Wireless Technologies for IoT in Smart Cities

TLDR

Smart Cities rely on diverse wireless technologies such as WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiMax, 4G/LTE, but growing unlicensed spectrum use leads to interference and coexistence challenges. This paper reviews the current wireless technologies available for IoT in Smart Cities. The review examines each technology’s characteristics, domain suitability, spectrum congestion, coexistence issues, and power‑consumption concerns.

Abstract

As cities continue to grow, numerous initiatives for Smart Cities are being conducted. The concept of Smart City encompasses several concepts being governance, economy, management, infrastructure, technology and people. This means that a Smart City can have different communication needs. Wireless technologies such as WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiMax, 4G or LTE have presented themselves as solutions to the communication needs of Smart City initiatives. However, as most of them employ unlicensed bands, interference and coexistence problems are increasing. In this paper, the wireless technologies available nowadays for IoT in Smart Cities are reviewed. Their characteristics and their adequacy to each domain is considered. The problems derived of over-crowded unlicensed spectrum and coexistence difficulties among each technology are discussed as well. Finally, power consumption concerns are addressed.