Park Jin-sik, PhD, assistant Vice President of u-City Consulting Department at KT Biz Consulting Bureau, stated at an interview. u-City stands for ubiquitous city, a new technology that combines Information Technology and construction.
This new business has been giving KT a new opportunity and is becoming a blue ocean that will contribute to develop both the IT industry and the city. This reporter conducted an interview to catch up with the news about a u-City running in Dongtan New Town.
Assistant Vice President PhD Park Jinsik defines the u-City as a 21 century Korean city where the newest information and communication infrastructure and ubiquitous information service are combined in a city space to improve a quality of city life. "u-City will not only improve the quality of city life, but will also guarantee safety and improve the welfare of citizens." Assistant Vice President PhD Park continued: "I believe that U-city will vitalize city industries such as u-IT technology, IT services, and construction inducing each city's specialized industries to contribute to increasing both urban and rural competitiveness." By working on the project to build the u- City, KT seeks a new market opportunity by using its newest IT skill to apply to the development of the city.
"Is it possible" would be the question most would ask. Here the Park answered: "It has already been possible in many areas." He continued: "u-IT technology itself is not a whole new idea. Since it is adapted from previous information technology, it is a possible idea that can happen in the near future. Some of the technologies such as RFID already exist today in realization while the others like Dust Chips require further study." Then what can be done to make it happen any sooner "That would be finding the marketing requirements on u-IT technology and the social infrastructure to hold the technology," the Assistant Vice President.
According to him, it is not the technology we have that is delaying the establishment. It is the lack of demand that causes the high price of a technology. KT is putting efforts in creating the market that is needed for u-IT technology and building the partnership to establish social infrastructure.
Since the accomplishment of the strategy building at Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) in 2005, "Dongtan and Heungdok New City were promoted with the land construction along with the Paju New City's housing construction," Park noted about the current status of the city establishment. "Previously, u-City Reference was established in Busan.
Dongtan New City, in particular, built the u-City as the world's first and is test running at this point. By the end of this year, a second service will be added to establish a complete u-City." Also Busan is the first case to apply the ubiquitous concept in the city that allows one to use information anytime and anywhere.
Then is it KT alone that is working on such a huge project to build a new city And what kind of technology does KT have at this point Assistant Vice President PhD Park replied: "The technology KT possesses at this point is divided into two kinds. They are internal technology and adapted technology." First is KT's internal technology that can be adapted to the u-City project. The second is the adapted technology that builds a partnership with expert companies in many different sections.
He further noted: "Technologies like network infrastructure, solutions and services are being combined to revive as suitable services for u-City." Also, new marketing demands are noted as running the business to develop the technology for the future.
"KT is very proud of the Ubiquitous City Administration Hub with Network (Ubi-Cahn). It is KT's own invention that is put on Dongtan New City," Assistant Vice President PhD Park stated. This is the technology that is needed for effective maintenance of the city. "Every sensor will be controlled by the Ubi- Cahn," he continued, "for instance, Ubi- Cahn will be in control of sensors to detect speeding cars, automatically read the driver's identity, and send a text message to the driver to give a warning or comments."
A lot of sensors that support citizen security and safety are already planned to be tested in Dongtan New City besides the case mentioned above. Some of them are the stories we have heard before like putting a sensor on animals to prevent them from any disastrous infections, and others are brand new ideas that no one could imagine before. Going back to the topic of partnership KT has been filing as its one of the priorities, "KT is only serving as a coordinator of the u-City project," the Assistant Vice President started. "It is KT's duty to bring each company's valuable technologies together to apply in the u-City business and based on its experience endless attempts to improve the relating technology will follow." These efforts will contribute to the overall IT industry and the country's technology development.
Similar u-City projects are rolling out throughout the world as well. In the United States, wireless city business is establishing in some cities such as San Francisco and Philadelphia. In Japan, ubiquitous business such as the Ginza RFID testing business is running. And Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and India are also on their way to build IT based cities.
"However, Korea's u-City stands out for its larger scale. The objective is for u-IT to be applied in all of the city areas to recharge every resident's quality of life. We discuss and get approvals on every plan with central government, enterprises, citizens, and every other relating party.
That would be another factor to make Korean u-city to stand out," Park added. The most attention grabbing news would be u-City's plan to reach overseas.
"Countries like Dubai, Algeria, Taiwan, Singapore, Qatar, Vietnam, and Malaysia are showing their high interest in the u- City project, and different forms of partnerships or business are about to be made with most of them," Park shared. The government is on its way to support launching overseas to use u-City as one of its foreign construction distribution strategies. It is trying to carve out path for overseas construction markets. "u- City technology makes a great export product, yet the strategic approach is needed," he added. "We are planning to run the city for a cycle to build experience and be attentive to our u-City customers' further needs and value. The research and development project will be consistently followed to add improvement."
In order to build a successful u-City, "standardization is needed in service models, technology, and authentication areas," he suggested. According to his suggestion, a standard service model for all cities need to be made from each city's specialized service models. Standard technology is also needed to link individual services to city converged platforms.
Moreover, restrictions to build u-Cities needs to be reconsidered and provided with the supporting regulations. The Korean government is taking the u-City Construction Supporting Regulation in consideration to assist its standardization.
