Cisco to install ICT infrastructure in Florida hub
Lake Nona, a 7,000-acre, 25,000-person planned community in Orlando, Florida, announced this morning that it will partner with Cisco to build networked infrastructure to support its healthcare, real estate, retail, education and other services.
That full flight of purchased product is enough for Cisco to declare the community an "Iconic Smart+Connected city" -- the first in the U.S., and one of eight in the world.
The 15-year plan dovetails with some serious goals: to help Lake Nona to become "a global model and standard for sustainable urban development" -- not something traditionally found in sprawling central Florida. The recipe includes educational facilities, recreational facilities, a "medical city," workplaces, retail centers, entertainment and residential development.
Because the entire community is located near Orlando International Airport, planners are banking that the community becomes an "aerotropolis," connecting people, goods and services to distant markets through the transport hub.
To achieve this, Cisco plans to expand existing IP-enabled "smart services" to add what it calls "smart work centers," "intelligent buildings," a "virtual safe community" and unified healthcare and education services -- all through the installation of boatloads of networking technology.
Such as:
- Integrated data, voice and wireless
- Fiber to the home
- Digital signage
- Common-area IP video surveillance
- Energy management systems
- Unified communications (audio-visual collaboration)
- Intelligent transportation platforms
In many ways, it's the world as imagined by Cisco. Only it's 100 percent real life.