Building Blocks for Smart Networks

This report examines the development of smart networks and services with particular attention to the implications for communication policy and regulation. The word “smart” has become a term that is frequently affixed to an area where the introduction of networked information and communication technologies (ICTs) is expected to have significant implications for economic and social development. In this document it is defined as: an application or service that is able to learn from previous situations and to communicate the results of these situations to other devices and users. Collection of data will be enabled by the expansion of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. Large scale processing will be delivered by “cloud computing” services. Analysis of these data will be undertaken around a process frequently called “big data”. These phenomenona together form the “building blocks of smart networks”. Each distinguishes itself from previous similar developments because the size of numbers of devices, data and elements is orders of magnitude larger than that of previous periods.