Bouygues Telecom announced the commercial rollout of France’s first Internet of Things (IoT) network based on the LoRa (Long Range) technology, which the Operator says will take place in June, as it concludes trials of the technology in the city of Grenoble, in close collaboration with its technology partner, Semtech. By the end of this year, around 500 towns and cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Rennes, Nantes, Montpellier and Angers will be covered by this network. According to the Operator, Bouygues Telecom will be the first French operator to launch a complete commercial offer for IoT, responding to the increasing need for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connectivity in this segment.
Bouygues Telecom and its international partners (Semtech, Sagemcom, Eolane, Adeunis and Kerlink) and several major industrial customers have been testing the LoRa technology and assessing its performance in real-life conditions for the last 16 months. Developed by the French company Cycleo, LoRa is a low-power wide-area (LPWA) technology that enables smart devices to share small packets of data, with autonomy of up to 10 years with standard batteries. LoRa’s characteristics including excellent penetration in buildings or in basement spaces, bi-directional and secure communications and support for geolocation services, makes it suitable for a wide-range of large industrial internet use cases, including Smart Cities, Smart Environment , Smart Water, Smart metering/smart Grid , Vehicle Tracking, Smart Agriculture, Smart Livestock Care, Smart Buildings & Homes and eHealth.
According to Bouygues, other major Operators in the region such as KPN, Swisscom, Belgacom and Fastnet are in the process of deploying LoRa networks or carrying out large-scale trials.
The Internet of Things is going to transform entire areas of our economy. Thanks to the expertise and the infrastructures of Bouygues Telecom, we will be able to quickly offer nationwide coverage with a high quality service.
Alain Dantec, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Semtech
The pilot scheme carried out with Bouygues Telecom is a world first that has enabled us to improve LoRa protocols further. Its long-standing involvement in the development of our technology and its ceaseless work to improve it within the LoRa Alliance has made Bouygues Telecom one of the world’s leading experts in IoT technology. We are now impatient to rise to the challenges of its future customers within the framework of their network roll-out.
