Kordia aims for one million Sigfox IoT connections
Kordia aims to sell one million IoT connections over the next three years
The low-powered wide area radio network using the Sigfox technology for connecting Internet of Things devices being rolled out by Kordia and Sigfox licencee Thinxtra has reached coverage of 88 percent of the New Zealand population, with Kordia saying it aims to sell one million IoT connections over the next three years.
Kordia says it has just extended South Island coverage to Ashburton, Oamaru and Timaru and is in the process of deploying the network in Queenstown and is working with Thinxtra on with “a range of ecosystem partners on solutions that include agriculture, asset tracking, service-on-demand, road infrastructure and natural resource use cases.”
It says Auckland Transport is interested in using the network, and sees an opportunity to improve school safety by connecting school zone road signs to the network. Massey University in conjunction with Auckland-based industrial design company Motiv has developed a proof of concept for this application.
Kordia says the university was the first in either New Zealand or Australia to have Sigfox coverage across all its campuses and has partnered with Thinxtra to develop IoT solutions.
Associate professor Johan Potgieter said a live trial was in place at three schools and had demonstrated the impact that IoT could have on the everyday lives of New Zealanders by automatically monitoring the status of safety equipment such as electronic school zone signs.
“Control of the school signs used to rely on a manual operation, often by the school’s receptionist, over a short range RF link. There was no visibility on the status of the signs, which often relied on the public or school to report their condition,” he explained.
“Now the signs are connected to the Sigfox network, real-time information on their status and full control and monitoring is available on a web application."
