Page 78 - SAMENA Trends - February 2022

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

(with Cleverciti); Smart Traffic (with support, calamity and incident support, coverage.
NoTraffic); Mixed Fleet Management (with site monitoring, environmental inspections Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is still
Titan GPS); Transit Fleet Management and asset management. Proximus without frequencies for its smart meters
(with ISR Transit); Indoor Air Quality activated its 5G 3.5GHz network in the port project, despite applying to the Nepal
Monitoring and Purification (with IES in March 2020, with most parts of the port Telecommunications Authority (NTA) for
Ventures); Digital Signage (with Corum area today enjoying 5G coverage. the requisite Utility Frequency license in
Digital); Smart Security (with Caliber Telenor Denmark has announced it is the 393MHz-398.5MHz band three years
Communications); Smart Washrooms establishing an independent unit under ago, reports NepaliTelecom. NEA plans to
(with Mero Technologies); and Water Leak its B2B division responsible for private install smart meters for all its six million
Detection (with Eddy Solutions). networks and IoT solutions, aimed at customers in phases, a project which
Elsewhere in Canada, Telus has launched industrial and commerce sectors ‘that under the current regulatory regime would
a Smart Cities initiative partnering Google can benefit from a tailored network with a cost an annual sum of over NPR20 billion
Cloud for infrastructure and data analytics guarantee of minimal response time and (USD165 million) in frequency charges.
and utilizing the ‘Smart City-as-a-Service’ extra security’. Telenor says the move NEA has long argued it is entitled to the
platform of NXN Digital, saying it aims ‘to stems from the rollout of 5G (including frequencies free of cost. The Ministry of
deliver the next-generation of sustainable, Standalone 5G planned for this year) and Energy, Water Resources & Irrigation is
efficient, secure, and innovative IoT the modernization of 4G, which offers trying to find a resolution by taking the
technologies that will empower businesses, new opportunities for building closed, matter to the Council of Ministers, while
communities, and their residents through a tailor-made network solutions. Particular NEA has so far provided only 44,000
vast ecosystem of people-first solutions.’ focus will be on manufacturers and customers with smart meters equipped
Applications will range from dynamic heavy industrial companies who, with with GPRS SIM cards in a pilot phase.
traffic signaling for reducing congestion their special need to integrate robots and NEA’s Managing Director Kulman Ghising
and emissions, to data analytics for sensors in real time, will benefit from their says such frequencies are allocated
creating smarter, more efficient city own private wireless network without for free in other countries, and could be
planning. Telus’ Smart City solutions fall wires and cables. In addition, the solutions utilized as unlicensed spectrum, arguing:
into four categories: Infrastructure and are also expected to be attractive for ‘Such frequencies come for free but NTA is
environmental sustainability; Intelligent companies with office employees, where seeking unreasonable fees.’
transportation; Public safety and security; a private network adapted to the individual UK-based IoT services provider Pangea
and Healthcare services. customer’s needs can act as a replacement has announced reaching the milestone
US tech firm Honeywell has inked a or supplement to the traditional Wi-Fi. of 400 IoT partners. The company says
partnership with Egyptian mobile operator The new unit will be responsible for sales, it is enabling partners to ‘move beyond
Etisalat Misr to develop advanced solutions product development and marketing of the the game of undercutting [prices], to help
for smart buildings, communities and new private networks and IoT solutions, their customers overcome real business
cities, with the pair collaborating on the Australia’s Telstra announced a AUD100 challenges and reach tangible outcomes.
construction of a cloud-based IoT platform. million (USD72 million) deal with Intellihub All using intelligent mobile data and value-
Honeywell and Etisalat Misr will explore that will see Telstra provide up to 4.1 added services, like static IPs and mobile
solutions based on AI, machine learning, million IoT SIMs to Intellihub over the next content filtering.’ Pangea adds that it
connection and hosting technologies that decade, representing the telco’s largest connects over 200,000 endpoints across
can be applied to various vertical segments IoT deal to date in terms of value and various sectors, while last year it formed an
such as industrial, healthcare, hospitality, number of connected devices. Using the IoT/mobile data partnership with another
education, real estate and transportation. Cisco Jasper platform, the IoT SIMs will be UK operator Daisy Communications.
The development extends a strategic incorporated into Intellihub’s smart meters France-based global IoT group Sigfox
relationship formed in 2019. to deliver real-time monitoring and insights has entered insolvency proceedings
In Belgium, the Antwerp Port Authority has to help Intellihub and its customers better following difficulties mostly beyond the
selected the 6th NeTWorK consortium, manage things like energy demand, company’s control. In a statement, Sigfox
a collaboration between DroneMatrix, solar feed-ins and peaks and troughs. confirmed that a judicial reorganization
Proximus and SkeyDrone, for the rollout Intellihub was founded four years ago procedure for the benefit of the parent
of a large-scale drone project named and currently has more than one million company and subsidiary Sigfox France
‘D-Hive’, deploying a network of drones meters installed. Telstra reports more than would have an initial observation period
capable of performing automated flights five million devices now connected to its of six months, with the aim of finding new
from strategic locations in the port. The IoT/M2M networks, including around 1.2 buyers with the capacity to work for the
drones will be deployed without manual million devices connected to Cellular Low long-term development of Sigfox and to
intervention to support core processes Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). preserve jobs. The report notes that lower-
and optimize operations, for example, Telstra claims the largest IoT network in than-forecast growth in IoT devices has
the detection of oil slicks and floating Australia – with around four million square been significantly influenced by global
debris, infrastructure inspections, safety kilometers of NB-IoT coverage and around electronic component shortages and
coordination, vessel traffic management three million square kilometers of LTE-M COVID-19 related factors which slowed

78 FEBRUARY 2022