Rollout in Third Latin American Country Coincides with Launch Of National Initiative to Speed Use of IoT and Boost Economic Development
LABEGE, France, and Popayán, Colombia – Aug. 25, 2016 – SIGFOX, the world’s leading provider of dedicated communications service for the Internet of Things (IoT), WND, the company that is extending SIGFOX’s network across Latin America, and Phaxsi Solutions today announced the IoT network’s deployment in Colombia.
The rollout, managed by Phaxsi Solutions, which is the exclusive SIGFOX Network Operator (SNO) in Colombia, coincides with the launch of a nationwide alliance of universities, technology leaders and companies known as the Center of Excellence and Appropriation of Internet of Things (CEA-IoT). The alliance received an initial investment of $1.8 million this year to promote the IoT as a tool for strengthening Colombia’s economic development.
“This is a very timely launch of SIGFOX’s network in Colombia on many levels,” said Carolina Campo, Phaxsi CEO and co-founder. “First, its light infrastructure enables Phaxsi to quickly and simply connect Colombian businesses and citizens to the IoT. Second, our goal is to work with the national alliance to sustainably develop, consolidate and grow the IoT market in Colombia. Finally, the arrival of this global connectivity solution opens the door to new economically competitive and energy-efficient services for Colombian businesses. These will deliver a significant, positive impact for the Colombian economy.”
She said likely IoT use cases and applications for companies and government agencies include logistics, supply-chain management, asset-tracking, crop and soil monitoring, alarm systems for homes and businesses, smoke detectors, smart-city apps and utility meter reading.
SIGFOX’s rapidly growing global network provides simple, reliable, energy-efficient and cost-effective connectivity for billions of objects that communicate small messages to the cloud, and which make up the vast majority of IoT use cases. With its unique offer, SIGFOX enables businesses to add new services with their products, allowing them to expand their business models and grow revenue.
Following deployment of SIGFOX’s dedicated, bidirectional IoT network in Brazil and Mexico earlier this year, Colombia becomes the third Latin American nation to roll out the global network and the 24th globally. With Brazil and Mexico, Colombia’s deployment, which has already begun, will extend SIGFOX coverage to 57 percent of Latin America’s territory and 60 percent of its population.
See SIGFOX’s global coverage map here.
Phaxsi Solutions is collaborating with WND, the SIGFOX partner founded in 2015 to deploy the network throughout Latin America, to provide IoT connectivity in Colombia. The partners said the country’s top 10 urban areas, representing more than 50 percent of the country’s population, will be covered by mid-2017.
“Colombia, our third nationwide deployment in Latin America this year, is clearly a key part of our mission to rapidly develop the IoT ecosystem in this region,” said Chris Bataillard, founder of WND. “We are eager to develop Colombia with Phaxsi, which has a strong strategic mix of radio experience and entrepreneurial spirit required to quickly deliver the many benefits of the IoT to the people of Colombia. And we see many application, hardware and ecosystem synergies across the region that already includes Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.”
Rodolphe Baronnet-Frugès, SIGFOX executive vice president networks and operators, said SIGFOX’s economical and reliable connectivity solution will help overcome infrastructure and cost barriers for IoT adoption in Colombia. In addition, the company’s global ecosystem of partners, such as component and device manufacturers, IT developers and integrators, will help quickly grow Colombia’s IoT ecosystem.
“Colombia is a very promising setting for rapid IoT adoption because public and private groups recognize the key role the IoT can play in the creation of new companies, improved efficiencies for businesses and new services for citizens,” he said. “SIGFOX will work with WND and Phaxsi Solutions to quickly build the local ecosystem of hardware manufacturers, solution makers, startups and others to rapidly realize these benefits for Colombians. As we have demonstrated in every country where our network operates, SIGFOX makes possible what was not possible before.”
The company, which also recently announced deployments in Singapore and Taiwan as part of its mission of building a truly global, seamless IoT network, has set a goal of deploying in 30 countries in 2016. In Latin America, WND and SIGFOX are actively developing opportunities, with the goal to cover the whole region in the coming quarters.
About SIGFOX
SIGFOX is the world’s leading provider of dedicated connectivity for the Internet of Things. The company’s network complements existing high-bandwidth systems by providing simple, economical, energy-efficient two-way transmission of small quantities of data over long distances, thus lowering barriers to wide implementation of IoT solutions, and greatly extending the battery and service life of connected devices. Currently deployed or being rolled out in 24 countries and registering over 7 million devices in its network, SIGFOX is today the only commercially available IoT-dedicated connectivity solution that guarantees a high level of service and reliability on an international scale. Corporate headquarters are in France, and the company has offices in Boston, Dubai, Madrid, Munich, San Francisco and Singapore. For more information, see www.SIGFOX.com and follow us on Twitter @SIGFOX.
About Phaxsi Solutions
Phaxsi Solutions is a telecommunications-background company with solid experience in network deployment and optimization within the wireless industry. The company is fully committed with the development and consolidation of the LPWA-IoT ecosystem in Colombia, making it possible for service integrators to offer disruptive and competitive services. Since 2014, Phaxsi has been the first to install and run a SIGFOX pilot in Colombia, and has been very instrumental in developing solutions and use cases in the country. Phaxsi is aiming at using its extensive know-how and contacts in Colombian industry to deploy and commercialize the SIGFOX network.www.phaxsi-solutions.com.
About WND
WND is deploying the SIGFOX global network in Latin America to address the demand for low-cost, low-power IoT connectivity. Its business model combines its extensive knowledge of telco-grade deployments with disruptive techniques that are highly adaptable to SIGFOX’s connectivity solution. This allows WND to deploy the network rapidly and cost effectively across multiple countries, relying on local partners such as WND Brazil, IotNet Mexico and now Phaxsi Solutions in Colombia.
