ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 33 experience, often for free or at a low price. Voice and video are already transforming the next generation of mobile broadband with the integration of these technologies into applications such as WhatsApp, Viber, FaceTime and You‐Tube all on mobile broadband. One example of such an application is “Waze”, (recently acquired by Google) using crowd sourcing. Waze uses data gathered from global positioning system (GPS) and location data from smart phones to inform users about traffic patterns including how fast or slow the traffic was moving. It is not difficult to imagine a series of \"smart sustainable city applications\" such as smart energy, smart pollution, smart water, smart noise – all of which enable the general public not only to be able be better informed, but also to interact in real time with their environment This unprecedented uptake of smartphones, coupled with the “app revolution” and the robust mobile broadband backbone, have begun to foster widespread innovations that are expected to help make the urban landscape more inclusive, safe and sustainable. Ubiquitous sensor networks A related topic to the IoT is that of ubiquitous sensor networks (USN). USNs utilize wire line and/or wireless sensor networks. These networks consist of interconnected autonomous devices distributed across the location, and use sensors to collectively monitor physical/environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants). USNs are conceptual networks built over existing physical networks; they make use of sensed data and provide knowledge services to anyone, anywhere at any time. Context awareness contributes to the generation of information for decision‐making. Recommendation ITU‐T Y.222160 has prepared a description on general features of USN and its applications and services publicly available. It also analyses the service necessities of USN applications and services and highlights the new capabilities and requirements based on the services. Data security61 Population growth, economic crisis, resource crisis, growing energy demands, compliance to the urgency to carbon emission targets, increasing importance to public safety and security and exposure to online data transmission are driving the cities to become smarter. Cities access a lot of information through the ICT system. More information means more knowledge and more vulnerability to data security. The more complex a system is the higher the need is for cities to protect the data. Some examples of verticals where the data security is important include energy, transportation and health care services: Energy data security – Attacks on the energy systems can lead to interruptions and also hinder data exchange between energy distribution centres and end users, and severely compromise the delivery of energy services. Transportation data security – A small hindrance caused to the flow of data or the traffic control systems will affect the overall aim of transportation optimization. For example, traffic management could be weakened when the navigation system is hacked leading to confusion and directing to wrong routes. ____________________ 60 http://www.itu.int/rec/T‐REC‐Y.2221‐201001‐I/en 61 Transformational 'smart cities': cyber security and resilience, Executive Report, Giampiero Nanni, Symantec (2013).