TIA Sets the Foundation for Smart Buildings at MWC Barcelona

This year MWC Barcelona was full of the usual bustle, but TIA stood out among the conversations about next-gen networks by leading the discussion around one of 5G’s most essential components – Smart Buildings.

As TIA positions itself to be a catalyst for Smart Building development, the TIA/MWC partner program, Smart Buildings & 5G: The Use Case, was a critical success. The program’s panels focused on three key elements of Smart Building evolution. The first panel, How Smart Buildings Will Help Build 5G Infrastructure, focused on Smart Buildings as a platform on which 5G infrastructure will be realized. The conversation also included a discussion about defining Smart Buildings and their role in the development and deployment of 5G.

The second panel, 5G and IoT: Bringing Edge Data Centers Front and Center, provided attendees with panelist Harry Smeenk’s projected day-in-the-life Smart Building scenario of a physician who interacts with his home and office seamlessly due to the high bandwidth and low latency provided by Edge Data Centers. This panel also discussed Smart Building IoT and the applications that are key to bringing powerful compute and storage capabilities to the edge.

The final panel of the program focused on Building the Business Case for Smart Buildings. This discussion explored the Smart Building value proposition for property owners and managers, and how the efficiencies of integrated building management systems, business intelligence data, user analytics, and services will optimize building operations and reduce costs.

More than 270 people attended TIA’s MWC partner program, which was sponsored by Dell EMC, Vertiv and iBwave.

During time on the MWC exhibition floor, TIA was able to meet with representatives from several our the associations new collaborators including: the LoRa Alliance, Small Cell Forum and IoT Community; as well as visit with many TIA members for demonstrations of their latest technologies to empower connectivity around the world

As TIA works to further develop its Smart Buildings program, it has agreed to collaborate with Underwriters Laboratories (UL).  The TIA team had a chance to meet with UL team members to discuss details of the agreement that will significantly impact the future of Smart Building development. Together, TIA and UL will develop a common framework and share commercial, technical, and standardization insights to further their work in the emerging Smart Building ecosystem. Specific areas of focus will include benchmarking, measurement, assessment, certification, and registration in the areas of connectivity, interoperability, safety, security, resiliency and sustainability for buildings.

As demonstrated by this outstanding MWC Barcelona event, TIA is positioning itself at the center of the emerging Smart Building ecosystem, and its partner program and presence at the 2019 MWC Barcelona makes for an exciting start to this global endeavor.

If you or your organization is interested in getting involved in TIA’s Smart Buildings Program, please contact Bill Gorham at WGorham@tiaonline.org.

About Clarence Reynolds

Clarence Reynolds is the Director of Editorial and Event Content at TIA.