BROWSING: NB-IoT

Fractus Antennas on 2021: After the gold rush (post-hype, when the real work begins)

Big brands will start to enter the IoT space more aggressively in 2021 with full end-to-end solutions, buying up successful companies either to avoid competition or else to complete their own portfolios. This will trigger regulators to set rules in the longer terms around...

Wireless Logic buys cellular IoT roaming provider Arkessa

Private equity group ECI Partners has sold IoT roaming provider Arkessa to IoT and SIM management company Wireless Logic for an undisclosed fee. The UK-based venture firm said it had made a 210 percent return on its original investment (ROI) in Arkessa, and an...

LoRa Alliance, Semtech in talks with Amazon to switch Sidewalk over to LoRaWAN

The LoRa Alliance, the technical and marketing group promoting the LoRaWAN protocol for wide-area network (WAN) communications, is looking at ways to tweak the LoRaWAN specification for Amazon, so the retail and cloud giant switches its Sidewalk wireless networking platform from a proprietary version...

AT&T extends global IoT roaming with Nokia for automotive, finance customers

AT&T has extended its agreement with Nokiato use the Finnish firm’s worldwide IoT network grid’ (WING) solution to offer enterprise customers IoT connectivity at home and abroad. Nokia’s WING service affords operators a way to offer cellular IoT services without having to invest in...

Nordic buys Wi-Fi assets from Imagination Tech to mix Wi-Fi with BLE and cellular IoT

Nordic Semiconductor has acquired Ensigma, the Wi-Fi division of UK-based semiconductor and software design firm Imagination Technologies Group, for an undisclosed fee. The deal is for Ensigma’s development operations, including most of its staff, and tech assets and intellectual property. Imagination Technologies Group is owned...

Wi-Fi HaLow gets $13m funding boost in bid to upset the LPWA applecart

Australia-based semiconductor company Morse Micro, developing Wi-Fi HaLow  for low-power mid-range IoT solutions, has raised $13 million in new funding. The latest Series A funding round takes its total to $30 million, and will go on expanding its product and technology development teams at...

China Mobile takes WING with Nokia to offer global IoT roaming

China Mobile will use Nokia’s ‘worldwide IoT network grid’ (WING) to offer enterprise customers IoT connectivity at home and abroad. Nokia’s WING service affords operators a way to offer cellular IoT services without having to invest in global infrastructure. The deal, signed with China Mobile...

Solar-powered IoT tracking (no battery) and the ‘three golden rules’ of IoT design

Netherlands-based engineering and design firm SODAQ has invented a solar-powered cellular IoT asset tracker which dispenses with a battery altogether, and runs by harvesting solar energy alone. It is the first of its kind, anywhere, reckons Nordic Semiconductor, which supplied the NB-IoT/LTE-M chip into...

Austrian postal service and Australian keg company sign for 100,000 Sigfox trackers

Sigfox has announced deals with Austrian logistics and postal provider Austrian Post and Australian keg rental provider Konvoy Group, via local Sigfox operators Heliot and Thinxtra, respectively. Between them, the deals are worth around 100,000 connections by the end of 2020, reckons Sigfox. The French...

Nordic signs with Arkessa to offer global roaming on dual NB-IoT/LTE-M module

Nordic Semiconductor has struck a deal with Arkessa to offer wider international cellular IoT connectivity with its nRF9160 system-in-package (SiP), the Trondheim-based firm’s flagship dual-mode LTE-M and NB-IoT module. Global roaming has remained a challenge for the broad IoT sector, with mainstream telecoms operators running...

The challenge to make disposable tracking tags (and massive IoT) green

Note, this article is taken from a new report on the asset tracking sector, called Asset Tracking – and the March Towards Massive IoT. The report can be downloaded here. With some horror, the idea of disposable tracking tags and labels, applied to millions of boxes...

Three ways Covid-19 has spurred asset tracking and the march on massive IoT

Note, this article is taken from a new report on the asset tracking sector, called Asset Tracking - and the March Towards Massive IoT. The report can be downloaded here. It is not just about the march of technology – that trackers are getting smaller...

Industrial IoT connections to double to 37bn by 2025, spurred by manufacturing

The number of industrial IoT connections will double in volume (up by 107 percent) in the next five years, going from 17.7 billion in 2020 to 36.8 billion in 2025; the manufacturing sector will contribute 22 billion of these, or about 60 percent of...

STMicro scores takeover ‘hat-trick’ with deal for IoT and 5G specialist SOMOS

STMicroelectronics (STMicro) has followed up the summer purchases of France-based ultra-wideband (UWB) specialist BeSpoon and Canada-based cellular IoT connectivity firm Riot Micro with a deal for cellular IoT and 5G chipmaker SOMOS Semiconductor. The Franco-Italian firm said the acquisition strengthens its product portfolio, intellectual property,...

What is asset tracking, and what is it worth? (Why it’s a jungle – and why it’s massive)

What is asset tracking, anyway? And what is it worth? Because tracking of machine data, one way or another, is easily conflated with the internet-of-things (IoT) movement, at large. And we all know about the mad growth slated for general purpose IoT. Fifty billion...

From vehicles to vaccines (and BLE to NB-IoT): five key asset tracking use cases

1 | FedEx + BLE – for tracking vaccine shipments FedEx has introduced a new Bluetooth based asset tracking system in time for anticipated shipping of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for other emergency pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Customers in the aerospace and retail sectors will...

Printable NB-IoT tracking labels: Vodafone, Bayer and the deal to make IoT ‘massive’

Note, a version of this article appears in a new report on the asset tracking sector, called Asset Tracking – and the March Towards Massive IoT. The report can be downloaded here. The race-to-the-bottom in the IoT market has taken another turn, and plunged downwards...

SHV Energy uses Orange to connect, track and monitor gas tanks in Europe and the US

Netherlands-based SHV Energy is to deploy smart meters and telemetry on its gas tanks in Europe and the US. The move is geared to improve asset management, supply-chain security, and truck routing, to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions. The solution will use LTE-M...

Telenor, Ericsson connect IoT micro-factory for water filtering, beer making

Telenor is to provide global sensor connectivity to plug-and-play micro-brewery and water filtering firm Wayout. The operator’s IoT division, Telenor Connexion, has with Ericsson to bundle its fellow Swede’s IoT Accelerator connectivity management platform into the bargain. Wayout makes micro-factories for local production of craft...

Sierra Wireless provides ‘full-stack’ IoT for fertilizer tank LTE-M solution

IoT provider Sierra Wireless has been selected by IoT tracking firm Ekatra to underpin its industrial tank monitoring solution, which is geared particularly towards fertilizer tanks in the farming industry. Ekatra has integrated the Cabadian firm’s ‘full-stack’ Octave IoT platform into its new product,...

Nokia, Optus to provide IoT solutions to Australian industry customers 

  Australian operator Optus has selected Nokia’s IMPACT IoT platform to provide device management and data collection capabilities to customers in multiple industry segments in Australia, Nokia said in a release. Nokia’s IoT Device Management Platform (DMP) will enable Optus to provide its customers with simple...

Vodafone builds NB-IoT remote control and product recall system for white goods

Vodafone has built an NB-IoT prototype that allows appliance manufacturers to notify consumers of faulty or dangerous electrical goods, and shut them down remotely if needed. It is targeted as a smart ‘product recall system’ for manufacturers, mostly, of white goods like tumble dryers,...

AT&T bundles Azure into private LTE gateway for backhauling global IoT data

AT&T has released an LTE and LTE-M gateway device to backhaul data from IoT sensors over cellular in global markets. The new solution, presented by AT&T as a ‘guardian device’, integrates silicon, software, and cloud services from Microsoft Azure. It is positioned, like a private...

Senet raises $16m to expand LoRaWAN, signs deal to network road-weather sensors

US LoRaWAN provider Senet has secured a $16 million funding round to accelerate the deployment and densification of its LoRaWAN network in the US to support utility and municipal network builds. The round was led by venture capital firm Fisk Ventures. It comes on the...