French telco Bouygues Telecom is to launch, in June, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a part of Paris, a low power wide area radio network, based on LoRaWAN technology for connection of the Internet of Things. The network will only over parts of Paris at launch, but Bouygues says it plans to extend coverage to 500 towns by the end of 2015.
Bouygues is a member of the LoRaWAN Alliance, announced at CeBit 2015 by IBM and has been trialling the technology in Grenoble since November 2013 with French company, Cycleo – a subsidiary of Semtech, developer of the LoRa technology.
Bouygues said: “For 16 months, Bouygues Telecom, its international partners (Semtech, Sagemcom, Eolane, Adeunis and Kerlink) and several major industrial customers have been testing LoRa technology and assessing its performance in real-life conditions. LoRa’s ability to respond to the wide-ranging demands of large industrial customers (excellent penetration in buildings or in basement spaces, bi-directional and secure communications, mobile devices, geolocation services, etc.) makes it, from a user standpoint, the most advanced technology for the Internet of Things (IoT).”
It adds that, in other countries “major operators like KPN, Swisscom, Belgacom and Fastnet are in the process of deploying LoRa networks or carrying out large-scale trials.”
The IoT network, to be opened as early as June in Issy-les-Moulineaux. It will use the ‘high points’ of the Bouygues Telecom network that boasts more than 15,000 sites. Bouygues says that, from the end of the year, around 500 towns and cities will be covered by the network, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Rennes, Nantes, Montpellier and Angers.
