Cyril Deschanel, Managing Director at Tele2 IoT
IoT is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the advent of 5G and LPWAN (low-power, wide-area networks) opening the door to massive IoT for businesses. It’s no longer about just trying IoT – we’re well past that. We are now at the stage where we know how to lay the IoT foundation and then successfully build upon it – but the big question continues to be asked: how can I use IoT technology to further improve my business?
Digitalisation of companies combined with technology advances within IoT, such as 5G and LTE-M, means we are entering the age of massive IoT. And while the talk around connecting things and cost control will continue, as IoT continues to mature we are increasingly answering the bigger questions for our customers: what factors will help their IoT solution succeed? What is their strategy? What kind of customer support do they need?. You need to understand what you’re measuring and why, as well as what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to do that.
If we look at use cases around, for example, traditional monitoring and tracking, LTE-M offers cost efficiency, and enables customers to assemble large volumes of data, which in turn can be used for predictive maintenance. Data streams also make it possible to remotely steer, for example, snowploughs, or delivery droids, such as Foodora’s Doora. The potential goes beyond that, though – in the future 5G and IoT technology will enable remote mining and even doctors performing operations remotely.
In light of these examples, let’s look at the bigger picture: IoT deployments can easily transform into a sophisticated spiderweb, with multiple use cases or multiple consumption models. In the 5G era even a hotel might need the highest speed and lowest latency connectivity besides LPWA sensors. Although everything seems to be connected via similar looking SIMs, to be able to orchestrate such different use cases you need a powerful connectivity management platform with advanced automation capabilities. Moreover, you might want to integrate the connectivity management platform into your analytics tools or customer self-service portals in order to provide self service capabilities to the end user of your service or products. This would require a state-of-the-art API set up with the smartest design.
Or perhaps you would like to explore new business models? For example, you might want to transform your capex model surveillance camera solution into a recurring revenue model by adding value. Being able to connect anywhere – even without cable infrastructure – can be attractive to your customers. You might enable an additional revenue stream via connectivity as well. In such servitisation attempts, IoT would certainly be the main player at the heart of the transformation.
IoT is about understanding strategies that work and the tools you need, such as how the right connectivity platform benefits you, the role roaming plays, and how having access to a dedicated IoT Network Operations Centre (INOC) can make all the difference – because when you face challenges, having all the pieces of the puzzle in place can mean the difference between a successful resolution or continued problems. This means it is critical to have the right service and support from your provider, because your IoT capabilities rely on your ability to organise and implement with speed and precision.
Having shipped more than eight million SIMs worldwide, we’ve been in the IoT game for nearly a decade, and while other IoT organisations are simply a part of a larger offering, Tele2 IoT has always been and continues to be devoted to one thing and one thing only: IoT. In our organisation, everyone and everything is geared to not just implement IoT, but to laser focus on offering support, knowledge and expertise at any stage of our customer’s IoT journey. Customer support, solution consultants, the right connectivity platform, which roaming package is right for you, how to implement the right level of security – these are all areas where you need a trusted partner and friendly expert who can guide and advise you.
IoT is a fast-growing industry, and we are proudly outperforming that growth year after year. Besides having a dedicated IoT organisation, what makes us the fastest growing IoT vendor in Scandinavia is our ability to generate value through and for our partners. Our horizontal structure enables us to work with the most capable partners in the industry. Together we are addressing all layers of the IoT value chain, and with our combined expertise we are bringing the most suitable end-to-end IoT solutions to our customers.
You can learn more about how Tele2 IoT can enable your business here.