Swedish tracker company C Security Systems has appointed Orange Business Services, together with its bandmates in the recently-formed IoT Continuum initiative, to accelerate delivery of LTE-M trackers in Europe. C Security Systems, headquartered in Stockholm, specializes in tracking devices for boats, pets, and agricultural livestock.
IoT Continuum is a partnership between Orange, Sierra Wireless, LACROIX, and STMicroelectronics, convened to provide “pre-integrated building blocks” for enterprises to catch sail on the rolling IoT wave. The group said the LTE-M modules provided to C Security Systems, to go in its Spara-branded line of tracking units, are pre-tested and pre-certified. Sierra Wireless is making the modules.
According to GSMA stats, Orange has LTE-M in five markets (Belgium, France, Poland, Romania, Spain); to date, it says LTE-M networks have been deployed by 53 operators. C Security Systems is looking to offer LTE-M based trackers in Europe, citing requirements for “carrier-grade security, long battery life, low data needs, and remote [coverage]”.
Orange Business Services said the pre-testing, in an Orange laboratory, provides “added value” for C Security Systems. It said in a statement, without further explanation: “This is a crucial differentiator for C Security Systems in the European marketplace, providing customer awareness to an invisible tracker component.”
As covered previously, the quartet in the IoT Continuum are looking to “simplify” and “scale” IoT to drive digital change among “international businesses” in industrial markets, notably in smart buildings, automotive, healthcare, cities, and manufacturing. They are focused on promoting “massive IoT over LTE” – or Cat M and Cat 1 LTE-M – as well as 5G. Solutions will be based on eSIM technology, and geared towards European enterprises.
The companies, claiming to bring ‘full-stack’ IoT expertise “under one roof” for the first time, talked up “significant CAPEX savings” for enterprises in a press statement. A joint consultancy offer, offered via Orange Business Services, and also made available to IoT resellers, will hinge on a “three-step process” in four (!) parts – “start, prove, deploy, and scale”, the press statement read.
The logic is “to support… ideation to industrialization, without having to liaise with multiple players”. The group will define a matrix-style menu system as a basis to more easily tailor IoT solutions, and collaborate on proofs, field tests, and commercial releases. Whether or not the new ‘IoT Continuum’ grouping represents a ‘first’ in the IoT sector, the initiative is part of a trend to simplify bespoke diagnosis and prescription for enterprises looking to mainline digital change.
The various ‘co-creation’, ‘building block’, and ‘takeaway’ elements are also characteristic of the market’s attempts to industrialise IoT technologies.
Separately, Orange has a deal with Lacroix Group to deploy an indoor 5G network from Ericsson to run the rule over its value as a springboard for Industry 4.0, and as a foundation stone for its ‘flagship’ new ‘factory-of-the-future’.
