IoT platform company Soracom has launched a new pay-as-you-go service for the Sigfox global Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN).
The new Sigfox service provides APIs, a command-line interface, and a Web console for full control of device connections. It also offers access to advanced platform features that support IoT data management, along with secure connections to cloud services, such as AWS IoT, AWS Kinesis, Google Cloud IoT Core, Microsoft Azure IoT, and PubNub.
All pricing for the service is provided on a pay-as-you-go basis. Soracom said that for customers in the early stages of IoT development, this offers a low-cost path to release, while larger customers will benefit from simplified and predictable global billing and management.
The firm currently provides more than 9,000 customers worldwide with over-the-air connectivity designed specifically for IoT applications. Customers can centrally manage both GSM/LTE and Sigfox connectivity across regions from a single user console, with centralised connection management and billing.
The Sigfox network is available in over 45 countries and territories.
Read more: On your bike, GPS! Is Sigfox a better low-power location service? (Case studies)
Charges calculated daily
Charges are calculated daily based on location, uplink and downlink volume, with different tiers based on usage, and with volume discounts applied automatically, depending on the number of active devices.
Soracom cited a typical scenario and pricing: a GPS tracker deployed in France and reporting its location 50 times a day could see daily charges as low as 0.0127 EUR ($0.016 USD).
“Soracom was created to give developers and enterprises around the world access to self-service, cloud-native, pay-as-you-go service for IoT,” said Soracom co-founder and CTO, Kenta Yasukawa. “This global Sigfox offering lets them worry less about connectivity and focus squarely on creating new services and experiences.”
“This new offer will make it even easier for anyone to use Sigfox services anywhere in the world and manage the generated data,” said Nicolas Lesconnec, Sigfox head of Technology Adoption. “This will help customers focus on their own business priorities, with connectivity and platform matters being as simple as they should.”
Full pricing information and list of available regions can be found at: soracom.io/air/sigfox.
Internet of Business says
A recent Internet of Business report on Sigfox suggested that it could form the basis of a better, cheaper, low-power location-based service architecture for applications such as bike- and ride-sharing schemes, blockchain-based payment systems (which pay people based on their locations), and more. You can find that in-depth report and case studies here.
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