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Telstra and Ericsson to deploy national IoT network

IoT network

Telstra and Ericsson have announced they will be deploying a Cat M1 Internet of Things (IoT) network throughout Australia, with trials currently taking place in Melbourne and Tasmania.

One trial involves collecting data from sensors at Pooley Wines in Tasmania, such as leaf wetness, soil moisture and temperature, rainfall, solar radiation, and wind speed and direction.

The network deployment is a collaboration between not only Telstra and Ericsson, but also device providers Sierra Wireless, Altair and Bosch. The sensors being used in the trials are connected to Telstra’s 4G Cat M1 network using a Sierra Wireless AirPrime embedded module on Altair’s Cat M1 chipset.

Cat M1 solutions are expected to be made commercially available this year, and will be supported across Telstra’s 4G network and powered by Ericsson’s Massive IoT network software.

“Building Cat-M1 services for IoT using the scale and standardisation of the 3GPP roadmap allows the rapid rollout of Cat-M1 through a new network software activation and provides the ideal platform for a proliferation of IoT devices and applications,” said Mike Wright, head of Telstra Networks.

“Cat-M1 meets the demands of LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) IoT applications. Advantages include low cost, low power consumption, deep coverage, massive numbers of connections, and high reliability of transmission. Cat-M1 can enhance LTE coverage for underground and in-building areas that challenge existing coverage.”

According to Wright, when combined with Telstra’s existing LTE coverage, the network will have the ability to support near real time applications in logistics, utilities, medicine, transport, mining, agriculture, manufacturing and many others.

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