[LoRa] Sigfox debuts ‘private area network,’ or PAN

[Jesus Cea]

Ya sé que Sigfox es la competencia de LoRa, pero ma parece buena idea
saber lo que se está haciendo por ahí.

https://www.eetimes.com/sigfox-debuts-private-area-network-or-pan/

"""
Sigfox debuts ‘private area network,’ or PAN
By Nitin Dahad  11.24.2019 0
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Sigfox made a number of announcements including a new private network
offer, new alliance with Amadeus for luggage tracking, and improved
geolocation

Singapore — Sigfox announced an alliance with travel industry firm
Amadeus for luggage tracking and beyond. Separately, it announced
improved geolocation accuracy using GPS and WiFi. The big announcement
was the launch of its new private area network (PAN) offer, which the
company says presents customers with a choice between a private or
global service, dependent on budget and business needs.

Sigfox described a PAN as a private network sitting on the Sigfox public
network.  While the official reason is that it gives customers the
option of accounting for their network connectivity as either capex or
opex, Sigfox executives also indicated that it gives some customers the
extra assurance that they have their own dedicated network, with the
associated assurances about data privacy and security.

Sigfox will first test this new PAN with selected customers in France
during Q1 2020, and then other countries later in the year.

Ludovic Le Moan, CEO and co-founder of Sigfox, said, “Sigfox's PAN offer
will benefit from the existing ecosystem around the Sigfox wide area
network (WAN). The possibility of using all the components on the
market, combined with the use of extremely low transmission power to
support objects without the need for batteries, gives Sigfox's PAN offer
huge potential.” He said that smart-home or smart-city solution
providers will be among the first to benefit from PANs.

In 2020, Sigfox said will complete its WAN coverage as a result of its
partnership with Eutelsat, which will be launching a constellation of
nanosatellites. This satellite constellation will deliver connectivity
across the entire globe, bolstering coverage already provided by
Sigfox’s network.

More accurate GPS and WiFi geolocation
Sigfox announced two complementary new offers to enhance accuracy of its
geolocation services: Atlas Native and Atlas WiFi.

Launched in January 2017, Atlas Native was the first Sigfox geolocation
service solely based on the Sigfox network, available for every device
equipped with the simplest Sigfox module — without the need for GPS or
other additional hardware/software components. Now, solution makers with
GPS-devices will be able to use the Atlas Native Complimentary service
free of charge in exchange for data processing rights. Using this GPS
location data and comparing with the Sigfox network fingerprints, the
machine learning algorithms used to compute Atlas can reduce the
uncertainty of the “real” location of the asset and improve geolocation
accuracy, down to 800 meters.

The second geolocation announcement is the completion of the global
rollout of Sigfox’s Atlas WiFi service in partnership with Here
Technologies, creating a global location service opening up new
opportunities for IoT applications, particularly in supply chain and
logistics. Atlas WiFi takes advantage of Here Technologies’ global
database of WiFi access points, which can now be queried by Sigfox WiFi
trackers and, by reporting the unique MAC addresses to the cloud,
generating a more accurate asset position, and a seamless outdoor and
indoor geolocation service.  As determining WiFi-based location consumes
less battery than using GPS, Atlas WiFi can also help enhance the life
from battery-based IoT tracking solutions.

Luggage tracking alliance and gas meters in Japan
Every year, airports and airlines handle billions of pieces of luggage
and packages which are often lost, damaged or delayed, leading to
financial losses for the whole value chain, a lack of operational
efficiency, and increasing dissatisfaction for travelers. Meanwhile,
existing tracking technologies require expensive infrastructure updates
(such as gates and readers), and provide limited interoperability and
geolocation capabilities. In parallel, regulation like the new IATA
Resolution 753 on luggage tracking will impose stricter tracking and
increased visibility requirements to reduce luggage loss rates.

With this in mind, Sigfox and Amadeus, a provider of travel and tourism
industry IT solutions, announced a new strategic partnership to develop
a portfolio of solutions to meet the need for efficient asset tracking
solutions, as well as reduce operational challenges for airports and
airlines.

One such solution is PinPoint, an end-to-end tracking solution for the
air transportation industry, initially targeting airports and airlines
with trackers optimally designed, connected and communicating through
the Sigfox global network. Through reusable tags placed on luggage,
proximity sensors installed across airports and Sigfox global coverage,
airlines will be able to monitor luggage, accurately tracking its
location and detecting anomalies. For high-value assets, airlines will
be able to use the technology to collect data that will help report
movement and loss of those assets.

Meanwhile, Sigfox also talked about its Bubble technology, a beaconing
solution enabling proximity detection, to be developed and deployed in
collaboration with new partner Alps Alpine, an electronics components
manufacturer. By managing the emission power, Sigfox cloud adapts the
range of the Bubble, from less than one meter to a few tens of meters,
improving the accuracy of the device’s location. When entering a Bubble
cell, Sigfox devices and associated assets share their identification to
the cloud providing a highly accurate location for each asset.

Smart gas meter

A retrofitted network controlling unit (NCU) will make 850,000 gas
meters in Japan 'smart' (Source: Sigfox)

In Japan, 850,000 Nippon Gas (“Nicigas”) gas meters across the country
will be made ‘smart’ by the end of FY2020 using a retrofitted gas meter
reader called Space Hotaru developed by UnaBiz and Soracom. Sigfox said
the project marks one of the largest deployments of smart utilities
solutions to date. The network controlling unit (NCU) collects and
transmits gas consumption data to Nicigas’ IoT data platform, “Nicigas
Stream”, via Sigfox’s Japan-wide wireless network allowing the gas valve
to be controlled remotely. The NCU is energy-efficient and is expected
to last more than 10 years on internal batteries. In addition, the NCU
also reports on meter related incidents. In the event of an earthquake,
the gas valve is programmed to auto-close, bringing convenience and
real-time security to the properties. The solution runs on the network
operated by Kyocera Communication Systems, a subsidiary of Kyocera Corp.

New asset tracking modules
Two new modules were also announced by SeongJi Industrial, a wireless
connectivity module manufacturer that merged the Wisol IoT business
earlier this year. Its modules, SRM100A and SRM200A Sigfox Monarch
modules, provide a unique radio recognition service enabling devices to
manage the radio frequency changes without any additional hardware such
as GPS or WiFi chipsets, according to Sigfox. This service enables
devices to run seamlessly in all parts of the world, by automatically
recognizing and adapting to the local radio-frequency standards. It
unlocks use cases in logistics and supply chain, in the consumer
industry, and in automated maintenance for the shipping, aircraft and
railway industries

The SRM100A is a Monarch+BLE5.0 module that integrates
STMicroelectronics’ Bluetooth LE BlueNRG-2 SoC and S2-LP ultra-low-power
radio transceiver. It claims to be the smallest Monarch module (21.5mm x
19.5mm x 2.5mm) in the world and enables quick customer designs because
of the half thru-hole SMD type and FOTA service from BLE5.0. The SRM200A
is a state-of-art module integrating STMicroelectronics’ BlueNRG-2 and
S2-LP devices, alongside BLE5.0, WiFi, GPS, and accelerometer, and it is
used for applications like indoor and outdoor tracking as well as global
logistics and asset tracking. Its size is 29.0mm x 21.0mm x2.3mm, and it
supports BLE FOTA and NFC-tag feature for wake-up on field and touch
to-pair capabilities.

Marco Veneri, low-power RF business unit manager, STMicroelectronics,
said, “ST has been a strong believer in the Sigfox technology since its
early adoption within our industrial-ready wireless portfolio, now fully
supporting out-of-the-box Sigfox global connectivity with the S2-LP
device, the industry’s most optimized and ultra-low-power ISM-band RF
solution. The SeongJi SRM100A and SRM200A modules greatly simplify the
adoption of the Sigfox networking technology for global asset-tracking
and logistics markets.”

Nitin Dahad

Nitin Dahad is a European correspondent for EE Times.
"""

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