Major tech company has launched three new internet of things (IoT) solutions with which it aims to equip communication service providers and utility companies to address services and requirements in the fast-growing IoT market.
The first solution is Smart Metering as a Service. According to Ericsson, smart metering as a service enables end-to-end business process outsourcing drawing on Ericsson’s experience of enabling more than 42 million smart meters worldwide. The benefits of Smart Metering as a Service include reduced time-to-market, superior meter management and operations, as well as maximum cost savings. In short, utility providers will enjoy lower total cost of ownership, reduced complexity as Ericsson acts as a single point of contact with IT service providers, telecom operators and field services companies; and improved quality of service.
The Smart Metering as a Service is expected to become commercially available in the second quarter of the year.
The company is also rolling out User & IoT Data Analytics which provides operators with a real-time analytics engine embedded in the subscriber database.The solution extends Ericsson’s User Data Consolidation (UDC) offering, and works for both cellular- and non-cellular devices. It can also fetch data from other vendors’ network data bases and aggregate them in the analysis. Additional data from external sources can be included and, with the use of secure exposure, cross-industry IoT insights and applications also become a possibility.
The company is also launching Networks Software 17A Diversifies Cellular for Massive IoT
that supports millions of IoT device connections per cell site. The software-only upgrades introduce newest device category for LTE connections, Narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT), to existing network infrastructure, for fast rollout of reliable, secure mobile connectivity at the lowest total cost of ownership.
NB-IoT is well suited to IoT applications such as metering and sensor monitoring and flexibly scales to support millions of connections per cell site. It also reduces module costs by 90 percent and provides seven times better coverage. Combined with power-saving improvements, it delivers more than 10-year device battery life while maintaining downlink reachability.
These enhancements complement features available in the previous software release to address the diversity of IoT requirements while making best use of the extensive global footprint of existing networks. The upgrades to LTE and GSM networks provide an ideal platform for IoT growth.
