GSMA’s 8th Mobile IoT Summit
By Abraham Joseph -
This year, like last, I kicked off MWC with a visit to the GSMA’s Mobile IoT Summit, now in its 8th iteration. This event has turned out to be one of the best places at the go to catch up with the great and the good of IoT and at the same time keep abreast of developments in carrier 5G strategies.
This year, I managed to miss the keynotes but caught most of the panel Mobile IoT Business Opportunity and Maximising Value.
Panel members from left to right:
- Amaia White, Senior Project Manager (Moderator)
- Owen Moore, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, BeWhere
- Marie Hogan, Head of Broadband and IoT Business Area Networks, Ericsson
- Ankur Bhan, Global Head of Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING), Nokia
- Dr. Felix Wunderer, VP IoT – Products & Service, T-Systems
In short, the panel saw lots of opportunities across many verticals in every region. But there are challenges too, including business cases, skill sets
In the run up to this year’s MWC, the GSMA published a new study valuing the mobile economy at $3.9 trillion and forecasting a tripling of the number of global IoT connections to 25 billion and a quadrupling of global IoT revenues to $1.1 trillion by 2025.
Other highlights from the report include:
- The number of 5G
connections will reach 1.4 billion by 2025 – 15per cent of the global total1. By this point, 5G is forecast to account for around 30per cent of connections in markets such as China and Europe, and around half of the total in the US;
- An additional 1.4
billion people will start using the mobile internet over the next seven years, bringing the total number of mobile internet subscribers globally to 5 billion by 2025 (more than 60per cent of the world’s population).
Exhibitors at the event included Huawei, AT&T, Sierra Wireless, Gemalto, BeWhere and Quectel. I spent some time with Huawei, who had the following insightful chart highlighting the opportunity spaces they see for the various cellular IoT technologies.
Ring of Security
By Abraham Joseph -
Have you ever found yourself in a tricky situation, and wished you could signal someone – anyone – surreptitiously? Would you like to offer this protection to a loved one or friend? In that case, NIMB has a solution for you. It consists of a smart safety ring and an associated service that is set up and managed via a smartphone application.
The ring uses a Sierra wireless module and works anywhere there is an LTE-M or NB-IoT network service. It does not rely on the mobile phone for connectivity. It can operate for up to 2 weeks on a single charge.
I caught up with and Kathy Romanovskaya, Co-founder NIMB (above) and Nicolas Damour, Director of Technology Partnership Development at Sierra Wireless (below) at the GSMA’s eighth global IOT summit yesterday. Both were keen to show off the ring.
NIMB launched the service in the US, where it is offered in conjunction with AT&T. The ring is free with subscription plans starting at $23.95 per month.
The ring can be ordered in a range of sizes. It triggers an alert when a button on its stem is pressed. In the case of the US service, the alert can be to the emergency services, a number of predetermined contacts or nearby NIMB wearers.
The ring has a broad range of applications in personal safety and security. It turns out, one of the first
Less obvious, perhaps, are the advantages the ring can offer in situations where legal recourse is required. As Romanovskaya points out, if a sex-attack victim was unable to speak, or otherwise incapacitated, but able to activate the ring, it will be much more difficult for the attacker to argue that consent was given. Moreover, there will be a timestamp, date stamp and geographic location for the incident.
We did not discuss the genesis of the idea. H
Romanovskaya and Co-founder Leo Bereschansky are looking for partners outside the US. They and Sierra Wireless and will be demonstrating the smart safety ring at MWC in the GSMA Innovation City, Hall 4, Stand 4A30.
Is This The Most Sustainable Phone in the World?
By Abraham Joseph -
Hot from paying £45 to upgrade the battery on my iPhone 6S, I headed to MWC to check out the latest tech. Did I hear you say
Like many others, I have
Tthere is, of course, a broader, much more serious issue at stake resulting from the incessant rush to upgrade and obsolescence: the impact on the planet.
What if it were possible to keep your phone and just upgrade specific components as needed? A new processor, a new camera or a new screen when the need arises. Yes, I know, there have been several attempts at building modular phones in the past, and none has taken hold. However, there is such a thing as miss-timing of market entry.
With growing concerns about climate change and other environmental impacts, might now be the right time for a modular phone? C
“This is the most modular phone in the world”, he says, as he pulls various components apart while the phone is still running.
Carsten is on a mission. Inspired, he says, by a
He promises to channel all profits from SHIFT into sustainability and social projects. Also, he wishes to inspire the market to adopt more sustainable practices through his inventions. Hence SHIFT in very open with its intellectual property and will not stop others from copying its designs.
SHIFT has designed ten phone models. However, only two are available currently: the SHIFT 6m and the SHIFT 5me. The former costs €555 and the latter €444.
SHIFTPHONES phones are based on the Android 8 (Oreo) operating system and are available either in a 'light' version (i.e. wthout Google Services) or in a 'G' version (with Google GMS certified). Additional OS options are under Development.
Perfect Entertainment on the Road to Mobility as a Service
By Abraham Joseph -
At the ConnecteDriver and Vehicle show in Brussels a couple of weeks ago, I took a break a break from the excitement over mobility as a service to pick the brains of Benoit Joly Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Connected Mobility & Autonomous Services at Group Renault (right).
In September last year, the Alliance Group (Renault, Nissan
“We are focusing on returning the joy of car ownership and use to the driver,” he says, going on to explain that Renault's new entertainment platform is focused on experience and services and that the company’s strategy is to focus on creating value for customers based on the various services derived from connected vehicles.
He says that the decision to use Android was driven by the need to ensure that the Alliance companies could build their next generation entertainment systems on a standard lifestyle platform. They saw customers’ digital lives and connected cars merging, and in order to facilitate easier interconnection, it would be useful if the technologies were similar.
Now, using Android enables them to connect various solutions together in a much smoother way.
He anticipates a relatively seamless integration with customers’ existing lifestyle technologies such as assistants from Google, Amazon
First, customers want to get the car connected with their assistants so that when they are at home, they can request the location of the car, or issue instructions to the car, e.g. to turn on the heating before a journey. Similarly, when they’re in the car, they want to access their home assistants to get relevant information or issue commands to their home automation systems.
And what about security? This is a very important topic that they tackle at the Alliance level, he says. “We have a 360° strategy for security. It tackles security in the cloud, in the car down to the lowest level, in the entertainment system and in the communications system.”
He adds, "Over the last couple of years, we have been building a very strong cybersecurity capability and now we have an army of experts that take care of security. Also, we are working with leading players in cybersecurity."
What does he think about the conference’s hot topic – mobility as a service – and what will happen to the vehicle manufacturing industry when MaaS takes off? “It will be an ecosystem play,” he says, regarding the former. “No one has or will have all the pieces.” Regarding the latter, he points out that whatever happens, for the foreseeable future lots of cars will be made.
IoT Insights will publish a full interview with Benoit next month.
Mobile IoT – The Road Ahead
By Abraham Joseph -
26 February 2019 – This year, the GSMA kicked off Mobile World Congress (MWC) with the 6th Mobile IoT Summit, an event that proved especially popular with a broad range of stakeholders.
The event was sponsored by Huawei, Sequans, T-Mobile and Nokia, the former two of which delivered keynotes.
The summit was opened and closed by Graham Trickey, Head of IoT at GSMA (above). In his opening comments he provided an update on progress of mobile or cellular IoT, i.e. solutions using licensed spectrum. He indicated that three were 41 commercical launches plus 50 pilots worldwide by February 2018 supported by an ecosystem that includes 80 leading vendors and over 800 innovator companies.
In his keynote, Cheng Zhu, Head of Cellular IoT Products at Huawei (left) highlighted the progress his company has been making in global trials and deployments, highlighting particular success in many verticals in China.
Huawei focuses its IoT efforts in three areas: smart city, smart industry and smart life. He believes that there will be 100 commercial networks offering mobile services by the end of 2018.
He presented a series of case studies including smart meters and connected bicycles and indicated that he and his team have been working on commercial aspects that will help operators develop business cases. He believes that mobile IoT offers great opportunities for operators but that ecosystem partnership will be key in scaling deployments. He indicated that Huawei had over 3,000 partners in its ecosystem.
In his keynote, Dr Georges Karan, CEO, Sequans (right) discussed the progress his company has been making on providing chipsets for the mobile IoT ecosystem. Although their initial focus was on LTE-M they have since released additional versions of their Monarch design optimised for a range of applications including wearables.
So, which variant of mobile IoT will win in the medium term? Will it be LTE-M or NB-IoT? There was surprising agreement among participants, including the operator panel that followed the keynotes, that both will survive. Furthermore, for an operator contemplating deployment, the choice ought to be driven by the operator's existing network deployment and the specific applications that will be the operator's primary focus.
Stefan Lindvall Named Small Business Executive of the Year
5 December 2017 – Multi-Tech Systems, Inc., a leading producer of solutions for the industrial Internet of things today announced that CEO, Stefan Lindvall was named 2017 Small Business Executive of the Year by Business Intelligence Group through its BIG Award for Business.
Business Intelligence Group’s annual award program was launched to acknowledge companies, products and people that are leading their respective industries.
Lindvall has more than 20 years in the wireless industry, and brings a unique combination of vision and pragmatism to MultiTech. Prior to MultiTech, he served as President of the Americas at Wavecom and held various leadership positions at Sony-Ericsson and Ericsson. He is also the founder of Connected Development, a wholly owned MultiTech subsidiary.
“I am honoured to receive this award from Business Intelligence,” said Lindvall (above). “MultiTech is a family-owned business and we understand that when one of us succeeds, 
we all do. I am thankful to my exceptional organization for their hard work, and commitment toward developing award winning, low-power connections that are providing many industries with new freedoms and access to information.”
“Our winners this year show how the level of creativity, sheer persistence and innovation drives business results,” said Maria Jimenez (left), Chief Nomination Officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “We are so proud of all of the winners and finalists. This is truly a special group.”
Source: Multitech
SORACOM and Sigfox Partner to Drive European IoT Deployment
25 September 2017 — Today at the Sigfox World IoT Expo in Prague, SORACOM Inc., a leading provider of cloud-native connectivity solutions built specifically for Internet of Things, announced native platform support in Europe for Sigfox’s market-leading LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) connectivity.
SORACOM’s customers will be able to use the SORACOM web console and APIs to operate and manage devices connected with Sigfox. Blended cellular/LPWAN deployments can now apply a single cloud-side architecture to simplify deployment, commissioning and ongoing support of in-field devices. Importantly, Sigfox deployments can now take advantage of the tools available on the SORACOM platform, including device management, data transmission reduction, cloud service integration, data visualization, packet inspection, and more.
“This is a major win for makers of IoT who were so far struggling to choose between cellular and LPWAN or find a combined offering, with a cloud-native integrated approach towards a blended offering”, said Parag Mittal, Chief Commercial Officer, SORACOM (above). “We are now able to create this unique value to our existing and new customers. The partnership and integration of platforms will also enable customers to utilise other SORACOM value added services like Harvest, Funnel, Canal, etc. from a single platform across a range of devices running on different network technologies. Our vision to democratise IoT is taking shape!”
“Adding Sigfox global LPWAN service to SORACOM cellular connectivity provides tremendous value to customers looking for multiple-mode deployments,” said Davide Pacchini, director Global Alliances at Sigfox (left). “This partnership will extend Sigfox’s market leading story of low cost, low energy and ubiquitous service with SORACOM’s cellular connectivity to provide dual-mode capability and grow the market of use cases for developers and customers.”
The addition of Sigfox support expands the SORACOM platform in Europe to encompass a wide range of new IoT use cases. Sigfox offers developers the opportunity to reduce connectivity cost and energy consumption for IoT devices while allowing connection over distances of miles or more. Additionally, Sigfox can be combined with high-bandwidth connectivity options such as cellular or WiFi in a blended deployment to support a broad set of IoT use cases. Sigfox is currently deployed in 32 countries worldwide, with coverage already available in most European markets.
SORACOM will also begin offering a Wisol-based breakout for direct purchase from the SORACOM User Console by end of October. This Arduino-compatible breakout is easy to program using AT commands, compatible with Sigfox in Europe and together with SORACOM Platform services, it helps developers quickly prototype a Sigfox based device.
Interested in trying? Contact SORACOM or get started by registering/pre-orders for Sens’it devices here and for Wisol devices here.
For more information on SORACOM, please visit https://soracom.io/.
Source: SORACOM.
Hitachi Launches New Digital Company Vantara
19 September 2017 — Hitachi, Ltd today launched Hitachi Vantara, a new business entity to leverage the broad portfolio of innovation, development and experience from across Hitachi Group companies to deliver data-driven solutions for commercial and industrial enterprises.
This new company will unify the operations of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into a single integrated business, Hitachi Vantara to capitalize on Hitachi’s social innovation capability in both operational technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT).
More Than a Century of OT Expertise Combined with IT Trusted by the World’s Largest Enterprises
Hitachi has been a leader in OT for industries such as finance, government, manufacturing, power/energy and transportation for over 100 years, providing solutions that have positively impacted cities, industrial operations and businesses at large. The company has also been a leader in IT for over 50 years—bringing IT applications, analytics, content, cloud, and infrastructure solutions to market that have transformed the way enterprises do business. Combining Hitachi’s broad expertise in OT with its proven IT product innovations and solutions, Hitachi Vantara gives customers a powerful, collaborative partner in data management.
“Hitachi Vantara marks a monumental change for Hitachi as we continue to advance our unified corporate vision of Social Innovation,” said Hitachi, Ltd. President and CEO Toshiaki Higashihara (above). “Hitachi has been helping customers harness the power of their data to support meaningful business action for years. Now as the world is being transformed by digital tools and processes, we are unifying our strongest digital solutions companies together as a new Hitachi company that delivers exponential business impact for our customers and the betterment of society. The formation of Hitachi Vantara underscores Hitachi’s commitment to collaborative creation with customers and partners, and being a true innovation partner for the era of IoT.”
The Opportunity in Data
Hitachi Vantara is uniquely able to help customers extract all the value their data has to offer. By bringing new data-driven solutions and services to market, Hitachi Vantara will help its customers achieve tangible outcomes that positively drive business and society forward.
The market opportunity for mission-critical data solutions has never been greater. Data has become a businesses’ greatest asset—if they can extract actionable insights from it. Data holds the key to new revenue streams, better customer experiences, improved market insights and lower costs of doing business.
Filling a Critical Gap in the Emerging IoT Market
Hitachi Vantara will continue to provide superior infrastructure and analytics technologies that enterprises rely on for their mission-critical data in their data centers, in the cloud and at the edge of new innovations. The new company is targeting the emerging IoT market opportunity, in which there is no clear winner yet.
To address this market, Hitachi Vantara will harness business, human and machine data across OT and IT environments to build comprehensive, data-driven solutions. Customers will be able to manage, store, govern, blend, analyze, and visualize data—and then take action based on uncovered insights.
Hitachi Vantara’s Breadth of Solutions: From the Data Center to the Factory Floor
Hitachi Vantara will continue to develop the trusted data management and analytics technologies Hitachi is known for, including Hitachi’s popular data infrastructure, storage and compute solutions, and Pentaho software. It will also be driving the development of strategic software and services solutions, including Hitachi Smart Data Center software and services, Lumada, Hitachi’s IoT platform, now available as a standalone, commercial software offering, and Hitachi co-creation services. Announced concurrently today and now in its 2.0 release, Lumada has been fully updated with enhanced artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advanced analytics capabilities. It also has an elegant, portable architecture that enables it to run both on-premises or in the cloud, and supports industrial IoT deployments both at the edge and in the core.
The company will focus on serving global Fortune 1000 companies with best-in-class data management, infrastructure, content and analytics products and industrial IoT solutions for a number of industries including financial services and insurance, government, industrials/manufacturing, telecom, and transportation.
“No other company brings together more than a century of operational technology expertise with informational technology trusted in the world’s most demanding enterprise environments,” said Hitachi Vantara CEO, Ryuichi Otsuki (left). “Hitachi Vantara capitalizes on this unique combination by creating solutions that meet the needs of an increasingly connected world. Like our customers with whom we partner and co-create, Hitachi Vantara sees data as an opportunity—a path to outcomes that matter.”
For more information, please visit HitachiNEXT.com.
Source: Hitachi
HPE and PwC Expand Partnership to Smart Cities
12 September 2017 – Today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a new project with long-time strategic partner, PwC, to jointly create a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Kolkata, India, to advance development for future cities. Together, HPE and PwC are capitalizing on the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape to create opportunities for city administrators to optimize their assets and provide citizen-centric services.
Recognizing the need for effective connection and exchange of information across a diverse range of devices and applications, PwC will leverage the HPE Universal IoT (UIoT) Platform to support development, testing and management initiatives around future cities. The HPE UIoT Platform will allow PwC to start small and scale the business as demand increases. The CoE will utilize UIoT platform features, including lightweight machine to machine (M2M) support, expanded device management and increased Long Range (LoRa) support. Together, HPE and PwC will enable IoT applications to provide advanced analytics and machine learning innovations.
“HPE and PwC are working together to offer enhanced services, greater security and improved civic engagement to municipalities around the world,” said Nigel Upton, General Manager, Universal IoT Platform, HPE (above). “By combining HPE technology solutions and services with PwC business strategy, process, people and change capabilities, we can help organizations accelerate business and societal transformations, and derive greater value faster from their IoT initiatives. The Center of Excellence in Kolkata is a testament of our joint efforts.”
PwC’s applications and dashboard will be integrated with the HPE UIoT Platform to drive scale, security and speed for the new CoE. Initial use cases that are in development in the CoE span the environment, transportation systems and waste management, and will enable:
- Pollution reduction: Smart poles deployed throughout the city will serve as aggregation points for sensors, cameras and digital display boards collecting environmental data. The environment data the smart devices collect across the city will be used to identify areas subject to heavy pollution.
- Urban mobility: IoT devices will be used to collect traffic data and model traffic condition to further modify the timing cycle for signals based on traffic flow. The collected traffic data will then be integrated with GPS data from the transit management system to provide accurate estimated times of arrival (ETAs) for public buses. Also, sensors will be placed in parking lots to enable real-time tracking of available spots.
- Intelligent waste management: Sensors will be used to track the amount of trash held in garbage bins, helping waste management companies determine where garbage must be collected. Also, the garbage collection vehicles will be equipped with GPS devices and RFID readers to ensure the vehicle takes the best route to full trash bins.
Data gathered from IoT devices and cameras deployed across the city will be used to facilitate pre-emptive governance and improve city operations and emergency response. HPE and PwC are also expanding use cases to other industry verticals including manufacturing and infrastructure.
“Through this project, we are taking our partnership with HPE to the next-level,” said Raman Kalra, Partner, Technology Consulting, PwC India (left). “The burgeoning impact of IoT is going beyond the enterprise and now has large societal implications. Bringing together our industry consulting and technology teams with HPE, we are working on solutions which will bring significant productivity gains to the organizations and societies at large.”
For more information on the UIoT Platform, please visit https://www.hpe.com/us/en/solutions/iot-platform.html.
Source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
KDDI to Acquire SORACOM
2 August 2017 ― KDDI Corporation today announced that it will acquire the outstanding shares of SORACOM, Inc., provider of the leading cloud-native communication platform for the Internet of Things (IoT).
SORACOM, a leader in IoT, provides an IoT platform that combines over the air connectivity with cloud capability to deliver secure communication optimized for IoT and M2M.
SORACOM customers can operate and manage connections and devices from a web console and API, and can quickly launch and scale IoT systems featuring advanced cloud integration and private cloud connections.
Since launching in Japan in September 2015, SORACOM has expanded operations to the United States and Europe, initiated service in over 120 countries, and developed a worldwide base of over 7,000 customers. At the same time, SORACOM has established an IoT ecosystem of over 350 registered partners in its SORACOM Partner Space.
“When we launched SORACOM, our mission was to make the Internet of Things accessible to the smallest developers and scalable to the largest enterprises,” said Ken Tamagawa, CEO SORACOM (above). “Today’s announcement represents an extraordinary milestone for SORACOM, and I am very pleased to be able to share this news. With the support and encouragement of investors like WiL and IVP, who understood the scope of our vision and recognized the strength of the team, we succeeded in bringing this idea of a readily-accessible IoT to life.”
SORACOM will become a consolidated subsidiary of KDDI. The transaction is expected to close at the end of August 2017.
KDDI has provided IoT/M2M services for over 15 years and offers mobile communication services in various industries, including smart meters and remote monitoring. In addition, KDDI is proactively advancing the communication base for future IoT services by developing next-generation networks such as cellular LPWA (LTE-M/NB-IoT) and 5G, and by providing custom IoT solutions according to client's needs.
The KDDI IoT team and SORACOM will collaborate to build a joint IoT platform worldwide and create a market-leading new IoT business.
Source: KDDI and Soracom
