The telco said this technology will boost the development of IoT solutions across its network footprint
Orange Business Services has accelerated its LTE-M strategy to support the development of internet of things (IoT) solutions for the enterprise market in Europe. In February 2017, the French telecom group said it would be prioritize deployment of LTE-M across its footprint in Europe.
In Spain, Orange has started several tests of LTE-M technology with strategic customers and device manufacturers. The trials cover different sectors and applications, including smart utilities, smart cities and facility management.
In Belgium, Orange is preparing to open an LTE-powered IoT city in Antwerp, planned to be made available for customer pilots in the last quarter of this year.
In France, the telco is planning internal trials on both technical and usage aspects starting this quarter. Orange Business Services said all of these trials are being carried out ahead of the LTE-M network launch in 2018.
The first equipment Orange has tested on its LTE-M network includes rugged products designed to be used in asset tracking and Industry 4.0-type use cases; a GPS personal tracker with a waterproof casing that is targeted at lone worker applications; and a small GPS tracker developed for tracking valuable items.
Orange said that the first samples of these products are now available for testing in customer pilots.
The LTE-M network will be integrated into Orange’s IoT strategy through the Datavenue IoT and data analytics offerings. The LTE-M modules are meant to further enhance the Datavenue connected device catalog, which now has 80 objects, the telco said.
“The development of the LTE-M network is part of our strategy to provide a full range of IoT connectivity options for our customers through Datavenue. The availability of the LTE-M devices enables our customers to start developing their LTE-M applications before the full networks are launched in 2018,” said Olivier Ondet, vice president of IoT and analytics at Orange Business Services. “We believe that LTE-M is a perfect match for a wide range of IoT use cases in Industry 4.0, fleet management and asset tracking.”
Orange also highlighted there are many enterprise IoT use cases linked to LTE-M technology, such as asset tracking, remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, smart metering, telematics and automotive insurance.
