The French IOT firm expects to connect 1M devices across the country by 2017
French provider of global communications service for the “internet of things,” and Irish telecom provider VT Networks, announced the nationwide availability of the Sigfox IoT network across Ireland.
The firms said that the deployment took eight months. In Europe, Sigfox’s IoT network currently operates in France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and that they expect to connect more than 1 million devices across Ireland by 2017.
In the past 12 months alone, the French connectivity company has added 15 countries to its global coverage map and plans to be in more than 30 countries by the end of the year. The company provides a subscription-based low-power, wide-area communications offering for the IoT.
Earlier this month, the firm announced an agreement with Connected Finland to extend Sigfox’s global network throughout Finland by 2017.
In November last year, Sigfox selected 10 U.S. cities for its initial launch in this market: San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles, California; New York; Boston; Atlanta; Austin, Houston and Dallas, Texas; and Chicago. Last month, Sigfox said it would bring its dedicated IoT networks to 100 American cities by the end of 2016.
In February 2015, Sigfox had a round of funding that brought in $115 million. Investment came from NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom and Telefónica. GDFSuez, Air Liquide and Eutelsat also invested in the Sigfox funding round. Sigfox said it will use the new financing to expand its operations across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Telekom Austria, Nokia showcases NB-IoT in Vienna.
In other EMEA news, Telekom Austria Group M2M successfully presented a showcase for Narrowband-IoT technology for the first time in the country.
The showcase demonstrated the improved network coverage and advantages of future NB-IoT services that the Telekom Austria Group will be offering throughout its home market.
The demo was carried out in partnership with Finnish vendor Nokia.
“The introduction of NB-IoT is the next logical step in our [machine-to-machine] strategy to make the best technology and know-how on the market available to our customers and partners,” said Bernd Liebscher, managing director of Telekom Austria Group M2M.
