Philips Lighting has announced that Vodafone will become a global IoT managed connectivity partner to implement connected street lighting systems around the world.

The two companies hope that this partnership will allow city councils to create scalable smart lighting infrastructure, bringing energy savings and maintenance efficiencies.

Philips’ CityTouch street lighting management system will use Vodafone’s SIM-enabled M2M network connnectivity for individual lamps.

City authorities will then have the ability to monitor and manage lighting through the system, and engineers can check performance, identify faults and perform remote lighting control.

Philips Lighting head of strategy and marketing Bill Brien said connected street lighting would “become the backbone of most smart cities” and that its partnership with Vodafone would help “make cities more energy efficient, more liveable [and give] people an increased sense of safety.”