Comcast’s “Internet of Things” service machineQ, which links up physical sensors to gather data from “smart” utilities like patient monitoring devices in hospitals, will be expanding to 12 new cities, the company announced Tuesday.

In the first part of 2018, Comcast will roll out 50 percent coverage in 12 metropolitan areas including Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Washington, D.C., technical.ly reports.

The service was launched for a trial run in Philadelphia and San Francisco last year, and then expanded to Chicago. According to the Denver Business Journal, Comcast has been testing IoT network technology “on open radio frequencies for scientific and industrial uses as a way to connect things like pipeline-monitoring sensors, wireless utility and parking meters and other purposes.” The company hopes that having a network for IoT technologies will generate interest from corporate and municipal users, as well as startups in the various cities.

It sees one municipal opportunity with potholes. A spokesperson recently told Crain’s Detroit Business Journal that a startup company in Philadelphia is hoping to attach sensors to city vehicles. The sensors are reportedly equipped with GPS to gauge suspension compresses and pinpoint the severity and location of each pothole.

Rachel Dovey is an award-winning freelance writer and former USC Annenberg fellow living at the northern tip of California’s Bay Area. She writes about infrastructure, water and climate change and has been published by Bust, Wired, Paste, SF Weekly, the East Bay Express and the North Bay Bohemian

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