In the picture, left to right: Jesús del Estad, CEO at Atrebo; Carlos Chilla, Manager Technology Strategy and Innovation at Vantage Towers; Silvia Hermoso, head of marketing and sales at American Tower Spain; Andrés Posada, marketing and sales director at TOTEM Spain; Daniel Andreu, Global Technical Operations Director at Cellnex Telecom; and Luis del Valle, CRO at Atrebo.
- The conference featured presentations and panels with the participation of leading professionals from the telecommunications infrastructure industry.
On Thursday 21 September, the Tower Automation Alliance held the second edition of the Automate Camp at the Official College of Architects of Madrid (Spain). The event, focused on the deployment of Smart Cities, brought together leading members of the main TowerCos operating in Spain and internationally, institutions involved in the development of telecommunications infrastructure and other industry players.
Presentations and panels addressed different topics of interest in order to highlight the important role of a high-quality telecommunications infrastructure for the cities of today and the future. In this context, industry experts commented on the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cloud Computing, 5G networks, smart buildings, among others.
To kick off the event, Alberto Horcajo, chairman of the Tower Automation Alliance’s advisory board, welcomed all attendees. Alberto Horcajo stressed that “we are currently in a time of transition and these types of initiatives can guide us into the future”.
This was followed by presentations from members of the Tower Automation Alliance. Hybrico, Gave Electro, Berrade, Staex, MODI and Shapemaker, presented their projects focused on Smart Cities from different angles and specialties: energy, cybersecurity or process automation, as keys to optimize the deployment of telecommunications networks for Smart Cities.
The technical and commercial director of Berrade, Rubén Gil, wanted to emphasise that “we cannot make exclusive designs as was done until now, focused solely on housing the telecommunications equipment elements, we have to start developing options that blend in with the new environments and are friendly to the landscape and the citizen”.
In addition, ‘Madrid Automate Camp’ had two panels where very relevant current issues were discussed. The first panel was moderated by David Humanes, head of technology at Atrebo, who provided the technical perspective, and María Antonieta Fernández, professor at Pompeu Fabra University and Counsel at Sdp Estudio Legal, who provided the academic dimension.
The aim of the panel was to discuss initiatives for the use of public and private infrastructure in smart cities. The participants, Marc Pérez-Batlle from the Smart Cities Network (RECI), Jesús Maya from Sandetel, and Antonio Portilla, representative of the Official College of Telecommunications Engineers, shared the different solutions and actions that are being carried out by their institutions to promote an orderly deployment in the development of infrastructure. In this regard, RECI representative Marc Pérez-Batlle stressed that “if deployments are encouraged from the public sector, the citizen is directly impacted, as well as the business sector”.
The second panel was moderated by Jesús del Estad, CEO of Atrebo, and Luis del Valle, Chief Revenue Officer of the same company founder of the Tower Automation Alliance. Both were in charge of asking questions to the representatives of the tower companies. The aim of this second panel was to discuss the proposals for providing cities with telecommunications infrastructure that allow them to achieve the expected benefits for companies, administrations and citizens.
Silvia Hermoso, head of marketing and sales at American Tower Spain, and Carlos Chilla, Manager Technology Strategy and Innovation at Vantage Towers, agreed that it is essential to reinforce current connectivity and to do so in an orderly, effective and efficient manner.
Regarding network deployment, Andrés Posada, marketing and sales director of TOTEM Spain, pointed out that “Nowadays, deployments are surgical, we have to look for very specific sites, with specific powers and frequencies that fit the operators, and that’s why we ask for ease of deployment in different environments”.
In relation to infrastructure cybersecurity, Daniel Andreu, Global Technical Operations Director at Cellnex Telecom, added that “at Cellnex we are working on two lines, on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to detect anomalous behaviour and be able to communicate this to the owner of the element. And, on the other hand, that the networks are resilient, that the design of the network does not allow an entry to bring down an entire network”.
Finally, presentations were given by Nicola Graham, from the Smart Dublin office; Daniela Torres from ICLEI Europe; and to finish, Fernando de Pablo Martín, Director General of the Digital Office of Madrid City Council, who explained that the Digital Office “has created a 5G forum with telecommunications companies and tower operators, and also an IoT laboratory where the university is integrated with all the companies to test all the devices and solutions to be implemented in Madrid and define the common standardised regulations in the city”.
The event was closed by Jesús del Estad, CEO of Atrebo (the company sponsoring the event). During his speech, Jesús del Estad stated that “it is necessary to forge alliances and for all of us to work together to make our cities and infrastructure increasingly smarter and thus improve the quality of life of citizens”.
About The Tower Automation Alliance
The Tower Automation Alliance is a partnership of leading technology and telecommunications infrastructure companies and is the first initiative 100% dedicated to the creation of a standard for the automation of these infrastructure and their management processes.
