Sustainable Connectivity—Integration of Mobile Roaming, WiFi4EU and Smart City Concept in the European Union

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Manuscript is generally well written.

2. It will be helpful to clarify in Section 1. L.51., what is meant by "sustainable integration of mobile roaming, WiFi4EU and the smart cities concept". The idea of "sustainable integration" needs clarity.

3. In Section 2. L.96 through L.102., "The opponents...such a will." seems out of context and not related to the topic of manuscript.

4. In Section 2. L.149., "(2020).Online" ==> "(2020), online".

5. The graph on P.6 only shows data from 2012 through 2017. It is missing data for 2017 onwards. The impact of regulations from 2015 and 2022 restricting roaming charges is thus not shown.

6. It will be helpful to clarify L.340--L.343. Domestic mobile network, unless it extends across to place of visitation, will not be available. The mobile device, while abroad, will connect to the available local network. Due to the interoperability agreements and regulations between the mobile network providers, the traveler will be able to use the mobile network abroad. It might be better to say on L.340., "promoting the use of domestic mobile network providers abroad". Reduction in energy consumption will typically come from the use of closer (thus likely domestic), well-serviced, networks.

7. There is little empirical data, and the Section 5 (Discussion) is fairly short. It will help to add more data (projections if possible, like estimates of potential economic and environmental impact) to support the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, which we tried to implement according to your ideas. We believe we have succeeded.

Regarding especially the comment in point 5, we want to state that since the price is 0 EUR from the following years, we have included this fact in the description of the graph and even from a design point of view we did not consider it necessary to display this fact graphically.

The changes themselves were made in the text with a change tracking system for easier orientation of the text.

Sincerely, authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper deals with the influence of mobile roaming, WiFi4EU, and Smart Cities concept and its importance to the digital development of the European Union and the improvement of the quality of life of citizens in urban areas. This paper has a significant number of issues that should be revised, and explained better. Therefore, I recommend this paper for major revision.

The authors should answer the following questions and comments:

11. Throughout the text there is a collision in terms describing the contribution and focus of the paper. Sometimes the terms “Integration of mobile roaming, WiFi4EU and Smart Cities concept” and “impact of mobile roaming, WiFi4EU and the development of Smart Cities” are mutually used. Thus, it is not clear what is the focus of this paper. Is it the integration or impact of these concepts?

22. The authors claim that the main hypothesis of this article is that “the integration of roaming without additional charges, WiFi4EU, and the Smart Cities concept in the framework of the Digital Single Market project is successful and brings more benefits to the citizens of the Union than drawbacks”. In my opinion, the authors haven’t properly addressed this hypothesis in the manuscript.

33. Authors also claim that the main objectives of this study are: (i) to analyse the integration of mobile roaming, Wifi4EU, and the Smart Cities concept in the European Union, (ii) to identify the synergies between these elements and their benefits for citizens and cities, and (iii) to assess the opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of these technologies and concepts. In my opinion, the authors haven’t properly addressed these issues in the manuscript.

44. The section Aim, Materials, and Methods is very short and should be expanded and properly presented.

55. All conclusions are pointed out after extensive literature referrals and discussion but without explanations, data, graphs, and metrics to support those opinions and conclusions. This should be corrected.

66. The section 5. Discussion is too short and does not give a proper description of the contribution of the paper.

77. Authors should rewrite the section 5. Discussion, possibly with giving the structured overview of the impacts of the described concepts in precisely defined Smart City services, such as smart administration, smart mobility, smart lighting, smart transportation, tourism, etc. All these applications are not properly addressed in the paper.

88. Literature is not formatted according to the journal style.

99. The references are not properly inserted in the text. References should be numbered in order of appearance and indicated by a numeral or numerals in square brackets—e.g., [1] or [2,3], or [4–6]. Not in APA style as in the text

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, which we tried to implement according to your ideas. We believe we have succeeded. The changes themselves were made in the text with a change tracking system for easier orientation of the text.

We attach a detailed description of the changes made in the appendix.

Sincerely, authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors made extensive changes in the text in accordance with the comments. All significant issues in the comments are addressed and to a great extent, they are successfully answered by the authors.

Therefore, I recommend this manuscript for publishing.

Before publishing, authors should correct figure labels to be in the accordance with MDPI format.