Actility, a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) company, and Digita, the Finnish broadcast network operator, have announced that they will team up to take the next step towards a fully-connected Finland by rolling out a nationwide LoRa network.
Following the completion of a successful trial period of several months, the companies have seen that the market is ready for a full-scale commercial deployment. The service is available for local implementation everywhere in Finland, starting in October. Rollout will begin in major cities and expand from there. This is the first commercial LoRa network for IoT to be deployed in Finland. The deployment also emphasizes the opportunity that LoRa brings for companies like Digita, which is not a traditional cellular operator, to leverage the tall radio and television masts of their broadcast network to become key players in the internet of Things.
“Maintaining healthy living conditions is easy when the factors that affect residents' comfort can be recognised in real time,” said Kimmo Rintala, head of property development unit, VVO Group, a Digita partner. “Continuous measuring also enables us to detect obvious apartment-specific faults even before the residents themselves have time to react. Digita's solution eliminates the need for property-specific installations, as it is based on sensors within apartments that are able to communicate directly with Digita's system.”
The LoRa core network service is delivered through Actility's ThingPark Wireless solution, and makes use of Digita's broadcast masts so that the technology can be deployed at very high points overlooking the city and be exploited to its full range.
“We believe that IoT technology will revolutionize our daily lives. It can be used, for example, to monitor building conditions, save energy, prevent water damage, prevent theft, locate objects, locate pets, optimize farming and monitor health. In theory, there is no limit to the kinds of applications that are possible,” said Markus Ala-Hautala, COO, Digita.
Edited by
Alicia Young