Telia taps network data for smarter cities in northern Europe

Estonia is a hot bed of technology talent and burgeoning 5G coverage will mean that remote workers won't be confined to cities like Talinn.

Telia is launching its new City Vitality Insights service across the Nordic and Baltics.

It uses aggregated, anonymised phone data to monitor crowd patterns.

The tool aims to give cities more detailed insights about infrastructure and services and the way they are used.

Telia City Vitality Insights (CVI) uses anonymised and aggregated mobility data from the Telia network to measure and show crowd movement patterns in different parts of a city. This aims to enable cities to quantify the impact of events and enable more data-driven development decisions.

Subscription-based

The subscription-based service is being rolled out in phases across the Nordic and Baltic countries. In Finland, some cities have already begun using CVI and cities in Norway and Sweden will be able to start using the service later this spring.



Kristofer Ågren, Head of Data Insights, Telia Company Division X, said: “This makes the whole concept of the smart city come alive for real as the city now actually starts to understand its citizens.

“When analysing this data we can provide completely new insights that city planners, decision makers, event organisers and others can translate into actions and measures that actually make the city better, smoother and greener.”    

Telia says CVI is the first of several packaged smart city offerings.

The company notes that only grouped movement patterns are used, and that the data is irreversibly anonymised to prevent any individuals being identified.