Vodafone announced today a new agreement to become a global Internet of Things (IoT) managed connectivity partner for Philips Lighting. Under the agreement, the two companies will enable city authorities worldwide to implement smart street lighting systems which will be connected wirelessly, saving energy and making maintenance easier and more efficient.
The Philips CityTouch street lighting management system will use Vodafone’s machine-to-machine (M2M) network to connect individual light points. Every connected street lamp will contain a Vodafone M2M SIM. City authorities can then monitor and manage lighting through a user-friendly and highly flexible system while engineers will be able to check performance, identify faults and control the lighting remotely.
Vodafone M2M Director, Erik Brenneis
Lighting plays a key role in the smart city. Our agreement with Philips will see this technology transforming cities across the world backed by Vodafone's world-leading innovation, technologies and networks.
Bill Bien, SVP, Head of Strategy and Marketing, at Philips Lighting
Just less than 12% of the world’s street lights are LED and less than 2% are connected. We are at the start of a new era which will see highly energy efficient connected street lighting become the backbone of most smart cities.