Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei and its South Africa counterpart MTN on Wednesday jointly launched the Smart Water Metering solution, the first Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) solution in Africa.
The solution is designed to help MTN develop their NB-IoT services to explore new markets.
Huawei and MTN will showcase a live Smart Water Metering Demo and other IoT services at AfricaCom 2016, scheduled for November 15-17 in Cape Town.
Jacky Chen, Managing Director of Huawei MTN Key Account Group, said: “The number of cellular IoT connections in Africa will grow seven-fold over the next three to four years, and NB-IoT will be a key driver for this trend.”
Together with its partners, Huawei is applying groundbreaking NB-IoT innovation to solve core challenges around IoT applications, Chen said.
“We will build a robust, open ecosystem to drive NB-IoT technology innovation and commercialization,” he said.
The Smart Water metering solution enables the automated collection of utility meter data, while manual meter reading leads to high labor costs and missing or inaccurate data. Through sensors installed in water meters, customers can identify water pipeline leakage earlier.
Household water meters will automatically report data on a regular basis, reducing fault probabilities and the operating expense.
Powered by the NB-IoT technology by Huawei, the sensor array is designed to serve as a diagnostic spine that underpins network management. The data gathered can be used to control waste water flows from each property, identify faults across the network and improve health and safety outcomes.
Babak Fouladi, Group Chief Technology and Information Officer, Interim SA CTO of MTN, commented: “NB-IoT is viewed by the industry as the answer for enterprise applications in a range of different areas, from utility meters to sensor monitoring to asset-tracking. In line with our strategy to explore new enterprise markets, MTN is glad to lead the application of this new technology in Africa.”
The commercial trial of smart water metering, the first NB-IoT service in Africa, has been tested successfully.
Looking forward, lots of services including wildlife tracking, smart farm, and smart parking will be available to turn Africa into a better connected region, Fouladi said. Enditem
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(Via: NewsGhana)
