Reliance and Tata to fight on IOT

At Mobile World Congress Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced that it is working with Tata Communications to support the roll-out of India’s first LoRaWAN (LoRa) based network.

Tata Communications unveiled plans for the LoRa network last year. It is part of Tata Communications’ long-term strategy of creating mobile platforms and ecosystems that enable its customers and partners to connect people and IoT-connected devices seamlessly on a global scale. The first phase of the roll-out targets Tier 1, 2, 3 and 4 cities in India, touching over 400 million people. Alongside successful field trials in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, there are also 35 proof-of-concept applications in trial on the network.

The association between Tata Communications and HPE paves the way for a new era in enabling devices with embedded connectivity for enterprise customer solutions throughout the country. The project involves connecting devices, applications and other IoT solutions over the LoRa network in smart buildings, campus, utilities, fleet management, security and healthcare services in nearly 2,000 communities, covering over 400 million people, making it the first-of-its-kind initiative in India.

“Tata Communications has 15 years of experience in delivering impactful and innovative communications solutions to its customers globally,” said Anthony Bartolo, president, Mobility, IoT and Collaboration Services, Tata Communications. “As part of our commitment to innovation and in driving digital transformation globally, we are creating a cohesive, resilient and highly secure network to deploy IoT applications in India. We are excited to be partnering with HPE in this project as this platform is critical to amalgamating all the complex variables in enabling a truly digital India.”

Designed for massive scale, multi-vendor and multi-network support using the one M2M interoperability standard, the HPE Universal IoT Platform streamlines interoperability and management of heterogeneous IoT devices and applications that power the intelligent edge. The platform supports long-range, low-power connectivity deployments, as well as devices that use cellular, radio, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Recent enhancements announced for the HPE Universal IoT Platform include increased LoRa gateway support, enabling the use of multiple LoRa gateways with a common set of applications to simplify device provisioning and control in heterogeneous LoRa environments.

“The sheer size of this project is incredible, bringing new services to millions of people,” said David Sliter, vice president and general manager, Communications Solutions Business, HPE. “Through our partner centric approach, the HPE Universal IoT platform will enable Tata Communications to build multiple vertical use cases for its IoT network in India on a common platform with a common data model.”

Tata Communications has also selected HPE to be an integral part of its global cellular IoT connectivity services. This provides a range of domestic and cross-border IoT connectivity and management services, particularly for applications requiring elements of mobility, such as connected cars, fleet management and transportation services.

HPE is demonstrating a variety of smart city IoT use cases on the HPE Universal IoT Platform at Mobile World Congress.

On the other hand, Reliance Group's Unlimit and Cumulocity enter a strategic partnership to deliver IoT solutions and services in India

The partnership extends Unlimit’s connectivity offering with Cumulocity’s advanced IoT application enablement platform. The combined offering enables Unlimit’s customers to benefit from rapid machine, sensor and device integration; data collection and normalization; and real-time analytics for condition monitoring. It further offers predictive maintenance and supply chain automation; comprehensive device management and remote control; vertical application configurable real-time dashboards; and fast and affordable enterprise IT integration.

“With the number of connected devices in India projected to rise from 200 million today to 3 billion by 2020, nearly every part of the economy will be positively impacted by IoT. We are delighted to partner with Cumulocity to unlock the full potential of IoT for our customers and make the benefits of IoT virtually UNLIMITed,” Juergen Hase, Chief Executive Officer of Unlimit, said.

“In Unlimit and the Reliance Group, we have found very strong strategic partners to exploit substantial opportunities for IoT in the Indian market. The combination of Reliance Group’s vast vertical market expertise, Unlimit’s innovate business approaches and Cumulocity’s world-leading IoT software platform allows the fast-evolving Indian market to step up to rapidly build, secure and deploy state-of-the-art IoT solutions in an extremely cost efficient way,” Bernd Gross, Chief Executive Officer of Cumulocity, said.

The Indian market has the perfect eco-system to fully exploit the benefits of the Internet of Things with the necessity to manage extremely high usage public and commercial services for many diverse consumers and enterprises at the lowest cost. Recent analyst reports predict that IoT in India will grow at a CAGR of 28% over the next 5 years, which may result in technological leapfrogging of more established economies. Early benefits are already anticipated in many sectors such as transport, wellness, healthcare, buildings, home, factories, agriculture, livestock, electric grids and water supply networks.