Telecommunications company Vox (formerly Vox Telecom) said on Wednesday that it has partnered with Dark Fibre Africa’s SqwidNet, which provides an Internet-of-things (IoT) network, to offer consumers and businesses connectivity, data analytics and reporting for IoT applications.
Vox’s integration and consultancy subsidiary, Braintree, will be used to provide customers with analytics, reporting and dashboards to monitor and manage their IoT networks.
SqwidNet is building an IoT network using technology developed by partner Sigfox. It plans to have nationwide IoT network coverage by 2018, allowing for millions of sensors and devices to transmit data to a centralised location for analysis, action and record keeping.
Individual consumers will be able to purchase compliant devices and register them via Vox in order to get notifications, while business customers can get custom-built solutions with specialised notifications, reporting, dashboards, workflows and other more advanced features, said Vox CEO Jacques du Toit in a statement.
Research by Africa Analysis shows that the IoT market is a growing segment in the local ICT industry, with the market valued at US$485m, accounting for approximately 25% of total revenue in Africa, Vox said.
One of the main contributors to this growth being a significant decline in the prices of the chips that power these IoT devices, with prices having fallen from over $9 in 2016 to an expected price of $0.20 by 2018, the company said.
The company said it is in discussions with a variety of industry players over enterprise IoT applications, with one example being a smart geyser application for the insurance industry that enables remote monitoring and preventative maintenance.
“IoT is going to provide a huge area for growth in South Africa, especially in the area of integration. The network and devices are going to accrue for a small percentage of revenue generated from IoT; the value is in the integration and the analytics that we get out of all the data being collected,” said Du Toit. — (c) 2017 NewsCentral Media
