Russian operator Beeline (VimpelCom PJSC) and Huawei have signed a two-year strategic partnership agreement on piloting and integrating 4.5G, 5G and IoT technology solutions. A key area of the partnership is pilot testing of NB-IoT technology, planned in 2018-2019.
Also in Russia, the country’s second largest fixed broadband operator ER-Telecom and France’s Actility have expanded their collaboration to accelerate ER’s LoRaWAN network deployment, building on an agreement signed in February for ER to deploy Actility’s ThingPark LPWA network management solution. The latest agreement covers the development of infrastructure and software for complete IoT solutions for corporate and consumer markets, including roaming and compatibility with international LPWA network standards, plus a local marketplace for IoT devices, applications and packages based on the ThingPark Market platform, reports IoT Business News. Andrey Kuzyaev, president of ER-Telecom, added that the LoRaWAN network will reach 62 Russian cities by mid-July, whilst ER has ten pilot projects under way in the energy, mining, retail and logistics sector, with the first ‘full commercial launches’ promised sometime this year, predicting ‘over 20 million sensors to be connected in the next three years’.
South Korea’s KT Corp has established a fine dust observation network based on LTE-M technology at 1,500 spots nationwide to analyse air quality data, the Korea Times reported. KT announced the project’s launch last September to utilise LPWA IoT and big data analytics to support the government’s fine dust policy. In a press conference this week, the company said its observation network so far includes 512 data collection points in the capital Seoul alone, utilising spots such as base stations and public telephone booths under the ‘Air Map Korea’ project; the operator has access to around five million potential suitable sites nationwide, the report adds.
Japanese group *KDDI*’s Vietnamese division plans to deploy Vietnam’s first smart metering system based on LoRaWAN network technology at the DEEP C Industrial Zone in the northern port city of Haiphong, reports TelecomAsia. In a trial begun in March, KDDI Vietnam has implemented real-time remote monitoring via LoRa-connected power meters transmitting data to a LoRa gateway around 4km away, eliminating the need for site visits to read meters and check the operational status of hardware. The company signed an agreement earlier this month with Dinh Vu Industrial Zone JSC on implementing the IoT network, and the partners plan further collaboration in areas including LPWA-enabled monitoring of security systems, wind power generation and others.
Post Luxembourg has chosen Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT management platform for an ‘ambitious’ rollout of IoT services, the German software company announced in a press release. Post Luxembourg will utilise the cloud-based IoT connected device/sensor management platform to develop integrated services in areas including smart cities and vehicle fleet management, enhancing its existing M2M service range.
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