BROWSING: Smart Cities

An automotive-technology-engineering collective has joined a new mobility initiative organised by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the ‘front lines of the mobility revolution’. Their task is to shape a “mobility system”, a press statement goes, that is “sustainable, safe, clean, and accessible”. The...

Siemens has completed its acquisition of US firm Brightly, a provider of cloud-based asset management and maintenance management software for buildings, and more broadly for built infrastructure. Brightly joins Siemens’ smart infrastructure business, called Siemens Smart Infrastructure. The deal was first announced on June...

The IoT hardware market has, suddenly, shrunk – in order to expand, and to rebalance the western power-play. So say market watchers, reacting to the twin acquisitions this week by US-based chipmaker and Semtech, which has confirmed a deal to splurge $1.2 billion on...

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...

TRAI has selected Vodafone Idea to conduct trials at Bhopal Smart City as the main smart city location in India   Indian telecom operator Vodafone Idea is currently conducting a trial on the use of street furniture for small cells and aerial fiber deployment in Bhopal...

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...

Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) has said it will invest a further $100 million in 5G, AI, and IoT startups via its Singtel Innov8 corporate venture arm. The new funds will take its total capital commitment to $350 million. New investments will be focused on early-...

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...

Sunderland City Council and the University of Sunderland in the UK have appointed BAI Communications (BAI), already engaged on a 20-year deal with the city council to build and operate a 5G network to support municipal services and the local manufacturing sector, to also...

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,...

Comptek acts as the designer and manufacturer of the Link5G poles utilized in this project   Smart pole company Comptek Technologies announced that it is taking part in the Link5G initiative, a multi-tenant siting solution designed to accelerate the pace of 5G deployments in New York...

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...

Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors is to work with Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) to jointly develop new compute and connectivity platforms for software-defined electric vehicles, offering varying degrees of autonomy. Foxconn will use NXP’s chip portfolio to produce electronic componentry for electrification, connectivity, and...

Volkswagen-owned automotive software company CARIAD has appointed Franco-Italian semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics (ST) to develop a system-on-chip (SoC) for a new line of Volkswagen vehicles based on the CARIAD software platform. At the same time, the parties “are moving to agree” that silicon contract manufacturer...

Note, this article is not about remote 5G surgery! A couple of press notes across the desk at Enterprise IoT Insights this week make a play of 5G security in hospital settings. Firstly (in no order), Spain-based network operator Telefónica is working with US...

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...

Frankfurt-based airport operator Fraport, which operates Frankfurt Airport in Germany, has commissioned IT service provider NTT to build the “Europe’s largest private 5G campus network” (so-far announced), it has said. Work on the project will begin in the third quarter, with network tests in...

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...