BROWSING: NB-IoT

There were two high profile pieces of M&A news in the IoT hardware space in the last week. First up, on Friday 29th July, Telit and Thales announced that they were combining the assets of Telit with those of Thales’ IoT hardware business into...

Well, it didn’t take long; “advanced talks” between Semtech and Sierra Wireless, as reported yesterday, have quickly concluded, with US firm Semtech confirming a deal to acquire its Canadian counterpart for $1.2 billion. The deal, subject to final approval, will bring together Semtech’s LoRa/LoRaWAN...

The latest release of the 5G New Radio (NR) standard has, at last, fixed a problem for cellular-based sensor comms with the emergence of a cut-down version of 5G for massive-scale IoT deployments. On paper, anyway; in reality, the news only confirms a waypoint...

Italian-American IoT module maker Telit is to acquire the cellular IoT unit of French aerospace, defence, and security company Thales in return for a quarter-share of its expanded industrial IoT business. Thales will take a 25 percent stake in the expanded Telit business, headquartered...

Sigfox is back from the dead in South Africa, after local Sigfox operator SqwidNet was canned a year ago by parent company Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) because of a lack of demand. This week, following Sigfox’s rescue by Unabiz in France and “extensive...

Swedish ferry company Stena Line has deployed a dual-band LoRa/LoRaWAN-based network, with IoT gateways and devices in unlicensed spectrum, on its Stena Hollandica roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) passenger ferry, following work by US chipmaker and LoRa-owner Semtech, together with Netherlands-based IoT companies SkyLab and HeNet. The...

Philippe Chiu has been sleeping for three hours a night, he says, for six months. He has taken to power-napping, like he is “at college again”, he says. “Twenty minutes gets you three hours. And it works – because it is good sleep. So,...

France-based Eutelsat and UK-based OneWeb have signed a provisional takeover deal, which values OneWeb at $3.4 billion, and would, if pursued and passed, would create a European satellite rival for the likes of SpaceX-owned Starlink. The pair have agreed to combine their satellite connectivity...

US public LoRaWAN operator Senet has struck a deal with IoT network and analytics software outfit Iota Communications (IotaComm) to deliver LoRaWAN connectivity and IoT solutions in both 915 MHz and 800 MHz spectrum. LoRaWAN operates in unlicensed 915 MHz spectrum by default; IotaComm...

KDDI-owned IoT connectivity provider Soracom has announced a deal with France-based outfit IDEMIA, a supplier of identity-related security services, to offer enterprise customers an optimised low-power embedded SIM (eSIM) with its power-constrained cellular IoT products in North America and Europe. IDEMIA’s eSIM proposition, called DAKOTA...

Thye Hua Kwan Moral Charities (THKMC), a voluntary welfare organisation in Singapore, has deployed a number of air quality sensors from IoT provider Unabiz, via Finnish Sigfox operator Connected Finland, at two care homes in Singapore following a corporate social responsibility (CSR) assessment to...

Telefónica is looking to offer a 5G-based dual-mode terrestrial-and-satellite service for NB-IoT connectivity. Its digital services business, Telefónica Tech, and managed services division, Telefónica Global Solutions (TGS), are working with Barcelona-based satellite telco operator Sateliot to run Release 17-level IoT data over both ground-based...

IoT connectivity platform provider Wireless Logic has acquired IoT MVNO Mobius Networks, a distributor of Vodafone M2M and IoT data SIMs for local government and smart cities, for an undisclosed sum. The all-UK deal follows on the heels of Wireless Logic’s acquisition of data...

The war in Ukraine is being fought through many unconventional means. One of the most prominent relates to energy supply and dependence. In 2021, about two-fifths of the gas that Europeans burned came from Russia. The war has boosted already high prices of oil...

Nordic Semiconductor has announced it is to acquire US firm Mobile Semiconductor, a specialist in embedded memory technology for microcontrollers (MCUs) and systems-on-chip (SoCs). Mobile Semiconductor already supplies static RAM (SRAM) memory-hardware in all of Nordic’s wireless IoT devices including its nRF52 and nRF53...

Semtech, the steward of LoRa-based hardware production, picked up the baton at LoRaWAN World Expo last week (see more here: LoRaWAN goes pop) to further relay the message that low-power wide-area (LPWA) IoT technologies, headed by its own LoRaWAN entry, present the best...

The powers-that-be in LoRaWAN World have decided LoRaWAN will save the planet, and the tech ecosystem that has grown around it will get rich in the process – and the customers it engages will do both, as newly sustainable and newly profitable enterprises. That...

This is article is taken from a recent editorial report on Industrial 5G Innovation – From Setting Standard to Becoming Standard; the previous instalment in this serialised version of the report is available here. Subsequent instalments are listed below (linking either to the original...

US LoRaWAN operator and global LoRaWAN cloud platform provider Senet has announced a new network-based Location Estimator service to make any LoRaWAN device connecting to its own network in the US, and via its roaming partners more widely, location aware. The functionality is available...

The UnaBiz takeover of Sigfox has been rubber stamped in letterheads, employment contracts, marketing outreach, and a concerted push on social media activity; “starting July, SIGFOX (sic) is now a UnaBiz Technology,” wrote Henri Bong, co-founder at Singapore-based UnaBiz, and one half of the...

The use of IoT hardware and software applications will have a very positive impact on global sustainability but the trend masks significant variations between use cases, and over the lifecycle of the device. This was one conclusion from a recent report from Transforma Insights,...

Vodafone is working with Hugh Lowe Farms to use IoT to deliver 1.5 million strawberries to Wimbledon, the UK grand slam tennis championship, which started in London this week. The 2022 supply of strawberries are sustainably produced, efficiently delivered, and the best-tasting, said Vodafone,...

Spanish IoT provider Libelium has acquired local firm HOP UBIQUITOUS (HOPU), which produces IoT solutions for environmental and meteorological monitoring. The deal follows Libelium’s capital injection from venture capital fund Axon Innovation Growth IV, part of Spain-based Axon Partners Group, a year ago, which...

Spending on IoT-based asset tracking solutions, for monitoring goods in transit, will reach $45 billion globally by 2027, according to Juniper Research. The total spend will jump from $16 billion in 2022, representing growth of 184 percent over the five-year period. It said the...