BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Two companies
with extensive history in infrastructure and communications
technology are teaming up to help accelerate the digital era of
urban development. AT&T* (NYSE:T) and Current, powered by GE
(NYSE:GE), have announced an exclusive agreement to connect cities
across the United States and
Mexico to the Internet of Things
(IoT). Together, the companies will unlock a realm of possibilities
to improve the way cities operate, communicate and meet the needs
of citizens.
Since launching its Smart Cities organization in 2015, AT&T
has been using its resources and IoT expertise to create impactful
solutions for cities. With its smart cities framework as the
foundation, for the past year AT&T has been helping cities
develop and implement a holistic smart cities strategy to address
their current and future needs. The agreement with Current
significantly extends AT&T's smart city services, plus opens
new revenue opportunities for the company. By introducing GE's
Predix-powered IoT platform, AT&T can use outdoor LED lighting
in a city to create a digital infrastructure that helps address
issues like traffic flow and parking optimization, gunshot
detection on city streets, air quality monitoring and weather
emergency alerts.
"Intelligent lighting plays a huge role in a smart city," said
Chris Penrose, president, Internet
of Things Solutions, AT&T. "Our collaboration with Current will
enable us to use a city's existing lighting infrastructure to more
securely connect sensor-enabled networks. This will put them on the
path to becoming a smarter, more sustainable city."
The two companies have collaborated before. Current, GE's
digital industrial startup business, recently announced a deal with
the City of San Diego to upgrade
thousands of the city's outdoor light fixtures to
sensor-enabled LED technology, making it the world's largest smart
city IoT platform. AT&T will act as the data carrier and
provide highly secure connectivity for the San Diego deployment, which is expected to
save the city approximately $2.4
million in annual energy costs. In addition, the deal builds
on AT&T's membership in GE's Digital Alliance program, where it
serves as a connectivity-as-a-service collaborator for GE's Predix
platform.
"We are thrilled to expand Current's relationship with AT&T
to help cities redefine the civic engagement model—our digital
network is based on an open platform, which allows entrepreneurs,
incubators and students to get involved in the future development
smart city applications," said John
Gordon, Chief Digital Officer of Current, powered by GE.
"AT&T has a long history of working commercially with
municipalities, and our technology will be a perfect fit toward
helping more cities unleash the limitless potential of the
Industrial Internet."
For more than 100 years, AT&T has formed strong
relationships with cities across the
United States. The company's Smart Cities initiative is
bringing connectivity to spotlight cities across the nation—helping
these cities become cleaner, safer and more efficient. And secure
AT&T network connectivity and IoT platforms like AT&T M2X
and AT&T Flow Designer continue to foster IoT innovation around
the globe.
"Innovation is at the core of who we are—and what we do," said
Mike Zeto, general manager, AT&T
Smart Cities. "AT&T and GE are the companies that modernized
the telephone and light bulb. Together, we will usher in a new
digital frontier, giving cities and citizens alike the benefits of
a connected city."
Current, which combines energy technology like LED and solar
with sensors and software, aims to help customers like cities,
commercial buildings and industrial facilities slash energy costs
and create intelligent environments. Its platform enables a wide
variety of developers to create new applications that could improve
safety, productivity, energy efficiency and other issues that
impact municipal, commercial and industrial customers.
"Our goal is to bring the combined power of GE and AT&T to
municipalities in a way that pulls from the best of both worlds,"
Current's Gordon said. "We are two companies with more than a
century of success in solving big problems, and we believe our
combined innovation can help build a better world."
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by
subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T
brand and not by AT&T Inc.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions around the globe connect with
leading entertainment, business, mobile and high speed internet
services. We offer the nation's best data network* and the best
global coverage of any U.S. wireless provider.** We're one of the
world's largest providers of pay TV. We have TV customers in the
U.S. and 11 Latin American countries. Nearly 3.5 million companies,
from small to large businesses around the globe, turn to AT&T
for our highly secure smart solutions.
Additional information about AT&T products and services is
available at about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on
Facebook at facebook.com/att and YouTube at youtube.com/att.
© 2017 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.
AT&T, the Globe logo and other marks are trademarks and service
marks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated
companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of
their respective owners.
*Claim based on the Nielsen Certified Data Network
Score. Score includes data reported by wireless consumers in the
Nielsen Mobile Insights survey, network measurements from Nielsen
Mobile Performance and Nielsen Drive Test Benchmarks for Q3+Q4 2016
across 121 markets.
**Global coverage claim based on offering discounted
voice and data roaming; LTE roaming; and voice roaming in more
countries than any other U.S. based carrier. International service
required. Coverage not available in all areas. Coverage may vary
per country and be limited/restricted in some countries.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) is the world's Digital Industrial Company,
transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions
that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized
around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through
which each business shares and accesses the same technology,
markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels
innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With
people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes
for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com
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SOURCE AT&T Inc.