The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has created a new Industry Specification Group on Context Information Management (ISG CIM) for smart city interoperability. The first meeting will be at the ETSI premises in Sophia Antipolis, France between 9-10 February 2017. This is a great step forward for the development of smart cities environment.

What is new with this Context Information Management?

In recent years, the data have increased in importance in any aspect that affects society in general. However, data is meaningless without a context. Every sensor measurement, every post on a blog and every entry in a database has its own context. For this reason, context information plays an important role in day-to-day aspects.

To sum up, a Context Information Management (CIM) system acts as a clearing-house, where it takes place the collection, storage, archiving and destruction of information according to relevant contexts for smart applications.

Lindsay Frost, convenor of ETSI (ISG CIM) declared that: “With the rapid development of technologies such as , semantic web, complex workflow or autonomous decision making, the need for interoperable context information is becoming huge”.

In this respect, Lindsay Frost says: “The ISG CIM will specify protocols running ‘on top’ of IoT platforms and allowing exchange of data together with its context, this includes what is described by the data, what was measured, when, where, by what, the time of validity, ownership, and others. That will dramatically extend the interoperability of applications, helping smart cities to integrate their existing services.”

Photography taken by: http://electronics-eetimes.com

Significance for Smart cities 

The massive exodus of people to cities demands a new infrastructure that will transform cities into innovative spaces through Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).

The interconnection of city systems will demand standardized interfaces, and this is where standards bodies such as ETSI and others will be needed. But also, the cities will need standards, which are essential enablers in achieving consistent levels of performance and quality, as well as compatibility between technologies.

An approach to ETSI

ETSI is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the telecommunications industry in Europe, headquartered in Sophia-Antipolis, France, with worldwide projection. So, ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, broadcast and internet technologies.

List of CIM Members

• Easy Global Market SAS (FR)
• IMEC vzw (BE)
• NEC Europe Ltd (UK)
• Orange S.A. (FR)
• Telefonica S.A. (ES)