The Smart City Innovation Cluster (SCIC) consists of a number of companies and cities from both Finland and the rest of the world. The purpose of SCIC is to offer solutions and accelerate the development of smart cities through cooperation.
SCIC’s members range from Finland’s largest listed companies to small startups and research organisations, such as VTT.
Kustaa Valtonen, Chairman of the SCIC Board, Finest Bay Area Development Ltd.
The SCIC’s core action is to bring together the challenges of cities and those who can solve them. SCIC looks for and accepts challenges related to smart city solutions from cities, regions and businesses and offers them to member companies.Members join forces by forming groups around the given challenges. The groups propose solutions suitable for the challenge and make joint offers.
Interest in SCIC has been high and enquiries are coming in from all over the world. Our cluster stands out in the world, as we focus on practical action through real challenges. Also, we know our members and their talents.
Urban Pole™ is a base station pole suited to the urban environment. It functions as a pre-connected and installed mobile network platform. It has pre-assembled telecommunications and power supply cabling as well as slots for mobile network radios. Urban Pole™ is designed to blend in with the built environment, making permit process and installation easier. The base station can also be integrated with lighting fixtures, and it increases mobile network coverage and capacity.
The survey was conducted via an electronic form, and we received 58 individual replies from the contact persons of our customers. We warmly thank everyone who provided us with their valuable insights!
On the scale from 1 to 4, the median of our customers’ replies to the questions on our sales activities, offers, orders, web shop (Worbis), deliveries and deviations to them was 4. Accordingly, the median of customers’ views on product availability, Worbis product portfolio and product data availability was 3.
In the current state of the world, challenges in supply chains and logistics are present also at Orbis. We work hard to make sure that our customer deliveries continue in a timely manner. In addition, we continuously broaden the product variety in Worbis, and have kicked off a development project to enhance our product data management and enrichment.
The NPS score indicating the level of our customer satisfaction was 55 in this survey – great!
Below we have extracted a few comments from the open feedback:
”Our own contact person is always available, and communications is smooth. Big thanks for that.”
”It has always been just great to collaborate with Orbis, all things have been very well handled.”
“Reachability and quick responses have been on excellent level. It is important keep open the direct line between customer and sales to enable a quick process of problem solving on products and delivery issues.”
Also in the future, we would be happy to hear your feedback and development suggestions and answer your questions. Please contact us at: customerservice@orbis.eu
Orbis Oy has concluded the process for withdrawing from the Russian market and has signed an agreement with the local management for the sale of Orbis’ operations in Russia.
After the transaction Orbis Oy no longer has any business operations in Russia.
The key elements, modular 5G smart poles, already exist as a pre-commercial product family serving the various needs of cities. Several digital services related e.g. to public safety, green last-mile logistics, autonomous transport and healthy living have been piloted and prepared for commercialization. Together with a secured data platform this all provides a holistic solution, the digital backbone for cities, helping them to turn smart and sustainable.
We have succeeded in implementing a compact cabling solution inside the smart pole, which enables the integrated devices to be connected into the same data transmission and power supply entity. The modularity of the solution, in turn, ensures that devices can be flexibly added and replaced on the smart pole throughout its life cycle. This is a significant competitive advantage.
Jani Linna-Aro, CEO of Orbis Oy
The LuxTurrim5G smart pole concept has been developed to tackle the future needs of cities facing the challenges of sustainable development and digitalisation. It is not really about a light pole, but a whole new element to build the key infrastructure of a smart city – its digital backbone. The smart poles will not only have a 5G base station integrated into it, but also video cameras, radars, lidars, and sensors needed for navigation, weather, temperature, air quality or, for example, carbon dioxide measurements. The solution provides fast and reliable and shareable 5G connectivity and a city-wide sensor/IoT network to gather plenty of different online data. Combined with other data sources via a secured data platform, this enables a variety of data-based services boosting the emergence of smart city data economy. LuxTurrim5G ecosystem has made pioneering work on all these frontiers developing a holistic solution to the needs of cities.
The achievements include extensive technical development and piloting of the smart pole family, related sensors and devices, other smart urban furniture elements, data platform and marketplace and a range of piloted digital services. The unique smart city pilot environment built around the Nokia campus in Espoo, Finland, includes 19 smart poles, two smart and safe bus stops and a total of more than 250 interconnected IoT devices, and a digital twin of the pilot. It has played a key role in the development and piloting and will stay as a living lab for future developments. But much more than technology, the ecosystem partners have worked intensively together to build key capabilities e.g. to tackle data privacy issues, design guidelines for smart cities as well as new business and operational models and understanding of the complex business landscape. One of the key achievements has been building and leading the ecosystem from early ideas to results with high impact.
Data-driven services bring the value
The LuxTurrim5G smart pole network will form the digital backbone of a smart city offering high-speed connectivity and a versatile sensor network. This in turn brings a wide variety of relevant on-line data available e.g. on environment, weather, traffic flows, public safety, usage of energy to be used by the city and companies for specific needs and to create holistic situational awareness. Cities have also big amounts of own data which often is not widely utilized. The project has been developing a data platform that is capable of processing large masses of data from various sources in a reliable and efficient manner, and a data marketplace to enable data-based business.
“Smart cities need this kind of data platform to foster cross-departmental co-operation, as well as to share vital data sets with private enterprise and academia. This provides the basis for an efficient city operation and the creation of intelligent digital services that improve quality of life in the city. In a competitive global environment, businesses and residents will be drawn to safer, greener and more data-driven cities. The 5G smart pole network enables the creation of this rich data marketplace, thus also giving the city a competitive edge over its peers”, says Richard Cooper Global CTO, Government & Cities at Nokia.
For example, combining the data from air quality and weather sensors to other data streams opens many opportunities for new services.
“Together with data on traffic flow and vehicle classification, weather and environmental observations serve to analyze dependencies between traffic, weather, and air quality. Practical benefits of such systems include weather and street dust information to street maintenance contractors and weather warnings to drivers. And, as traffic lights are also integrated into the system by creating green waves, the system can reduce traffic emissions by avoiding unnecessary accelerations”, says Hannamari Jaakkola, Global Market Manager of Urban Weather and Environment at Vaisala.
Towards global smart city markets
The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem has ignited a lot of interest both in Finland and globally. Now that the development of the modular smart pole, related elements and several services has been completed, the consortium is aiming for more extensive pilots in real urban environments. Readiness for smart pole deliveries has been fine-tuned not only with technical development in mind, but also various business models are being prepared. At the same time, the company group is preparing for the transfer from R&D phase to the business.
Building a smart city is a challenging task involving large number of different counterparts. LuxTurrim5G approach delivers the digital backbone as part of an integrated smart city infrastructure, decreasing complexity, reducing the number of parties involved and making it easier to build a smart city. This customer-focused approach has created a lot of interest in LuxTurrim5G worldwide. Growing urbanization creates enormous business opportunities globally. Rapid acceleration from R&D phase to business is now central for the LuxTurrim5G solution.
Reijo Smolander, International Business Innovations, Business Finland
Through the Espoo pilot, the LuxTurrim5G consortium shares an ambitious target to expand to global smart city markets, predicted to reach 1 000 billion euros by 2025. An important gateway to the global market is the World Expo, Expo 2020 Dubai, where the LuxTurrim5G joint offering and two functional smart poles are being showcased by Nokia and partner companies. Several discussions are already on-going for real-life implementations of the LuxTurrim5G solution with potential customers.
LuxTurrim5G ecosystem partners: Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia, Premix, Teleste, Vaisala, Indagon, Rumble Tools, Orbis, Tehomet, Destia, Sitowise, Caruna, A-Insinöörit (AINS Group), Link Design & Development, Vediafi, Agora Networks, Sensible 4, L7 Drive, City of Espoo, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, VTT, Aalto University, Tampere University, University of Helsinki ja Spinverse (ecosystem leader).
The project is funded by the participating companies and Business Finland.
Currently, the smart poles are presented at the Expo 2020 Dubai, open until the end of March 2022. Orbis is responsible for the development and implementation of modular cabling and connection solutions of the smart poles.
With these products the optical signal in the fiber optic network can be converted to an electrical signal from 1G transfer rate networks up to 400G high speed data center networks. Options include products for different distances, connectors, operating temperatures, as well as laser transmitter and receiver types.
This new brochure includes the following models: SFP 1G, XFP ja SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G, QSFP+ 40G, QSFP28 100G and QSFP56-DD 400G.
You can find the most popular products in the brochure as webshop links – for others, please contact our customer service for ordering and additional information. Our customer service also helps if the basic selection does not offer a suitable product for your network.
It is in fact a product family of smart poles, which can meet the various needs of cities. The modular structure allows for poles in different sizes, integration of various devices and implementation of required digital services based on usage and surrounding area. The ecosystem partners are currently working on finalising the collaboration model to bring the product to markets.
The LuxTurrim5G project has made good progress from the research phase towards practical applications. The smart pole concept integrating various equipment such as weather, air quality sensors, video cameras, monitors, radar, lidar and positioning devices and an electric vehicle charging unit, has been systematically developed and piloted in an extensive joint project between companies and research institutes. Now the major development work has been completed and the result is a versatile family of smart pole products, which enables the digital backbone for smart city. The smart poles utilising the new “second generation” 5G technology, which refers to millimeter-wave frequencies, provide not only super-fast, low-latency 5G connections, but also an extensive network of sensors for the users. This, in turn, enables gathering and utilization of diverse data to develop new services for the needs of the city, its citizens and businesses.
A unique smart city pilot environment built on Nokia campus in Espoo, which includes e.g. 19 smart poles, two smart and safe bus stops and a total of more than 250 interconnected IoT devices, has played a key role in the development and piloting of the smart poles, digital infrastructure and data-driven services.
Smart pole family in key role to turn cities smart and sustainable
The LuxTurrim5G smart pole concept has been developed to tackle the future needs of cities faced with the challenges of sustainable development and digitalisation. It is not really about a light pole, but a whole new element to build the key infrastructure of a smart city – its digital backbone. The same pole will not only have a 5G base station integrated into it, but it will also have video cameras, radars, lidars, and sensors needed for navigation, weather, temperature, air quality or, for example, carbon dioxide measurements. This way, readiness for a variety of services is being created. Intelligent lighting will also be one element, though not the main issue as in traditional light poles.
Different use environments require different smart poles. A key design principle for the LuxTurrim5G smart pole has been its modular structure. It allows for the smooth integration of poles of many sizes for different usage, such as for wide or narrow streets, parks, market squares or other open spaces. Tehomet Oy and Orbis Oy have had the main responsibility in the design and manufacture of pilot smart poles. Building, maintenance, and servicing the smart pole network offers its own set of responsibilities, which has been taken care of by Destia Oy.
The modular design developed in the project allows for huge variations to build different assemblies according to site requirements. The design supports external devices for retrofitting as well as installing new modules along with the changing needs. It will be possible to vary the aesthetic features by changing the colours or by using decorative parts, laser-cut or modules with background lighting. The variety of options makes this product family a unique solution for the global market.
Sami Huuskonen, Design Manager at Tehomet OY, newly appointed Product Manager for intelligent solutions at Valmont Industries (EMEA region)
The integration of several devices into a well-functioning entity has been an important development focus in the manufacturing of smart poles. Orbis Oy, which has been in charge of cabling, integration and assembly of smart poles, has taken modularity as a challenge and as an opportunity.
We have succeeded in implementing a compact cabling solution inside the smart pole, which enables the integrated devices to be connected into the same data transmission and power supply entity. The modularity of the solution, in turn, ensures that devices can be flexibly added and replaced on the smart pole throughout its life cycle. This is a significant competitive advantage.
Jani Linna-Aro, CEO of Orbis Oy
Safety and situational awareness as examples of services using data
Central in the service development is the utilization of various data flows for real needs. Smart poles, drones and autonomous vehicles collect for example weather, air quality and environmental data, location data and images and streams by cameras. This data can be combined with other data sources to create a wide range of targeted services, related to safety, full situational awareness or low-emission traffic and logistics to mention a few examples.
Safety and security is one of the most important elements dictating the development of smart cities. The solutions developed by Teleste aim to improve the safety of citizens, increase the sense of safety and support the work of the authorities. Teleste has been one of the key players in this project as a developer of intelligent services for public safety, and our Connected Zone® concept plays an important role for the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem. We have had the pleasure of cooperating with Nokia and integrating our concept into the offering of the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem.
Dr. Jani Väre, Teleste
By gathering data on people and vehicles moving in the area, smart poles enable better and more personalised services, but data collection also requires that legal requirements, for example the use and processing of personal data are very carefully considered. The data obtained through cameras are, of course, the subject of special attention in this case. The LuxTurrim5G project has paid a lot of attention to data protection issues. Cooperation between companies, research institutes and authorities has created a good basic understanding of the requirements and shared practices for correct handling of data protection matters at different stages. This provides a solid foundation for the development of data-driven businesses and, for its part, a competitive advantage in this area.
World Expo as a gateway towards a growing business
The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem has ignited a lot of interest both in Finland and around the world. Now that the development of the modular smart pole, related elements and several services has been completed, the consortium is aiming for more extensive pilots in real urban environments. Readiness for smart pole deliveries has been fine-tuned not only with technical development in mind, but also various business models are being prepared. Tehomet, Orbis and Destia are currently working on a shared model for bringing the product to the market. An important gateway to the global market is the Expo 2020 Dubai (postponed World expo due COVID-19) opening in October this year. In the event, the LuxTurrim5G offering and two functional smart poles will be showcased by Nokia and other companies.
Our development work will of course continue. The second part of the ecosystem project will continue till the end of this year, focusing on the development of the data platform and marketplace and piloting of new services. Smart pole development will be continued as needed in connection with pilot projects.
Project Manager Pekka Wainio, Nokia Bell Labs
In Espoo, planning of the Kera area is going forward and there are also new smart city plans for the Otaniemi-Keilaniemi area which will offer new piloting opportunities for smart pole technologies. The City of Espoo together with VTT, Aalto University and companies, intend to build there the world’s most advanced telecommunications and data infrastructure that enables new solutions for intelligent and low-emission transport and circular economy. The global market for smart city solutions is currently worth 400 billion euros and is predicted to grow to 1,000 billion euros by 2025.
LuxTurrim5G ecosystem partners: Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia, Premix, Teleste, Vaisala, Indagon, Rumble Tools, Orbis, Tehomet, Destia, Sitowise, Caruna, A-Insinöörit (AINS Group), Link Design & Development, Vediafi, Agora Networks, Sensible 4, L7 Drive, City of Espoo, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, VTT, Aalto University, Tampere University, University of Helsinki ja Spinverse (ecosystem leader).
The project is funded by the participating companies and Business Finland.
