A new partnership between the operator and blockchain tech company SmartKey could see numerous elements of smart city infrastructure controlled by a smartphone
Orange Poland and SmartKey have announced a new partnership aiming to create a universal standard that will allow blockchain-IoT SIM cards to operate various parts of future smart cities, from smart bikes to utilities.
The partnership builds on SmartKey’s ‘Rescue without Barriers’ pilot programme, which allowed rescue services in Olsztyn, Poland, to gain immediate access to every secure district and building in the area using blockchain. As a result, hospital barriers and other gates could automatically unlock and open for rescue vehicles, greatly reducing response times.
Blockchain itself comes into play here by preventing unauthorised users from gaining access to the ‘virtual key’ that allows for the activation of smart.
Now, Orange and SmartKey want to extend the scope of this concept to encompass a wide variety of smart applications throughout a smart city. The technology is set to be rolled out in 80 cities in Poland, building upon the IoT solutions already integrated with Orange’s Live Objects IoT platform. This platform is already being used to manage various city services, including remote reading of water meters or street lighting control.
With SmartKey’s blockchain solution incorporated, devices can be registered with an Orange SIM card in the blockchain network and generate and Smart non-fungible token (NFT) access keys can be distributed in the publicly available SmartKey blockchain network.
Ultimately, using SmartKey technology as the universal standard means it could be applied to any Orange IoT device.
“Smart devices are not a new idea. Already over 2 million M2M cards from Orange work, among others, in such devices throughout Poland,” said Sebastian Grabowski, Director of IoT and Advanced Technologies at Orange. “However, even a wide range of such devices does not create a network in itself, just as a collection of houses does not create a city. We also need an infrastructure that connects IoT technology with the end user, and this is what blockchain provides.”
Szymon Fiedorowicz, CEO and co-founder of SmartKey, described their solution as “connective tissue for smart cities”, noting that it can be used in a variety of urban and commercial services, including parking lots, in transport and public transport, loading and refueling vehicles, monitoring and finally in the so-called distributed energy.
