French firm to offer IoT connectivity and management services.
Orange Business Services won a three-year contract with Viasat Group for a global internet of things roaming service for up to 350,000 SIM cards.
Under terms of the deal, the French company will provide its IoT connectivity platform to provide global coverage across a number of markets, and for services that include insurance, fleet, telematics, and security and safety. Headquartered in Italy, Viasat specializes in the design, manufacture and supply of telematics products and services to fleet and insurance industries.
Orange’s IoT connectivity platform is said to allow Viasat’s remote telematics boxes to send and receive data, text messages and voice communication, and combined with a satellite positioning service is able to provide an insurance solution.
The agreement also stipulates Orange will provide an IoT management platform that allows Viasat customers to manage and update their own SIM cards. The portal is designed to allow for a range of options, including ordering; suspending and reactivating SIMs; setting alarms on data consumption; and blocking SIM cards if data thresholds are crossed. The platform can also be integrated with the customer’s back-end system to provide reports and retrieve billing information.
“Our telematics solutions need global coverage to provide a complete service for our customers in the fleet and insurance industries,” explained Viasat Group VP and CFO Massimo Getto. “Among our partners, we selected Orange Business Services for IoT connectivity because of their wide coverage, flat rate pricing across the EU and comprehensive international support.”
The Orange Business Services IoT connectivity service is part of its Datavenue, which is a modular IoT and analytics solution launched globally in October. Datavenue is said to offer a range of certified and tested connected objects, such as sensors, cameras or modules to connect existing assets. Datavenue also is said to have a catalog of data that includes population movement analytics using anonymized data from mobile networks.
