The Wall Street Journal recently stated that one of our greatest frustrations is traffic and our daily commute. I live in a large city and travel often to big cities for work, and I can personally relate to this. Sitting in traffic makes me impatient and annoyed. But did you know that digital transformation can actually ease congestion and empower citizens like me and you? While the business side of me is excited about the potential for digital business, the personal side of me is thrilled about spending less time in traffic.

Cities all over the world are becoming digital -bringing people together to dream, create, and innovate in new ways. Digitization is forcing cities and businesses to reimagine their business models -and there's never been a better time to make cities smarter. Here are a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlKW9FobTFo

Hamburg's digital innovation spreads from the port to the city. A digital-ready network and IT strategy extend Wi-Fi access, and interactive kiosks provide real-time information about city attractions and businesses. This makes it easy and intuitive to plan a day of shopping or sightseeing anywhere around town. Hamburg's intelligent parking space control helps you find parking quickly and eases traffic congestion. Future digitization plans include a smart street lighting program that can not only save money, but make citizens safer by lighting up dark streets whenever people walk by.

The City of Mississauga in Canada's digital-ready network helpsthe city create a connected and engaged workforce. Mississauga built a private fiber network using Cisco routing, switching, and security solutions and launched a citywide wireless network using Cisco controllers and access points. City leaders and employees are now becoming more mobile. This network gives all city operations field staff mobile access to service work orders and real-time information to enable quick and accurate decisions from anywhere. The city now has a formal BYOD policy and paperless initiatives, supported by the wireless network, improving productivity for the city and requiring less office space.

From government to healthcare and every industry in between, anyone planning to digitize needs a network that delivers real-time insights, personalized experiences, automation, assurance, and security.

Cisco? Digital Network Architecture (DNA) provides an open, software-driven platform that integrates innovations in networking software, such as virtualization, automation, analytics, and cloud, into a single architecture. It helps enable business and IT to innovate faster, reduce costs, and lower risk with services that are easy to consume.

More than ever before, technology is giving us the ability to change the world. And for cities this means better serving citizens, improving safety, and addressing urban challenges like parking and traffic.

There's never been a better time to accelerate digital transformation with a digital-ready network. Download this ZK Research white paper and learns the steps to begin. Tell us what changes and innovations you can envision if your city became a digital city.

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