Fast-growing privately held telecommunications company Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has announced it will deploy an “Internet of things” (IoT) network in South Africa in partnership with France’s Sigfox.

Newly formed DFA subsidiary SqwidNet will deploy and operate Sigfox’s network nationwide and distribute the IoT connectivity services and solutions through its channel partners.

The network will consist of about 1 850 high sites nationwide and will be fully deployed within the next 18 months, said DFA chief strategy officer and SqwidNet acting CEO Reshaad Sha in an interview with TechCentral on Monday.

Sha said the network will be complementary to the planned “narrowband IoT” networks announced last week by mobile operators MTN and Vodacom. The two companies said they’d deploy these networks commercially in 2017.

South Africa will become the 26th country to deploy Sigfox’s network. The company wants to reach 60 countries by 2018.

The network will use unlicensed radio frequency spectrum.

“The deal is a strategic move to expand into a market that is still largely untapped, but presents tremendous opportunity, both for business and society,” DFA said in a statement. It said Sigfox operates “by far” the world’s largest IoT network.

The roll-out of the Sigfox network in South Africa will initially be in the key metros, starting with Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban, with full national coverage to be completed by 2018.

SqwidNet will target applications across all vertical markets, with a focus on asset tracking, predicative maintenance, logistics and security, DFA said. As with DFA’s fibre-optic network, SqwidNet will operate on an open-access basis, working with channel partners to take solutions to the market, it said.

Sigfox said it builds wireless networks to connect low-energy objects such as electricity meters, smartwatches and washing machines, which need to be continuously on and emitting small amounts of data.

Sigfox was founded in 2009 by Ludovic Le Moan and Christophe Fourtet. The French company said its solutions make it possible for devices to send and receive data over the Internet without the need to manage complex connections or Sim cards.

Its network and devices “simply listen in and capture specifically formatted radio messages from around the globe, needing something as simple as a silicon chip that you find in a remote control”.

“Sigfox solutions enable devices to consume so little energy that soon batteries will become redundant and energy-harvesting solutions will power data transmission.”