Monetizing the internet of things (IoT) is a huge challenge for CSPs and other organizations such as smart cities. At Digital Transformation World last week, representatives from two pioneering telcos and the City of Nice explained how they’re doing it.
21 May 2019
Three approaches to monetizing IoT
Monetizing the internet of things (IoT) is a huge challenge for communications service providers (CSPs) and other organizations such as smart cities. At TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World, representatives from two pioneering CSPs and the City of Nice explained how they’re doing it.
Tackling criminals
For Mila Milenković, Head of the Digital Innovations and Applications Department at Telekom Srbija, the initial business case was internal – to address persistent cable theft, which costs Telekom Srbija millions and damages its business and reputation.
The company chose LoRa technology as the devices’ batteries can last 10 years or more and their range can be up to 20km in rural areas. Some 8,000 sensors have been deployed in Belgrade so far, which will rise 16,000 by year-end. The graphic below shows some positive results.
In preparation for offering IoT services to external customers, Telekom Srbija is also running pilot projects in different sectors.
Roles for CSPs in IoT
Pawan Dubey, Principal Solution Architect, CRM Transformation and Digital, Orange, looked at the different roles and opportunities for CSPs, outlining the opportunities, which range from delivering connectivity to providing an end-to-end solution, and the potential market size of each.
Dawby advises operators to tap into these markets by providing access to infrastructure so that they can deliver:
Infrastructure as a service for enterprise customers to deploy applications in the cloud. The customer manages and controls both infrastructure and applications.
Platform as a service through APIs to provide access to network and IT systems, typically to a developer, to deploy applications in the cloud. The customer controls the application, but not the infrastructure.
Software as a service so customers can run applications in the cloud without managing or controlling the application or infrastructure.
Platform strategy for Nice
Alain Chateau, Director, Center of Excellence for Smart City, Métropole Nice Côte d'Azur, is charged with creating innovation to develop the region economically. It covers 1,400 km square, has 49 cities and villages, seven ports and six ski resorts. There are 540,000 inhabitants from 102 nationalities, and of them 228,000 are employed and another 41,000 are students.
The strategy is to create a platform that collects, collates and analyses data, with the ultimate goal of creating a data market place: The diagram below summarizes its progress.
“It’s a big challenge to develop a city services platform then bring all the data we can produce to the economic and academic worlds, but we want to develop our own local ecosystem (see below); to own the platform and be master of the data and food chain,” Chateau noted.
Métropole Nice will use apps created by the private sector and is developing governance to give citizens “absolute reassurance” that they can opt out of or be confident about how their data is being collected, shared and used.
