UK’s Startup Capital Gets its Own Public LoRa Network

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4Q 2016 | IN-4290

Digital Catapult is part of Innovate UK, a public body created in 2007 and sponsored by the UK governments, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. On 20 September, the Digital Catapult, tasked to deliver the UK’s IoT programme, announced the launch of the Digital Catapult Things Connected program and an IoT network using 50 LoRaWAN basestations located across London. The program will work in collaboration with network operators, platform vendors, and universities to drive innovation in IoT. Flood network in the UK also announced endorsing the LoRa network to connect a low-cost network of sensors to aid local government authorities to monitor water levels in nearby ditches, culverts, rivers, and waterways.

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Innovate UK's Digital Catapult Deploys LoRa Network in London

NEWS


Digital Catapult is part of Innovate UK, a public body created in 2007 and sponsored by the UK governments, Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. On 20 September, the Digital Catapult, tasked to deliver the UK’s IoT programme, announced the launch of the Digital Catapult Things Connected program and an IoT network using 50 LoRaWAN basestations located across London. The program will work in collaboration with network operators, platform vendors, and universities to drive innovation in IoT. Flood network in the UK also announced endorsing the LoRa network to connect a low-cost network of sensors to aid local government authorities to monitor water levels in nearby ditches, culverts, rivers, and waterways.

LoRa Gaining Momentum in Market Adoption

IMPACT


Although LoRa has entered the UK market much later than its competitors, it is starting to gain market confidence from early adopters. The Digital Catapult program is expected to provide a free IoT network to the growing startup community in London that is driving IoT innovation. Innovate UK, in its core budget for 2016/17, earmarked £84 million under emerging and enabling technologies sectors that identifies and invests in startups that focus on IoT. The Digital Catapult program plans to initially trial safety applications for cyclists and environmental monitoring, but envisions the IoT network will provide a test bed for new IoT applications as well.

LoRa technology witnessed initial traction in the UK when Endetec HomeRider systems, part of the French conglomerate Veolia Environnement S.A, implemented the technology for water utilities in the UK. Thames Water, one of the largest water utilities in the UK serving over 9 million households, has also been testing Sensus Flexnet technology along with Homerider systems LoRa technology for its smart meter rollout. It initially plans to rollout 3.8 million smart meters by 2020 and cover the rest of its customers by the end of 2030. The Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems (CENSIS), a member of the LoRa alliance, announced in July 2016 a collaboration with universities in Glasgow to deploy a LoRa network to cover Glasgow, Scotland. Earlier implementation of LoRa technology have been focused on private networks for utilities, but the recent development of LoRa public networks will be appealing to cash-strapped water utilities in the region. 

LoRa Business Model Creating Network Overbuild?

COMMENTARY


UK is an early adopter country that has witnessed a number of LPWA network technology pilots and successful implementations in the last few years.   Few examples of earlier LPWA network implementations include Telensa’s PLANet technology in smart streetlights and Arqivas implementation of Sensus (acquired by Xylem Inc in August 2016) Flexnet technology to connect over 17 million smart meters in the UK. There have also been a number of startups, like Neul (acquired by Huawei in 2015), N-Wave, and Weightless SIG, which have seen pilot implementation of their technology in the past. In May 2014, Arqiva announced its partnership with SIGFOX and planned to deploy a nationwide network starting with 10 major cities in the UK. Since the Arqiva announcement, there has not been a lot of progress in building the SIGFOX network in the UK. Due to its exclusive partnership with Arqiva, SIGFOX can only rely on Arqiva to build the network. There are a number of smart city pilots that are taking place in the UK, but have in the past suffered from the lack of reliable LPWA network. BT has been involved in a smart city project in Milton Keynes, UK, where it initially used Neul’s LPWA technology and after its acquisition by Huawei, and used N-WAVES LPWA network.

Unlike Sigfox, LoRa Alliance does not sign exclusive network partnerships with regional network operators and allows for both multiple operators to deploy public and private networks.  In this case, there are multiple networks operating in a single country; for example, Orange France, Bouygues Telecom, and La Poste are all deploying nationwide networks in France. This duplicity helps create a competitive environment around different LoRa network operators and ensures network availability.

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