Thinxtra, the Sigfox licensee for Australia and New Zealand is widening its horizons, announcing plans to rollout a Sigfox network in Hong Kong, and unveiling plans for networks in several more Asian countries in 2017.
The move into Hong Kong appears to give it a headstart on rival LPWAN technology, LoRaWAN. So far as IoTAustralia was able to ascertain, there are no LoRaWAN networks operating in Hong Kong at present,
Thinxtra said its Hong Kong network was due to launch in early 2017 and would cover the entire territory, and that it had already been working with Hong Kong Science and Technology Park on the research and development efforts, as well as the design of devices, sensors and solutions.
“Local businesses will benefit from access to the most advanced and mature global IoT network, along with solutions and services that span logistics, building and infrastructure management, utilities, healthcare, environmental monitoring and more,” the company said.
Thinxtra quoted Murray Hankinson, managing director of Thinxtra Asia, saying: “We see great potential for Hong Kong to be a world-leading design and manufacturing hub for IoT innovation, and we’re investing here to support this growth.” However it gave no further information on Thinxtra Asia, or on Hankinson.
According to Hankinson’s LinkedIn profile he joined Thinxtra in June 2016 from ASX listed telecommunications network operator Superloop where he was chief commercial officer. Before that he spent three years as Regional Director in the Corporate & Market Development Office of Serco.
A slide presentation on his LinkedIn page carries a slide indicating that Thinxtra intends to roll out Sigfox networks in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The slide also indicated plans for Sigfox networks in South Korea and Japan during 2017, but separate from Thinxtra.
