Tata Communications successfully conducts trials for low power network for iOT Deployment

Tata Communications, one of the most prolific telecom companies in India announced that it is planning to launch a low power network for connected devices in the country. It further added that trials for the network were conducted successfully in Delhi and Mumbai. The low power network will help in the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) applications in the country.

IoT is getting widely adopted across sectors where enterprises and government agencies are using it to monitor electricity meters, industrial machinery, and leakages in oil pipelines and even in improving the efficiency of electrical grids.

The new low-power wide area network (LPWAN) is based on LoRa technology for connected devices. The network will soon be launched in 3 cities across the country namely Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.  The company aims to cover 400 million people across tier 1,2,3 and 4 cities in the first phase of deployment of the network. The main advantage of LPWAN is that it is a low-power, secure, bi-directional, communication solution, which any organization can use to connect objects and applications, overcoming high power consumption challenges with existing wireless solutions.

As the network is of low power, it has unprecedented reach which allows communications in deep water and up to 50 metres underground. “This makes it suitable for use in metro stations and car parks. The signal of the network is extremely strong, cutting through up to seven walls inside buildings. It is also suitable for rural areas due to its 15-km range,” Tata Communications said. “We see a massive need for a new smart network to enable intelligent solutions for a variety of M2M applications. These trials are just the beginning; we intend to deploy this network across India and invite customers with IoT projects to work with us to test it, end-to-end,” Tata Communications Chief Strategy Officer Tri Pham said.

As per forecasts from research firm Gartner, there will be 4.9 billion connected things globally in 2015, reaching 25 billion by 2020.