The Things Network, a Netherlands-based crowd-funded initiative to create open access LoRaWAN IoT networks around the world has been extended to China, and rival LP WAN technology, Sigfox is launching in Taiwan.
Multi-Tech Systems, a global manufacturer of M2M and IoT devices, has announced completion of a smart city implementation in the city of Weinan in Shaanxi Province using its IoT products in conjunction with sensors and a LoRaWAN network server from The Things Network.
'China's first pilot city has successfully introduced a revolutionary system to track and analyze critical data from sensors located throughout its 2.5 mile span,' Multi-Tech said.
The Things Network started in October 2015 with funding from a Kickstarter campaign and the mission to build an open, free and decentralized IoT network. It claims to have crowd-sourced a complete city-wide LoRaWAN network for Amsterdam in six weeks and says it is planning to repeat this in every city in the world.'
It now has LoRaWAN gateways operating in several cities around the world, including Amsterdam, New York, Zurich, Madrid, San Francisco, San Paulo, London, Singapore and, most recently Sydney.
LoRaWAN is a low-power wide area network technology developed for IoT and backed by the multi-vendor LoRa Alliance that operates in the subGHz instrumentation, scientific and medical bands. According to Multi-Tech, 'It serves as an excellent complement to cellular and satellite networks by connecting assets scattered over a wide area in often difficult to reach locations through a gateway (situated where cellular or satellite coverage exists), providing quick to deploy connectivity to an IoT platform.'
In Weinan, Multi-Tech's MultiConnect mDot LoRaWAN transceivers are being used by Phillisense to provide 2-way communication from its mini weather stations. According to Multi-Tech 'All of the data is monitored with the Things Network customized IoT dashboard and network server located in City of Weinan's data center.'
According to Multi-Tech: 'A smart city is an urban development vision that integrates numerous information solutions to better manage a city's assets. Within the city of Weinan, these assets include its burgeoning agricultural community. Monitoring and analyzing pivotal information regarding this community, including wind speed, temperature, barometric pressure and humidity can impact the success of its fragile agricultural system and ultimately influence the cities economic state.'
Sigfox leverages Taiwan for global IoT network expansion
Sigfox, the French company promoting a proprietary low powered wide area network technology for IoT, has announced the launch of a network in Taiwan along with an IoT test bed, saying the move will help its global expansion plans.
Sigfox partners are already rolling out networks in 22 countries, four in Asia Pacific. The Taiwan network will be rolled out by UnaBiz, the company that three weeks ago announced plans to roll out a Sigfox network in Singapore. It expects to have coverage of Taiwan's six largest cities or districts, containing half the country's population of 23.5 million, by mid 2017 and nationwide coverage of Taiwan by early 2018.
Sigfox said the network would 'provide global IoT connectivity to Taiwan's huge electronics manufacturing industry and demonstrate multiple applications and use cases,' and 'provide to Sigfox the benefits of Taiwanese design and manufacturing expertise as it scales globally.'
Sigfox CEO, Ludovic Le Moan said: 'This collaboration between Taiwanese electronics companies, which are among the most competitive and efficient in the world, and Sigfox will strengthen the Sigfox ecosystem as it speeds learning and the implementation of IoT design and use cases. It also will provide demonstrations of how Sigfox's seamless IoT network can foster unprecedented industrial manufacturing efficiencies that could benefit companies everywhere.'
UnaBiz CEO, Henri Bong, said: 'This extension to Taiwan is key in our regional development strategy, because Taiwan has the largest ecosystem of devices and solutions to accelerate the adoption of IoT use cases globally.'
