Smart Building Technology

Smart building technology is transforming the way cities are managing their facilities. As part of the trend toward smart city technology, smart buildings use sensors, data and analytics to cost-efficiently track and manage a wide variety of building operations. By monitoring energy and security systems as well as the status of building assets and the movement of tenants and visitors throughout the facility, smart building technology helps to streamline management, reduce costs, extend the life of assets and drive environmental sustainability.

Smart building technology includes:

• Internet of Things (IoT) devices that gather real-time data on climate control, air and water quality, energy usage, access to spaces and the performance of a wide variety of equipment and systems.
• A robust and reliable network that can manage the vast amount of data produced by sensors and transmit it with low latency to building automation systems (BAS) or building management systems (BMS) as well as the city’s central data analytics platform.
• Analytics software that can transform raw data into valuable intelligence and automated action.
• User interfaces that allow facility managers and city planners to access the information they need to improve facility management.

Benefits of smart building technology

Like all smart city projects, smart building technology provides significant cost-savings and other benefits that include:

• Reducing energy-related expenditures.
• Eliminating wasted resources such as loss of water due to malfunctioning plumbing equipment.
• Preventing unauthorized persons from accessing the building.
• Addressing mechanical and maintenance issues before systems like HVAC, elevators and refrigeration units experience outages.
• Preventing cybersecurity threats that target central systems.
• Improving air and water quality to comply with safety code requirements.
• Providing a more conducive environment for tenants, visitors and suppliers that require access to the building.

Spectrum Enterprise: infrastructure for smart building technology

As an industry-leading provider of connectivity solutions for smart cities, Spectrum Enterprise provides the smart infrastructure required for smart building technology as well as smart city lighting solutions, smart waste management solutions and other smart city initiatives.

With over 840,000 miles of fiber network infrastructure nationwide, Spectrum Enterprise has already laid the network foundation for smart building technology in many urban areas. Another $25 billion in investments by 2021 will add additional communities and capacity to the Spectrum footprint.

Because smart city networks require connection speeds and bandwidth that can effortlessly handle the flood of data produced by smart building technology, Spectrum’s two-way fully interactive digital network offers symmetrical connection speeds up to 100 Gbps.

To support the broader connectivity needs of the smart city, Spectrum also provides:

• Thousands of WiFi hotspots that will soon be capable of wireless connections up to 1 Gbps.
• Gigabit Internet connections for homes and businesses throughout the Spectrum Enterprise service area.
• One of the largest LTE cellular networks in the nation.

Additionally, Spectrum is partnering with a variety of smart technology vendors to provide cities with a single vendor ecosphere – a comprehensive offering with simpler relationships that reduces the complexity of managing the smart city technology stack.

Learn more about Spectrum Smart Cities at www.spectrumsmartcities.com.