It’s appropriately called a “show” when the Consumer Electronics Show takes over Las Vegas, the world capital of over the top creativity, entertainment and fun.
CES always brings Las Vegas to a new level of nerdy delight when the tech show comes to town.
Held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, from January 9-12, CES is happening at 11 official venues, supporting in the aggregate over 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space with 24 product categories and more than 20 marketplaces.
With a massive crowd moving through a massive area, CES is its own city – and two companies are partnering to provide more than just “free drinks” as the industry figures out which bets to place in the expanding world of IoT.
Last week, Senet, a provider of cloud-based software, global connectivity service platforms and network build-out for the Internet of Things (IoT), and Kerlink, a specialist in network solutions dedicated to the IoT, announced a “collaborative expansion” of Senet’s Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) in the Las Vegas area to support a variety of commercial solution offerings, market trials and proofs of concepts.
The network will cover outdoor and indoor areas, with a geolocation capability that works without consuming batteries, unlike GPS which we’ve all learned drains smartphones faster than Vegas casinos drain wallets.
The solution will run on Kerlink’s 64-channel WirnetTM iBTS gateway for outdoor use, and while the applications may be colorful and very POC this week, it’s not hard to understand how mission-critical such a connectivity solution could be for first responders heightened to the need for extreme public safety given the horrific attack last year in the city of lights.
“This is a substantial milestone,” said Bruce Chatterley, CEO of Senet. “This roll out represents the first production network in North America to support LoRaWAN geolocation, making it ideal for smart city, smart building, smart hotel and public facilities’ network connecting sensors.”
Senet certified LoRa end nodes make this possible, and it can be used for applications requiring location data that does not require the precision of GPS. Demand for these services is significant, with a third of the world’s 15 billion connected devices forecasted to be critically dependent on geodata by the end of 2020, according to Machina Research.
To run demo applications on the Senet network during CES, companies simply need to register on Senet’s Developer Portal to coordinate access.
“Strong ecosystem partnerships and critical technical advantages have allowed Senet to become a leading IoT connectivity software and solutions provider,” said Dave Kjendal, CTO of Senet. “We are pleased to be working with trusted partners like Kerlink to bring geolocation and other enhanced features to market to meet the demands of mass scale IoT deployments.”
Kerlink brings an international flavor to the partnership.
“We are excited to support expansion of Senet’s Low Power Wide Area Virtual Network in Las Vegas, which will bring new IoT benefits like geolocation to companies in the region, and enable a variety of innovative IoT demos at CES,” said Carlos Briceno, senior director of sales and business development for Kerlink Inc. “It also marks Kerlink’s first large IoT network deployment in the U.S. and an expansion of our international footprint, following roll outs across Europe, and in South America, New Zealand and India.”
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
