Bell, Esri Canada deliver Integrated Smart City Ecosystem

Bell has announced an agreement with Esri Canada, the nation's leading geographic information system (GIS) provider, to create the Bell Integrated Smart City Ecosystem.

This integrated solution will combine Bell's award-winning 5G network and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with Esri's real-time analytics and location intelligence capabilities to help cities of all sizes across Canada become connected communities, empowering them to realize their smart city ambitions.

"We're proud to partner with Esri Canada to deliver this enhanced and comprehensive solution for municipal operations management to governments across Canada," said Jeremy Wubs, Senior Vice President, Marketing for Bell Business Markets. "Combined with Bell's leading 5G network and our proven IoT capabilities, this agreement with Esri Canada offers cities across the country a holistic platform to help them manage their critical infrastructure and services in real time."

The Bell Integrated Smart City Ecosystem enables Canadian communities to accelerate their digital transformations, enhancing decision-making and streamlining collaboration across municipal or regional departments. The platform collects, integrates and displays data in one seamless end-to-end experience, enabling multiple stakeholders to make decisions from a shared view that provides broader and clearer context for all involved. Cities can customize the solution, building on top of their existing location intelligence investments, or access multiple pre-integrated IoT solutions with customized reporting and automation of processes.

Bell has Canada's largest portfolio of IoT solutions specifically designed to empower Smart City transformations, enabling the fast and secure collection of data from multiple sources for a diverse array of applications, including water leak detection, asset management, smart waste management and energy management.

Canadian municipal and regional governments have increasingly been adopting digital solutions to improve their resilience and responsiveness to a variety of scenarios and issues, from public health to severe weather events to infrastructure interruptions. According to IDC, 86% of Canadian public sector respondents have adopted one or more IoT solutionsi. Smart City initiatives enable government staff and agencies to make better decisions faster through access to connected digital sensor data and ultimately deliver services more efficiently and more responsively.

"A city is smartest when it is using accurate and up-to-date geographic data to make decisions that affect people's lives," said Alex Miller, President of Esri Canada. "The more timely that information is, the easier it is to make the right decisions. This partnership offers cities the tools they need to do that simply and easily."

Esri's ArcGIS technology is the market leader and most widely used GIS and location intelligence system for communities across Canada. ArcGIS Velocity is Esri's cloud-native capability for real-time and big data analytics. Cities can use ArcGIS Velocity to monitor and analyze sensors, observations, and IoT data at scale. With ArcGIS Velocity, cities can ingest live event data from multiple sensors, protocols, and formats. In addition to real-time, analytics can also be performed on historical data. Administrators can automatically send alerts and push data in response to triggers, populate dashboards, or publish maps and data services across the organization. Ultimately, these capabilities help cities shorten the time from observation to decision-making.

Founded in 1984, Esri Canada provides geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower people in business, government and education to make informed and timely decisions by leveraging the power of mapping and spatial analytics.

These solutions enable organizations to better manage their resources, plan their future and collaborate within and beyond their organization. Esri Canada's products and services help advance successful digital transformation. The company serves 12,000 organizations from 16 offices across Canada and is based in Toronto. In 2019, Esri Canada achieved Platinum Club status with the Canada's Best Managed Companies program by retaining its Best Managed designation for seven consecutive years or more.