Sigfox has announced that it will expand its IoT network to 100 cities in the US as it bids to grow the market for IoT and establish itself in the country.
The firm has partnered with multiple site owners, including tower, rooftop and billboard sites. Together the partnerships give the company access to more than 230,000 sites across the United States.
Sigfox currently operates in 18 countries and registering over 7 million devices in its network. IDC forecasts that by 2020 North America will have the world’s third-largest installed base of IoT units (7.5 billion) and, correspondingly, the third-largest market for IoT-generated revenue ($1.9 trillion).
Related: WAN technologies expected to power IoT deployments in 2016
Sigfox goes big in America
The French firm said it needs only a limited number of these sites to further extend its network’s footprint in the country, as it requires far lighter infrastructure than traditional wireless networks.
“The US is a huge growth market for Internet of Things connectivity, especially in smart cities, utilities, shipping and agriculture sectors that require large-scale and cost-effective communication,” said Allen Proithis, president of Sigfox North America.
“Our partnerships with these site owners enables Sigfox to leverage existing sites to rapidly deploy our out-of-the-box connectivity solution in the US market. Sigfox’s low-cost Internet of Things connectivity complements cellular networks, and allows billions of additional devices to participate in the benefits of IoT.”
Smart city challenges
The news comes as new research from Machina Research points to the use of standards-based IoT environments and platforms could increase the number of connected devices within smart cities by 27 percent.
The analysts said that by using non-standardised IoT solutions, the cost to implement smart city deployments could reach $1.12 trillion (£773 billion) by 2025. Adopting standardised solutions, on the other hand, would equate to a cost of $781 billion (£540 billion) – a savings of $341 billion (£235 billion) worldwide by 2025 – 30 percent of the non-standardised total.
“Government bodies investing in smart city initiatives to drive civic improvements are under constant scrutiny to ensure public funds are spent wisely. Furthermore, the existing ‘internet of silos’ approach to IoT deployment is delaying the widespread adoption of IoT solutions, including smart cities,” said Jeremy Green, principal analyst at Machina Research.
“Our research demonstrates that open standards can solve both challenges, ensuring money is invested more efficiently, and dramatically accelerating IoT adoption and growth.”
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