air circulation and solar cells on the roof provide the power supply. Integrated IoT sensors from Telekom control the irrigation of the moss plants and send a report when the CityTree requires maintenance.

SMART CITY APP: DIGITALIZATION FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR

German cities and municipalities have just three years to make sure they are offering their administrative services digitally. The reason for this accelerated digitalization is the Online Access Act, which was passed in August 2017. With the Smart City app, which it presented in Barcelona, Deutsche Telekom is supporting public institutions in bringing their services online. Citizens can, for example, use the app to register a change of address, download driving license applications or apply for a new passport.

The app also provides information about leisure activities and shopping opportunities in the surrounding area. At the MWC, the cities of Bonn and Dortmund joined the group of cities that want to offer the app to their citizens in the future. "We are reacting to the feedback from the city administrations. We assume responsibility together with the cities and strong innovation partners. Our goal is a sustainable, future-oriented digital society," said Markus Keller, head of Smart City at Deutsche Telekom.

Solutions such as these as well as the Building Monitoring & Analytics for building management, the IoT Service Button for logistics and the standard oneM2M for IoT interfaces show that the MWC in Barcelona has become much more than just a forum for presenting the latest smartphones.